Is Your Daughter Reading Teen Magazines?

Today’s teen girls are looking to many mediums to pattern their sense of self, but none more consistently than that of magazines such as Teen People, YM, Teen, and Seventeen. Surveys reveal startling trends:
•66% of teenagers read magazines regularly
•77% of girls ages 11-18 read fashion and beauty magazines
•53% of teens placed magazines behind TV (at 54%) as the medium they paid closest attention to
•32% of teen girls “always stick to” their favorite teen magazine
Christian teens are not excluded from this transfixed demographic. They tend to view these magazines as readily as the non-religiously active population. Exactly what are they reading? Well, many have horoscope readings and other articles which reflect cosmic humanism and new age philosophy. One recent article featured a college girl who was so proud of herself for posing nude for Playboy magazine The magazines often defend and normalize the homosexual lifestyle, featuring articles on girls who’ve “bravely come out” or have “endured oppression.” One issue of Teen People encourages that homosexual sex and heterosexual sex “aren’t that different” but are expressions between two people of love and compassion. Perhaps most sublte and most harmful is the fact that nearly all of these magazines invite girls to lay aside any “silly notion” that they’re different from men.
The results of reading these magazines can be imagined, but one that is traceable is the overall damage to the emotions of their readers. Most women or teen girls who read them report feeling depressed about their looks or weight afterward. One Harvard survey, in searching for the impact of today’s fashion and beauty-saturated media culture, found that 2/3rds of underweight twelve year olds consider themselves to be fat. Did you catch that key word? These girls are underweight.
If your daughter is hooked, take some time to look through her favorite magazine with her. Ask her how it makes her feel about herself. Discuss the lifestyles of those reflected in the magazine and the values expressed.
My big point is this. If she is reading them, you had better pick one up and take a look!