Example physical health dissertation topic 2:

Role models to health problems: The problem of body image and the catwalk

This dissertation seeks to address the issue of catwalk models and the obsession with size zero in a health context. In so doing it suggests that the ‘body beautiful’ image presented by catwalk models has led to a dramatic rise in eating disorders within teenage girls that costs the NHS an increasing amount of money each year. Rather than seeing ‘size zero’ models as a cultural phenomenon this dissertation suggests that they should be seen as a negative influence on health. How then, in a world obsessed with image are the health realities of ‘following the size zero dream’ to be communicated – using first hand evidence this dissertation proffers a number of reasoned suggestions.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Dittmar, H., Halliwell, E. and Stirling, E. (2009) ‘Understanding the impact of thin media models on women’s body-focused affect: The roles of thin-ideal internalization and weight-related self-discrepancy activation in experimental exposure effects’, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 28, pp. 43-72.
• Quick, V. and Byrd-Bredbenner, C. (2011) ‘Effects of photographs of lower- and higher-body mass index fashion models on body dissatisfaction of young women’, Topics in Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 26(1), pp. 57-67.