Interesting
• The average American woman is 5'4" tall and weighs 140 pounds.
• The average American model is 5'11" tall and weighs 117 pounds.
• Most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women.
• 42% of elementary school students between the 1st and 3rd grades want to be thinner.
• 80% of children who are ten years old are afraid of being fat.
• 45% of women are on a diet on any given day.
• 80% of women are dissatisfied with their appearance.
• 51% of 9 and 10 year old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet.
• 35% of "normal dieters" progress to pathological dieting and/or eating disorders.
• 91% of women surveyed on a college campus have dieted.
• Americans spend over $40 billion on dieting and diet-related products each year.
• The diet industry takes in over $40 billion each year, and is still growing.
• Studies show that plastic surgeries amongst teens increased by 50% from 1996-1998.
• Girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer or losing parents.
• 60% of American women are actually a size 12 or larger.
• If shop mannequins were real women, they'd be too thin to menstruate.
• Marilyn Monroe wore a size 14.
• If Barbie were a real woman, she'd have to walk on all fours due to her proportions.
• More than 50% of women overestimate the size of their bodies, according to a 1986 study.
• Research in Canada and the UK suggests that the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to dislike your body. Experts think there’s more pressure on the wealthy to achieve the thin 'ideal' because they have the money to do so and because they're more exposed to media imagery. Europe has much higher levels of body image dissatisfaction than less developed countries.