Letter to Seventeen Magazine

Dear Ms. Anat,

I am a Human Development major at Brigham Young University and I am writing to you as a concerned woman about how damaging the media can be for young girls and their social development. I am currently studying the effects of media on the family and I would like to talk to you about maybe some improvement in your magazine. I think that the idea of your magazine is wonderful and is a great way for girls to get information about life and fashion and what they go through during their teenage years, however, I think that some of the information can do more harm than good with your teenage readers.

The point of my letter is to focus on the idea of body image. Most teenage girls struggle with body image and the media doesn’t help, bombarding them with images and ideas that being thin is was makes you popular and cool when in reality most girls will never be a size 2. I think it would be great to have images of “normal”, meaning not a size 2, sized girls in your magazines, which would be a portrayal of a lot of teenage girls. Because of all the pressures the media, including your magazine, put on girls I feel like girls are trying to live up to these impossible standards the world and media has set. It’s like they have raised the bar so high it is almost unattainable to young girls. I think it would be a great idea if your magazine published an article once a month in each issue about a young girl who is just your average high school girl who has accomplished something great! But, she might not be the usual type of girl you would post in your magazine, someone who is maybe not a model or someone the world would consider beautiful but, who is beautiful because she is really smart or because she does a lot for other people.

This is just an idea. I think it would make girls feel better about themselves because every girl is beautiful in her own way and a lot of girls need to hear that! I think your magazine is wonderful and can do and does a lot of good for a lot of girls. I think that this would have a great impact on many girls and would give your magazine a lot more attention as well! Overall, I think it would be a win win!

I appreciate you taking the time to read my letter and hopefully it can spark and idea to maybe make a change for the good.

Sincerely,

Jennie Allen