No longer just a pretty face: Fashion magazines' depictions of ideal female beauty from 1959 to 1999

Abstract Objective The print media's depiction of the ideal of feminine beauty as presented to American women was examined for the years 1959–1999. Method Trends were investigated through an analysis of cover models appearing on the four most popular American fashion magazines. Results Body size for fashion models decreased significantly during the 1980s and 1990s. There was also a dramatic increase in the frequency with which the media depicted the entire bodies of the models from the 1960s to the 1990s. Discussion Both the increasingly thin images and the striking increase in full‐body portrayals suggest an increase in the value placed by American society on a thin ideal for women, a change that is concurrent with the increase in disturbed eating patterns among American women. © 2004 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 36: 342–347, 2004.