The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between media exposure and body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. Unlike many other studies, this study separated the effects of television and fashion magazines instead of grouping all forms of media as one. The second goal of this study was to test the role of internalization on body dissatisfaction and the roles of self-esteem and weight. It was believed "that self-esteem would moderate the degree of internalization of thin ideals." This means that the researcher believed that women with low self-esteem would be most affected by media exposure. These researchers also proposed that actual weight would "interact with an internalized ideal to produce dissatisfaction." This was the belief that overweight women would be most dissatisfied because they have most strongly internalized the thin ideal standard.
             The participants were 104 female undergraduate students at the Flinders University of South Australia. Their mean age was 10.7 years (range= 17-26 years).
             Media Exposure, Television, and Other
             The first item measured was the number of different magazines read by the women and the amount of time spent reading fashion magazines. This information was gained by asking the women to indicate, for seventeen common women's fashion magazines, if they had bought or read someone else's copy in the last four weeks. The women were also asked to report how long they spent reading each of those magazines. The second item measured pertained to television watching. The participants were given a television guide from the previous week and asked to circle which shows they had watched. After determining the type of programs watched the researcher then calculated the total hours spent watching television and the hours spent watching soap operas and music videos. These two genres of programming were of most interest to the researchers because they
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