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Questions 46-55 are based on the following passage.
Beauty and Body Image in theMedia
A. Images of female bodies are everywhere. Women—and their bodyparts--sell
everything from food to cars.Popular film and television actressesare becoming
younger, taller and thinner. Some have even been known tofaint onthe set from
lack of food. Women's magazines are full &articles urging thatif they can
just lose thoselast twentypounds, they'll have it all—the perfect marriage,
loving children, great sex,and a rewarding career
B. Why arc standards of beauty being imposed on women, the majorityofwhom
are naturally larger and moremature than any of the models? The roots,some
analysts say, are economic. By presenting an ideal difficult toachieve
andmaintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries arc assured of growth
andprofits. And it's noaccident that youth is increasingly promoted, along
withthinness, as an essential criterion of beauty. If not allwomen need to
loseweight, for sure they're all aging, says the Quebec Action Network for
Women'sHealth inits 2001 report. And, according to the industry, age is a
disasterthat needs to be dealt with.
C. The stakes are huge. On the one hand, women who are insecure about their
bodies arc more likely tobuybeauty products, new clothes, and diet aids. It is
estimated that the dietindustry alone is worth anywherebetween 40 to 100 billion
(U.S.. a year selling temporary weight loss (90% to 95% of dieters regainthe
lostweight.. On the other hand, research indicatesthat exposure to images of
thin, young, air-brushed femalebodies is linked todepression, loss of
self-esteem and the development of unhealthy eating habitsin womenand girls.
D. The American research group Anorexia Nervosa & Related
EatingDisorders, Inc. says that one out of everyfour college-aged women
usesunhealthy methods of weight control--including fasting,
skippingmeals,excessive exercise, laxative (泻药. abuse, andself-induced vomiting.
The pressure to be thin is also affectingyoung girls:the Canadian Women's Health
Network warns that weight control measures are nowbeing takenby girls as young
as 5 and 6. American statistics are similar.Several studies, such as one
conducted by MarikaTiggemann and Levina Clark in2006 titled "Appearance Culture
in 9- to 12-Year-Old Girls: Media andPeerInfluences on Body Dissatisfaction,"
indicate that nearly half of allpreadolescent girls wish to be thinner, andas a
result have engaged in a dietor are aware of the concept of dieting. In 2003,
Teen magazine reported that35percent of girls 6 to 12 years old have been on at
least one diet, and that 50to 70 percent of normal weightgirls believe they are
overweight. Overallresearch indicates that 90% of women are dissatisfied with
theirappearance insome way. Media activist Jean Kilbourne concludes that, "Women
are sold tothe diet industryby the magazines we read and the television programs
we watch,almost all of which make us feel anxiousabout our weight."
E. Perhaps the most disturbing is the fact that media images of
femalebeauty are unattainable for all but a verysmall number of women.
Researchersgenerating a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll
proportions,forexample, found that her back would be too weak to support the
weight of herupper body, and her bodywould be too narrow to contain more than
halfa liverand a few centimeters of bowel. A real woman built thatway would
suffer fromchronic diarrhea ( 慢性腹泻. and eventually die frommalnutrition. Jill
Barad,President of Mattel (which manufactures Barbie., estimated that 99% of
girls aged 3 to 10 years old own atleast oneBarbie doll. Still, the number of
real life women and girls who seek asimilarly underweight body isepidemic, and
they can suffer equally devastatinghealth consequences. In 2006 it was estimated
that up to450,000 Canadian womenwere affected by an eating disorder.
F. Researchers report thatwomen's magazines have ten and one-half times
more ads and articlespromotingweight loss than men's magazines do, and over
three-quarters of thecovers of women's magazines include atleast one message
about how to change awoman's bodily appearance--by diet, exercise or cosmetic
surgery.Television andmovies reinforce the importance of a thin body as a
measure of a woman's worth.Canadianresearcher Gregory Fouts reports that over
three-quarters of the femalecharacters in TV situation comedies areunderweight,
and only one in twenty areabove average in size. Heavier actresses tend to
receive negativecomments frommale characters about their bodies ("How about
wearing a sack?" ., and 80 percent of thesenegative comments are followed by
cannedaudience laughter.
G. There have been efforts in the magazine industry to buck (抵制，反抗. the
trend. For several years the Quebecmagazine Coup de Pouce hasconsistently
included full-sized women in their fashion pages and Chatelainehaspledged not to
touch up photos and not to include models less than 25 yearsof age. In Madrid,
one of theworld's biggest fashion capitals, ultra-thinmodels were banned from
the runway in 2006. Furthermore Spainhas recentlyundergone a project with the
aim to standardize clothing sizes through using aunique process inwhich a laser
beam is used to measure real life women's bodiesin order to find the most tree
to lifemeasurement.
H. Another issue is the representation of ethnically diverse women inthe
media. A 2008 study conducted byJuanita Covert and Travis Dixon titled"A
Changing View: Representation and Effects of the Portrayal ofWomen ofColor in
Mainstream Women's Magazines" found that although there was anincrease in
therepresentation of women of c01our, overall white women wereoverrepresented in
mainstream women'smagazines from 1999 to 2004.
I. The barrage of messagesabout thinness, dieting and beauty tells
"ordinary" women that theyare always inneed of adjustment--and that the female
body is an object to beperfected. Jean Kilboume argues that theoverwhelming
presence of media imagesof painfully thin women means that real women's bodies
have become invisible in the mass media。 The real tragedy, Kilbourne concludes,
is that many womeninternalizethese stereotypes, and judge themselves by the
beauty industry'sstandards. Women learn to comparethemselves to other women, and
to compete withthem for male attention: This focus on beauty and
desirability"effectivelydestroys any awareness and action that might help to
change that climate."
根据以上内容，回答46-56题.
46、A report in Teen magazineshowed that 50% to 70% girls with normal weight
think that they need to lose weight.
47、On the whole, for 6 yearswhite women had been occupying much more space
in mainstream women's magazines since 1999.
48、Some negative effects suchas depression and unhealthy eating habits in
females are related to their being exposed to images of thin and young
femalebodies.
49、The mass media has helpedboost the cosmetic and the diet industries.
50、It is reported that thereis at least one message about the methods for
women to change their bodilyappearance on more than three-quarters of the
coversof women's magazines.
51、Some film and televisionactresses even faint on the scene due to eating
too little.
52、Too much concern withappearance makes it impossible to change such
abnormal trend.
53、Researchers found that areal woman with Barbie-doll proportions would
eventually die from malnutrition.
54、The Quebec magazine Coup dePouce resists the trend by consistently
including full-sized women in their fashion pages for several years.
55、According to some analysts,the fundamental reason of imposing standards
of beauty on women is economic
答案解析：
46-55 DHCBF AIEBG |
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发表于 2016-12-4 13:33:23