Keywords:

The research aims to learn what steps researchers have taken to address the negative body image that beauty advertising has caused in women. In regard to this topic, the two keywords are

Beauty Advertising

Body Image

Advertisements frequently feature impossibly perfect proportions, a fair complexion, and lush hair to convey a narrow ideal of beauty (Albertson, Neff and Dill-Shackleford, 2015). 

Idealized media depictions, which place a strong focus on appearance and the value of beauty in Western culture, put women under pressure to adopt a similar aesthetic profile and can have severe negative impacts on body image (Levine and Murnen, 2009).

Body image refers to a person's perception of their physical appearance and the resulting thoughts and feelings (Cash, 2004; Tiggemann, 2004).

Writing a systematic literature review on the  chosen topic is required for this research. Thus, the thought process is not restricted to theoretical frameworks.

At this step, emphasis is placed on the rationale behind the systematic review paper. There are two primary streams of thought:

The different strategies that were used to improve body image and

The respective different body image concerns that were targeted in the pretest-posttest experimental design. 

A substantial amount of research has shown that pictures from the media have an impact on female body image perceptions as well as societal standards of the body (Perloff, 2014). 

The images in the advertisements have caused dissatisfaction with body weight and proportions, and appearance concerns, including facial appearance (Burnette, Kwitowski and Mazzeo, 2017).

Main Gap: 

Scholars have suggested that systematic reviews create value for readers in specific ways (Hulland and Houston, 2020; Paul and Criado, 2020), which are now translated according to the chosen topic to answer the question of the main gap. 

Integration and synthesis of current knowledge on the two main streams of thought to give an advanced understanding of which body image improvement strategies were effective on which specific issue.

Identify any existing knowledge deficits and inconsistencies addressed during the research. There may be a lack of knowledge regarding a particular body image concern or a specific age group in the experiment.

The research questions are necessary to guide the discovery. The research questions for the systematic literature review are:

RQ1: What strategies are there for improving the negative body image that beauty advertising has caused? 

RQ2: Which body image concerns were targeted in the pretest-posttest experimental design?

The current answer to my research question suggests that advertisements and the media have the potential to influence society's weight-based attitudes, which is one of the numerous body image-related concerns. Acceptance-promoting advertising campaigns have been used to address this issue, resulting in a potential instrument for reducing weight bias (Selensky and Carels, 2021). 

While some media perpetuate weight stigma and an ideal of thinness, Aerie Real and Dove Real Beauty have attempted to promote body acceptance (Selensky and Carels, 2021).

The study examined the effect of exposure to these campaigns on weight bias, internalized weight bias (IWB), self-esteem, body image, and affect in relation to exposure to a campaign promoting the thin ideal (Victoria’s Secret advertisements) and a documentary on weight stigma (Selensky and Carels, 2021).

Randomization assigned 475 female participants to one of five conditions: Aerie, Dove, Victoria's Secret, HBO documentary or neutral video footage. The participants completed weight bias, IWB, self-esteem and body image measures one week before and immediately after viewing the allocated video clip (Selensky and Carels, 2021).

Results indicated that women who viewed the Dove and Aerie campaigns reported significant increases in self-esteem and positive affect. Moreover, women found the campaigns' messages to be positive, elevating, and empowering (Selensky and Carels, 2021). 

The underlying philosophy is qualitative objectivism. There exists a reality independent of the researcher. In order to comprehend the phenomenon, the researcher must be as objective as possible (Denzin and Lincoln, 2018).

The research findings describe the various strategies used over time, how women felt before and after the experiments, and which strategy is effective in addressing which body image concerns are independent realities.

Research Method:

As the systematic literature review sample contains both qualitative and quantitative data with varying quantities of participants for each study, the qualitative method is essential for analysis. A failure to do so may result in heterogeneity in statistics and an imprecise understanding of the results.

The data collection process makes use of the first stage of the SPAR-4-SLR protocol (Paul et al., 2021).

Protocol preparation is a prerequisite for systematic literature reviews (Paul et al., 2021). SPAR-4-SLR protocol is the shortened form of Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews. It consists of three stages and six sub-stages.

Stage I: Assembling, which involves (1a) identification and (1b) acquisition of literature that has not been synthesized.

The first stage, assembling, entails identifying and acquiring unsynthesised literature for data collection. The identification procedure indicates the domain, research questions, and academic journals. The process of acquisition involves search engines, search periods, and keywords.

Data Analysis Technique:

The SPAR-4-SLR protocol's last stage involves  data analysis.

Stage III: Assessing, which entails (3a) evaluating the literature that has been synthesized and (3b) reporting on it. 

The analysis approach is a framework review based on context, methodologies, and well-known theories. (Paul, Parthasarathy and Gupta, 2017) provided the framework that would be used for the task, referred to as the TCM framework for data analysis, where the letters stand for theory (T), context (C), and methodology (M).

To ensure the scientific quality criteria, during the data collection process, the sources of the articles are academic journals because scholarly articles go through rigorous peer review and contribute to academic advancement. The articles that were curated are indexed in the Web of Sciences (WOS) to ensure quality. Only one journal quality is used for the review, as using numerous journals necessitates a separate evaluation and aggregation of article titles, which is inefficient (Paul et al., 2021). The journal that was selected for the review is the Journal of Body Image because it conforms to external validity.

The internal validity was accomplished through the purification of the literature, which is one of the protocol's sub-steps. It is necessary to read the abstracts of the selected articles to ensure that they adhere to the review protocol and contain answers to the research questions.

The methods for improving body image

The specific body image issues that were addressed, and

The outcomes of post-experiment changes in body image.

When translated into the research domain. The theories incorporate the viewpoints used by researchers to guide their study, which reveals body image-related concerns. The contexts disclose the researcher's intent and the grounds for situating the post-experiments. The methods direct the strategies and post-experiment participant states into empirical evidence.

Level of Analysis: 

The depth of the analysis goes into comprehending the efficacy.

To determine which strategy to use going forward and which to drop from the attempt to improve body image, efficacy is divided into three areas, and changes in body image are reflected in the categories:

Body satisfaction, if there is a beneficial outcome. 

Body dissatisfaction, if it has negatively impacted.

No change, if results remain the same. 

In order to emphasize the severity of the negative impacts brought on by beauty advertising, the analysis goes on to identify theories and concerns that each theory raises.

To ensure that the study can be used for further research by scientists who seek to address a particular concern and evaluate its efficacy in a different population, the strategies are correlated with the concern.

Nature of Data:

The articles purified in accordance with the protocol contain both quantitative and qualitative data. To avoid statistical inconsistency, the review's analysis relies on descriptions. Accordingly, the output of the work is qualitative and contains words. However, to reach a wider audience, the reporting of the results also employs schematic diagrams and tables (where necessary).

The origin of the data is secondary, as the review relies on existing literature that is accessible.

Google Scholar is used as the search mechanism and material acquisition tool, as it is efficient and indexes most scholarly published articles. The start date is open; however, to create a reasonable milestone (Paul et al., 2021), the search period ends in 2013, which is a period of 10 years. The search keywords are beauty advertising and body image.

The SPAR-4-SLR protocol's second stage decides which articles to include in the sample for review through purification.

Stage II: Arranging, which involves (2a) organization and (2b) purification of literature that is in the process of being synthesized, and

The protocol's initial stage involved the collection of 29 papers. The articles discussed body image and advertisements for beauty. In the second stage, after reading the abstract, 15 papers appeared to be pertinent, and 14 publications were discarded because they did not cover the study of improving negative body image. As a result, 15 articles, which is the research sample, were included in the review process.

The sample is small compared to typical systematic reviews in other management journals because the topic of finding strategies for the improvement of body image is still in its infancy.

Positive emotions: Women's insecurities have been used to promote beauty products linked to eating disorders, anxiety, and depression for decades (Wolf, 2002). This research enables the development of a new marketing strategy that emphasizes appearance diversity and disregards societal beauty standards. It gives an opportunity to contribute to these positive changes, and more importantly, it brings us one step closer to making the world a better place for women.

Negative emotions: The world rewards beauty, which is defined and advocated by the media. Due to the globalization of modern society, the ease with which ideas communicate across continents, languages, cultures, and ideologies has resulted in beauty ideals that have visual similarities across cultures (Wolf, 2002). It has now become universal. Having conventional beauty gives an individual an edge relative to those lacking it. In a culture that has not moved away from traditional standards of beauty, I always wonder if and how long it may take for beauty brands to fully embrace diversity in terms of body type and appearance.

On the favourable side, the tides of society have caused enough widespread unrest over body dissatisfaction and negative psychological consequences arising from beauty advertising, that there may soon be enough social pressure to create reform in the beauty industry.

My research focuses on both beauty advertising and the improvement of negative body image. There is an abundance of literature on the improvement, prevention, and mitigation of negative body image. Additionally, there are articles on protection against negative body image. It is essential to select articles through the protocol that exclusively targets improvement. 

The articles on negative body image are not inherently connected to beauty advertising. Some of the articles additionally discuss peer interaction, school abuse, social media use, and other topics that result in a negative body image.

As a result, the protocol makes sure that the articles chosen for the literature review procedure are pertinent to the study and contributes to focusing on negative body image solely due to beauty advertising.

Although systematic reviews are reliable research tools, they are not immune to inaccuracies.

Maintaining the protocol to ensure scientific rigour has manifested in the small size of the sample. Therefore, the protocol itself is a limitation, as it restricts the literature search to a single journal, a 10-year time frame and excludes grey literature in the form of books and PhD dissertations. 

Another most prevalent is selection bias. If the article's title or abstract fails to specify the keywords or description to meet the selection criteria, it may not be detected during the screening process.

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