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If only pictures like the one below showing the average women were the norm, we would have far less body issues as we see today

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Look no further than this cream which states to make you look younger in just 7 days. As modeled by a young women.

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This poster by Max Factor elude that if women wear their products they will be "perfect".

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Women are surrounded by images of women they strive to be like. What they dont see is the make up work and photo shopping that goes in behind the scenes. This short film is just a glimpse of behind the scenes.

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Richardson, Niall; Locks, Adamm 2014, Body Studies: The Basics, Taylor and Francis, Florence

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This short film shows the shocking effects that the media has on women. The statistics will shock you.

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If we didn't already put enough pressure on ourselves for the way we look no doubt your health care provider has measured your BMI and added to this pressure?

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An advert for lipstick leaving women wanting bigger lips believing this is what is beautiful, after all this is what the media tells us.

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Celebrities are driving the sales with "shapewear". Used to control and smooth those flabby areas and baby bumps we are always told are so unflattering..

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Building on a combination of celebrity buzz and media glitz, shapewear is seeing a renaissance after four decades of flat sales.

Annual retail sales of shapewear - undergarments that control and smooth figure problems - grew 10.6 percent to $848.3 million from March 2009 to February 2010, and unit sales increased 3.8 percent during that period, according to The NPD Group research consultancy. A leading area of growth was plus sizes of XL to XXXL or larger, with sales gains of 14.8 percent last year.

This story first appeared in the April 19, 2010 issue of WWD. Subscribe Today.

The reinvention of the category began on the red carpet when celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba, Oprah Winfrey and Queen Latifah started talking about wearing Spanx shapers - manufactured with advanced fabric technology - under their evening gowns. It picked up steam last year when Lady Gaga, who often wears underpinnings as apparel, along with Rihanna and Beyoncé helped ignite demand when they were seen in provocative corsetry and other lingerie looks at the Grammys and the American Music Awards, as well as in magazines.

The trend also has been propelled by shapewear and corsetry featured in popular TV shows like AMC's "Mad Men," HBO's "Diary of a Call Girl" and "The Tudors," and ABC's "Desperate Housewives."

Shapewear started declining when the miniskirt became popular in 1965, and the introduction of seamless pantyhose made obsolete the need for multiple layers of intimate apparel such as control briefs with garters. Women are now building shapewear wardrobes of basic and specialty pieces like control camis, waist cinchers and all-in-one body shapers, much in the same manner as they've made bras, tank tops and undies wardrobe staples.

Key brands include Spanx, Jockey, Wacoal, Olga, Flexees, Rago, Va Bien, QT, Body Wrap, Sassybax, Annette, Leonisa, Sculptz, Slimpressions, Go Slim by Cynthia Rowley and ShaToBu, a brand that claims to tone muscles as it supports problem areas such as the thighs and tummy.

The profile of vintage girdles and the tiny waists they create should ramp up in 2011. For example, retro girdles will be a costuming focus of the HBO miniseries 'Mildred Pierce," starring Kate Winslet and based on the 1945 movie for which Joan Crawford won an Oscar, said Ann Roth, who is designing the costumes.

Roth, herself an Academy Award winner for "The English Patient" in 1996, said, "I have every single woman in a girdle, a straight-across girdle. I always do that so they sit properly."

Robert Thompson, professor of television and pop culture at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, said, "Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Beyoncé are huge in this [lingerie-shapewear] equation."

"There has to be something of a fashion authority, something that shows people looking good in what they're wearing, whether it's prime time TV, a fashion show in Paris or an ad in Vogue," Thompson said. "If it goes to the extreme item such as Lady Gaga or Rihanna wearing foundations, you will see a huge interest all of a sudden in something like a corset. That's when it gets to be a smoking gun....As brilliant as 'Mad Men' is about Americans in the early Sixties - the show makes old Fifties girdles look so fabulous under clothing - it's more brilliant as an ad for undergarments."

Guido Campello, vice president of marketing and innovation for Cosabella, an Italian-made intimates brand sold worldwide, said the company began receiving a stream of e-mails from retailers requesting shapewear immediately after the Grammys and the American Music Awards.

"We didn't expect we had a market for shapewear, especially in Italy," he said. "But it's because of the entertainment artists, such as Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and even Eva Longoria in 'Desperate Housewives,' which has taken over 'Sex and the City' worldwide."

"Italians love to wear everything American, and after the Grammys and AMA aired, we received tons of e-mails from retailers," Campello recalled. "A lot of e-mails said, 'I remember you do shapewear. I would like to see it after seeing all of those [lingerie-shapewear] looks at the Grammys and the AMA."

Cosabella, which holds the lingerie license for "Sex and the City," introduced a line of Smooth by Cosabella shapers in spring 2009.

Maureen Stabnau, senior vice president of merchandising at barenecessities.com, an e-commerce site specializing in intimates, said shapewear is becoming an everyday item because of the celebrity factor.

"We started seeing this happening about two years ago with red carpet-ready celebrities saying, 'I've got my Spanx on.' It also became a secret weapon for celebrity stylists, and shapewear came out of the closet," she said. "Our shapewear business is doing very well, and our plus-size shapewear business is ahead by 25 to 30 percent over the past year. It's not necessarily about being smaller; it's about making you look smooth."

At Wacoal America, shapewear sales are running 40 percent higher than last year, said Bob Vitale, executive vice president of marketing and sales.

"We are having a lot of requests from department stores and smaller specialty stores for shapewear that goes up to XXL. The category in larger sizes has really gained momentum because shapewear has become such a hot button," he said, adding shapewear "is our biggest area of growth for the next three years in our plans."

Innovation and technology have also affected the resurgence. Heat-sealed applications and laser-cut treatments as well as lightweight microfiber blends with Lycra spandex, Modal, Meryl and organic blends such as bamboo with cotton have modernized the shapewear business.

"Lycra spandex, microfibers, and antibacterial and moisture-repellent applications have been very important," said Juan Duque, president of the North American division of Leonisa, which is based in Colombia. 'We have seen 50 percent growth over the past year in the U.S. market, and we believe the potential for shapewear is still not tapped."

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Building on a combination of celebrity buzz and media glitz, shapewear is seeing a renaissance after four decades of flat sales. Annual retail sales of shapewear - undergarments that control and smooth figure problems - grew 10.6 percent to $848.3 million from March 2009 to February 2010, and unit sales increased 3.8 percent during that period, according to The NPD Group research consultancy.

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A popular beauty magazine that promotes various avenues to improve a women's beauty.

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Women are now risking their lives in the hopes of looking younger... have we gone to far?

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It's been championed by various celebrities including Poppy Delevingne

But is it as beneficial as it's promoted to be? And are there any scientific results to show these benefits?

Loren Oberg relies on the injections to keep her going in her busy life as a working mother-of-two

Lorena Oberg lies down on the clinical white bed and clenches her fist in preparation for the needle and cannula being inserted into a vein in her arm.

While it might appear that the 47-year-old is receiving urgent medical treatment she is, in fact, paying hundreds of pounds for the privilege of having a cocktail of vitamins and minerals pumped directly into her bloodstream via a drip.

Lorena insists that it is worth every penny, and that the discomfort of being fed through an intravenous drip for up to four hours is just the price you pay for looking ten years younger and buzzing with the energy of a 20-year-old.

Vitamin drips have been dubbed 'party drips' because of their popularity as a hangover cure among celebrities. Underwear model Poppy Delevingne was the latest to post a picture of herself on Twitter hooked-up to one a few weeks ago. Her sister, Cara, did the exact same thing a year earlier.

Yet Lorena is no A-list model. She's a working mother-of-two who sees her £500-a-month drip 'habit' as money well spent as an antidote to her busy life.

And there seems to be a growing set of women who, like her, are willing to pay hundreds at a time for a 'mother's little helper' - a combination of vitamins and minerals that could include anything from vitamin C to the minerals magnesium and potassium and glutathione, an antioxidant.

Additionally, there is a new supplement that many women - like Lorena - add to the cocktail. It's called NAD+, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, and is a co-enzyme responsible for repairing cells. However, as we age our NAD+ levels fall, and a diet low in nutrients and high in alcohol can deplete us yet further.

'I had my children quite late in life in my mid-30s and am also very busy running two beauty clinics, so I worried that they were missing out on having a mum with enough energy to do the things they love,' says Lorena, from Caterham, Surrey.

'Since I started having drips a year ago I'm like a different woman. I can go to bed at 1am and still be up early and fresh for work. What's more, I still have energy at weekends to go roller-skating and dry-slope skiing with my children.'

Yet doctors are dubious about the benefits of taking extra nutrients this way, and say it could actually do you harm.

Dr Adam Cunliffe, principal lecturer in nutrition at London's South Bank University, says there is no solid proof that vitamin infusions have any real health benefits.

Likewise, there is not enough clinical evidence to prove the benefits of NAD+ injections.

'The benefits for people who are ostensibly well, who just want to gain some kind of advantage in how they feel or to recover from a misspent weekend, are not clear,' he says. 'I can't look up research papers to see how beneficial this is, because it's largely anecdotal.

'Celebrity endorsement makes lots of people want to try it. If somebody is deficient in a nutrient, the drip will help them return to normal levels. The problem is that most people who go for these things are not tested to see if they are low in anything.'

This concern is shared by Dr Sarah Tonks, who runs the Omniya Clinic in Knightsbridge, London. She says blood tests for deficiencies ramp up the cost of treatment and - unlike her clinic - not all practitioners insist on them.

'It's pointless giving people vitamins they may not need,' she says. 'But worse than that, it could be dangerous because too much magnesium or potassium could, in people with a pre-existing weakness, cause a heart attack.'

Incorrect dosing could also harm the kidneys and liver if they are unable to process the excess minerals. Very high sodium levels can even cause seizures and coma and in rare cases the drips could trigger a fatal allergic reaction.

However, Dr Tonks says, many people with a range of conditions - including asthma, auto-immune diseases and chronic fatigue syndrome - do report improvements.

'A friend of mine who is a professor of neurology in the States prescribes IV magnesium for people with migraines as many sufferers are deficient in this,' says Dr Tonks.

John Gillen, director of the Bionad clinic in London, introduced NAD+ drips to the UK two years ago and has seen their popularity rocket.

As well as the scores of clients who come to the clinic, a nurse also does around ten visits each week to 'high-end celebrities and VIPs' who prefer to be treated in the comfort of their own home.

Due to demand, Bionad is extending its London clinic and plans to open a second in Saudi Arabia this year. So why do so many consider this extreme technique a better way to get their nutrients than through food or vitamin pills?

The answer is that it's administered in larger amounts and fed directly into the blood stream.

According to John, the bulk of his clients are middle-aged, middle-class career women, desperate for an boost to cope with their busy lives.

'This is the same social group that is also seeing an increase in alcoholism,' says John. 'And what some of these women have discovered is that NAD+ is the first thing to be depleted when the body is trying to detoxify itself of alcohol. By replenishing it you can stem the damage to cells, as well as minimising the symptoms of a hangover.

'We also have party people who come to us every Monday morning after drinking from Thursday night to the early hours of Monday morning. We of course counsel them that this is not good practice and over time they report that they are drinking less.'

Karen Lovell, 56, paid an extra £1,200 for a full blood test before beginning her vitamin therapy at the Omniya Clinic - and discovered she had B12 deficiency, anaemia and was low in vitamin D.

Karen, a divorced mother of two grown-up sons, with a demanding career as a business development manager and a commute into London from Buckinghamshire, says life had been overwhelming her.

'I leave home at 6.30am and am rarely back before 7.30pm,' she says. 'I live the life of someone 20 years younger than me and it was really taking its toll. I'd crawl into bed exhausted every night.'

She made numerous visits to her GP complaining of a lack of energy and an inability to sleep, and at one point even thought she was depressed.

'Until last summer I had no energy, I couldn't drag myself to the gym nor could I face meeting friends for dinner,' says Karen. 'I'd also put on more than a stone.

'But since I've been having drips every two months, I've got bags of energy.

'The drips have given me my life back and although, at £500 a session it's expensive, I earn the money so I deserve to spend it on making myself feel better.'

Robyn Puglia is another convert. She is convinced that vitamin drips helped her overcome a severe episode of coeliac disease - an auto-immune condition that flared up after she was given pasta containing gluten.

Robyn, 34, a nutritionist who lives in London with her physicist husband Stephen, felt ill for three months - exhausted and with inflamed skin - until she booked into IV Boost UK in London.

She now visits the clinic twice a month - forking out £150 a time.

'I remembered hearing about vitamin drips in the States studying and, when my symptoms persisted, I decided it was worth a go,' says Robyn. 'I felt better after the first treatment.

'I have a good diet but I lead a busy life, so fortnightly visits to the clinic give me an extra boost.

'Why stop something that's obviously helping me?' she adds.

However, Dr Joshua Berkowitz, a specialist at IV Boost UK, says the real question to ask is whether the benefits to vitamin drips are, in fact, all in the mind.

'Is there any hard science that can prove it works? Not that I have read,' he says. 'People may say the improvements in health could be psychosomatic, and I would accept that's true.

'But perhaps there's an element of that with everything in the medical world, other than surgery. What I do know is that patients report enough of an improvement to keep coming back.'

And his and other clinics are, of course, relying on those who spend thousands of pounds on the treatment - among them Lorena, Karen and Robyn - keeping the faith.

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Women who risk their lives injecting vitamins to stay looking young

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It's been championed by various celebrities including Poppy Delevingne But is it as beneficial as it's promoted to be? And are there any scientific results to show these benefits?

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Every women strives for the perfect body image

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Every women strives for the perfect body image

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From exfoliating, to brushing our teeth using the latest teeth whitening toothpaste, to face masks to shaving to moisturizing and the list goes on. The beauty industry is a multibillion dollar industry praying on women to wanting to achieve the perfect body according to society.

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While inner beauty is extremely important, finding it requires feeling comfortable and not in what other people want you to be, but in your own skin. Being happy with the way you look on the outside will in turn make you feel more radiant...

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Ancient Greek sculptor Polyclitus was the first artist to devise a mathematical formula to describe the ideal proportions for the perfect female body (Richardson, Niall, Locks & Adam, 2014

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It is no wonder women feel that to be beautiful they need to meets societies expectations of what this means. Whether it be through cosmetics, anti aging potions, slim wear, fad diets or cosmetic surgery women are constantly conforming to what is portrayed to be the perfect body. We are bombarded everywhere we turn from tv ads , magazines, billboards and various other sources as to what is available to make us more beautiful (Richardson & Locks, 2014)

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Marketing agencies are employed by companies to present their products by models who do not portray your "average" women. These campaigns often leave women feeling inadequate, anxious and depressed.

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The media and body image are closely related. The possible effects of false body image advertising include inadequacy, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, etc. What can be done to help.

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Its no longer just tv, magazines or billboards blasting us with how we should look as a person, we now have social media. From selfies, to memes to ads we are only one click away from judging ourselves and striving to reach the desired often unachievable "perfect body"

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Magazines and television are often blamed for portraying an ideal body image that causes people to question their looks and lose confidence in themselves. But what about the role social media plays in moulding attitudes to the way we look?

Kelsey Hibberd, from Southend, remembers her years at secondary school as being miserable. She intentionally kept her Facebook friends to a minimum because she knew they were the ones who wouldn't pick on her.

It was all about my body and how I looked
Kelsey Hibberd

"I'd always been tall, and I was a bit podgy too," she says.

"No-one seemed to notice at primary school, but then in Year 7 everyone started pointing at me, noticing things, making me think I was ugly and not special."

She became increasingly conscious of even tiny things such as the shape of her eyebrows and size of her forehead.

"I would have been subject to much more abuse if I'd had more friends on social media," she says.

Kelsey describes the bullying she experienced between the ages of 11 and 16 as "absolutely awful".

"It was all about my body and how I looked," she says.

She changed her hair colour and stopped eating to try to fit in before she realised that "it was for other people to stop hating on me".

Now, at 20, Kelsey is running a mentoring programme called Loud Education, which goes into schools to talk to pupils and train teachers on how to deal with body confidence issues. It also provides advice on any lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues pupils might have.

As a result, she is well aware of the power of social media. Teenagers can have thousands of "friends" online and that can leave them exposed, she says.

"You put forward your best self, and that can be a bit dangerous, because you naturally compare yourself to others," she says.

Among teenagers, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a number of other messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, are their main means of communicating with each other and the world.

In 2013, two-thirds of teenagers had signed up to the Facebook app, where images are posted and shared millions of times a day.

Social media networks are the primary way young people communicate and their main channel to the outside world
Caroline Nokes MP

Never have they known so much about their friends' lives and the way they look.

In 2012, MPs recommended that all schoolchildren should take part in compulsory body image and self-esteem lessons.

An inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Body Image heard evidence that girls as young as five were worrying about their size and their appearance.

Adults were not immune from these negative attitudes either, with about 60% of the public feeling ashamed of the way they looked.

The MPs' report said pressure to look good had pushed up cosmetic surgery rates by nearly 20% since 2008.

MP Caroline Nokes was a member of the parliamentary group which, along with a number of charities, businesses and public bodies, is launching a campaign to change attitudes to body image, called Be Real: Body Confidence for Everyone.

She has visited schools and talked to 12- and 13-year-olds about how easily images in the media can be altered, enhanced and improved to create something far from realistic.

They understand, she says, because they go through the same process when they post images on social media sites.

"I ask them to shut their eyes and put their hand up if they have ever enhanced an image on Facebook," Ms Nokes says.

The more time spent on Facebook, the more likely people are to self-objectify
Dr Phillippa Diedrichs, University of West of England's Centre for Appearance Research

They usually all put up their hands. she says. One girl said every image she uploaded had been altered.

Most cameras in smart phones have built-in filters and a range of effects that can be used to enhance even the most embarrassing selfies.

Social media has a huge effect on young people's body confidence, she explains, because it cannot be ignored.

"They can make decisions not to look at magazines and TV, but social media networks are the primary way they communicate and their main channel to the outside world," she says.

"But they are seeing the world through a filter, and that's not healthy."

She wants to make teenagers feel better about themselves by making them wary of an appearance-based world.

"It's really important we try to instil confidence that they can be who they are," she says.

Her aim is to educate young people, to make them more cynical about the images they see and admire, and to work with retailers and businesses to encourage them to be more responsible in their advertising.

Dr Phillippa Diedrichs, senior research fellow at the University of West of England's Centre for Appearance Research, says research backs up the link between social media and body image concerns.

"The more time spent on Facebook, the more likely people are to self-objectify themselves," she says.

She explains there is a tendency to seek out negative social interactions in these forums, and to ask people to comment on how you look, which can lead to body image anxieties.

People using social media sites also tend to cultivate a persona, and even friends and a peer group, she adds.

In her view, the answer to body anxiety is to showcase a more diverse range of bodies in the media because there is not just one way to be healthy or one ideal look.

Kelsey agrees. She rebuilt her confidence by volunteering with the YMCA when she 15. When she went to college, she started to rediscover who she was and feel comfortable about her body again.

Now she has plans to go into advertising.

"I want to get in there and change the norm, change perceptions for the better. People are drip fed so why not drip feed them with positive things," she says.

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Magazines and television are often blamed for portraying an ideal body image that causes people to question their looks and lose confidence in themselves. But what about the role social media plays in moulding attitudes to the way we look? Kelsey Hibberd, from Southend, remembers her years at secondary school as being miserable.

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Advertising- Perception- A Dangerous Reality

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Advertising- Perception- A Dangerous Reality

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It is reported that 10million US women suffer from eating disorders. These results are said to be exemplified from unrealistic expectations portrayed in advertising.

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The women in this article has a BMI of 26 (meaning she is bordering on overweight). What message are we sending to other women?

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Do you think this woman is overweight? That's the question we took to the streets to answer. Carrying a large poster of our model, Melanie, we asked people for their opinion - and the verdicts surprised us.

There's no denying it: Australians are getting bigger with every passing year.

In 1995, the average Australian woman weighed 67 kilograms, and latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show she is now tipping the scales at 70.1 kilos. The average Australian man is larger too - he now weighs 85.2 kilos, compared with 82 kilos in 1995.

Our model, Melanie, 33, represents the average Australian woman in height and weight. If this is what the average woman looks like, what does this mean for the future in terms of our health?

An upward trend

"Her BMI is around 26, so she's borderline overweight," says Kristen Hazelwood, head of education and prevention at the Australian Diabetes Council. A BMI of between 25 and 29.9 indicates you are overweight, and a BMI of over 30 indicates obesity.

The upward trend in our weight is extremely worrying for our health as a nation, Hazelwood adds.

"One and a half million Australians are overweight, so we're getting heavier," she says. "Being overweight contributes to two major health issues - heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Obesity is also linked to cancer, depression and kidney disease."

Weighing it up

BMI does not distinguish between weight due to muscle and weight due to fat, so another way to work out whether you have a problem with your weight is to measure your waist.

"A woman's waist should be 80 centimetres or less, and a man's 94 centimetres or less," Hazelwood says. Excess weight around the abdomen is a risk factor for heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Cause and effect

The obvious reasons for weight gain include too much junk food and a sedentary lifestyle. However, Hazelwood points to another surprising reason: we are unhappy.

"We've forgotten how to enjoy life," she says. "We work too hard, we're eating in front of the TV, and because of our stress levels we tend to go for comfort foods. We're not doing ourselves any favours."

Want to do something about your weight? Hazelwood recommends seeing a GP to ensure there are no other health issues, then starting small. "Don't lose weight too quickly. Aim for five kilos in five months. Even that will reduce a lot of risk factors."

What Melanie says

"I was quite shocked to find out I fitted the description for the average Australian woman. I actually thought it would be taller and larger than I am.

"I go through stages where I exercise and times when I don't, but I do try to walk my dog every day and if I'm being really good I'll exercise on my cross trainer.

I know I should eat more fresh fruit and vegies but I get lazy with cooking and often want something quick and easy like pasta or a bowl of cereal.

"Growing up, I felt around the same size as my peers. I put on extra weight every now and then but it never gets too out of control. I always manage to stay in the same weight range. I've probably put on about five kilos since my 20s, though.

"The risk factors for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease are definitely something to watch out for, especially as it's in my genetic line. That's something to work on."

Do you think this woman is overweight?

Calculate your body mass index (BMI) with our BMI calculator.

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Do you think this woman is overweight? That's the question we took to the streets to answer. Carrying a large poster of our model, Melanie, we asked people for their opinion - and the verdicts surprised us. There's no denying it: Australians are getting bigger with every passing year.

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The dangerous requirements to become a model

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The dangerous requirements to become a model

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Everyday we are blasted with images of models marketing various products, fashion and services. This article shows the expectations required of these models. It's no wonder women are reaching for goals, which are ultimately unachievable resulting in various physical and mental health disorders.

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What the beauty advertising agencies don't tell us. How we as consumers are lured into the beauty industry in the hope of looking younger, more beautiful, skinnier or more curvacious.

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Pants that tighten your tummy, creams that melt cellulite, and injections that take 10 years off your face. These are some of the advertising claims fueling our desires for six-pack abs, firm thighs, and flawless skin.The multi-billion-dollar beauty industry encompasses makeup, skin and hair care, fragrances, cosmetic surgery, health clubs, diet pills, and fashion.