Национальный психологический журнал (Jun 2024)

Media Consumption as a Factor in Young Women Turning to Clinics of Aesthetic Medicine

  • Sergey E. Martynov ,
  • Galina A. Arina

DOI
https://doi.org/10.11621/npj.2024.0207
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 54, no. 2
pp. 81 – 98

Abstract

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Background. The media environment offers not only reference images of the quality of life, but also numerous ways to achieve them. Currently, the media space is considered as a significant factor in psychological health and well-being, with body image being subject to the maximum degree of “pressure” from media ideals of appearance. This creates conditions for certain behaviour patterns of self-transformation, including the help of modern methods of aesthetic medicine. Objectives. The aim is to study the influence of the stereotype of ideal appearance, broadcast by the media, on the desire and readiness to change one’s appearance in an aesthetic medicine clinic. Methods. Methods specially developed for this study were used: “Media preferences and attitudes towards appearance” and “Choice of aesthetic medicine procedures”. Study Participants. The main group consisted of 144 women (M = 22.5; SD = 4.4, from 18 to 30 years old) who sought medical help at the Institute of Plastic Surgery and Cosmetology; control group involved 164 women (M = 21.15; SD = 3.8, from 18 to 30 years old) who did not contact the medical network with complaints about dissatisfaction with their own appearance. Results. Patients of the aesthetic medicine clinic are characterized by regular consumption of media on fashion and beauty topics, and are also prone to comparison and imitation of media ideals of appearance. Girls who spend a lot of time watching media on fashion and beauty want to devote even more time to this and note that the media influences the intensification of their needs related to changing their appearance. Conclusions. Macrosocial pressure to develop an “ideal self” evokes young women to compare themselves to and imitate ideals of appearance, which increases the desire to change their appearance. women focused on long-term consumption of media stereotypes of ideal appearance show willingness to use more and a wider range of medical interventions to correct their appearance, despite their risks and severity.

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