The media representation of the perfect female body image is appalling. This is the main cause of many teenage girls' dissatisfaction with their bodies. From a young age, girls are introduced to perfect body ideals; From the advent of Barbie dolls to the launch of a wide variety of Disney Princess films, they are exposed to an unrealistic representation of the perfect female body. Young girls are very impressionable and therefore are more susceptible to the idealistic image of a size zero waistline. The means by which these young girls attempt to achieve glorious size zero can lead them into dangerous lifestyles. The media should present realistic body images of women, because the images they broadcast cause physical and psychological harm to adolescent girls. The media's ideal female body image has changed over time. Beginning in the 1900s, the socially accepted female body shifted from voluptuous figures to that of their slender counterparts. In an article titled “Curves! Curves! Curves! the author mentions that the variety of ways the media has altered a woman's ideal figure can be illustrated through the films of past periods. "The look of the late 1920s was called 'the new slender look' and...was quite different from that of twenty years earlier in that attention was shifted away from curves (bust and hips) and towards a more attenuated. The look was flat chested with narrow hips and waist. The author also states that the ideal female figure changed again in the 1940s with a shift from a slender, flat-chested look to a more curvaceous look. “This new image was very pronounced: a higher chest, a defined waist and rounded hips. » With the media constantly evolving, earlier...... middle of paper ...... the degree of access their young people have to the media; including limiting their contact with social media, television and magazines featuring women with two-digit zero heights. Also stated in the article, Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders, "Adults must take responsibility for teaching children healthy habits, and one of the best ways to do that is to give example of healthy eating and exercise. » Works cited Derenne, Jennifer L., and Eugène V. Beresin. “Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders.” Academic Psychiatry 30.3 (2006): 257-61. ProQuest. Internet. November 26, 2013. Brown, Amy and Helga Dittmar. "Think 'thin' and feel bad: The role of appearance schema activation, attention level, and internalization of the thin ideal for young women's responses to ultra-thin media ideals ." Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 24.8 (2005): 1088-113. ProQuest. Internet. November 26. 2013.