Body Image Timeline

By rwalte8

  • Corsets

    During the Victoria Era, a full-figured look with a tiny waist is fashionable for women. To achieve this look, women wore whalebone and steel corsets, which caused a variety of health problems, including di

  • Gibson Girl

    Graphic artist Charles Dana Gibson's creation of the athletic Gibson girl replaces the full-figured beauty standard of previous generations with a slimmer, feminine ideal.
    The first surgical breast augmentation procedure is performed with a paraffin injection. This procedure falls into disfavor by the 1920s because of the likelihood of infections and lump formations.

  • Flapper Girl

    The flapper craze during the 1920s encourages many women to reduce so they can have figures like actresses on the movie screen.

  • Barbie

    Mattel Toys releases Barbie, a doll with unrealistic body proportions.

  • Twiggy

    English model, actress and singer Twiggy (Lesley Hornby) arrives in the U.S. Her short-haired, super-thin, androgynous look profoundly alters the fashion industry and popularizes a new feminine ideal based on extreme thinness. Her "thin is in" boy-like figure inspires dieting in the 1960s.

  • Adolesant Health

    A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health strengthens the link between eating disorders and the media by demonstrating that women's magazines from 1970-1990 had 10.5 times more advertisements and articles promoting weight loss than men's magazines.

  • Body Project

    The Body Project , an eating disorders study funded by the National Institutes of Health, begins. This study involves teaching adolescent girls and young women ways to improve their body image. Part of the intervention involves having the girls and young women participate in exercises that critique the thin ideal. They also engage in acts of body activism, such as by slipping positive body image notes into dieting books at bookstores.

  • Breast Augmentation

    The number of breast augmentation surgeries among teen girls age 18 and under triple from the previous year. It is not until December of 2004 that the ASPS takes an official stance denouncing the procedure for girls under 18-years-old.

  • Body Dissastisfaction

    A study published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology clarifies the link between body dissatisfaction (unhappiness about overall body shape or specific body parts) and eating disorders. The study's author, Tracy Tylka, identifies how additional factors, like "body surveillance" behaviors, neuroticism and relationships with others afflicted with eating disorders, contribute to body dissatisfaction and the development of eating disorders.

  • Miss Plastic Surgery Beauty Contest

    The first-ever "Miss Plastic Surgery Beauty Contest" takes place in Beijing, China, with one 18-year-old contestant who had undergone 11 plastic surgeries that year alone.

  • Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine

    In the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, findings of a study based on a nationally representative 2001 survey involving 13,601 students in ninth through 12th grade reveal that suicidal impulses and attempts are much more common in adolescents who think they are too fat or too thin, regardless of their actual weight.

  • Ban on Digital Enhancements

    The Academy for Eating Disorders suggests guidelines for the fashion industry, including a ban on digital enhancements to make models look slimmer, a minimum age requirement of 16 years old and minimum body mass index standards for models.

  • Women and Negativity

    According to a survey, women say an average of 13 negative things about themselves each day.

  • National Eating Disorders Association

    The National Eating Disorders Association reports "a full 50 percent of children from 8 to 10 years old report being 'unhappy' with their bodies."

  • Television Beauty Shows

    College students who watch reality television beauty shows are "at least twice as likely as non-viewers to use tanning lamps."

  • Eating Disorders

    Eating disorders increase worldwide, especially anorexia among young girls.

  • Appreciation of Natural Beauty

    New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveils a public health campaign "that tells girls that they are beautiful the way they are."

  • Brady Thayer

    Brady Thayer likes glasses and ponytails and that makes girls feel good about themselves. This is a break-through for the world's unattainable expectations of women. Go Brady