Does anyone else find reading women's interest magazines depressing?

[JoshandJamie]

I'm thinking things like Eve, SHE, Red, Easy Living etc.

The stuff where they tell you what's fashionable and how with just a £250 pair of new shoes you can make an old outfit look new. And how you have to try THE LATEST beauty product. And then they feature some over-achieving woman in her early thirties who seems to have it all. Followed by the latest diet, health scares and somewhere exotic you can't possibly travel to because it's too expensive and not in the least child friendly. Not to mention how you can be more evironmentally friendly and how you can transform a room into a show home simply by hand painting some ancient jelly moulds.

They're supposed to be aspirational right? So why do they make me feel like the most unfit, unglamorous, unsophisticated idiot out there?

Does anyone really read them and think: right, time to start buying jumpsuits because they're 'on trend' and I must organise an 'elegant midweek dinner party that looks like it took no effort'?

Honestly, when you read them to you come away inspired or deflated. I'm most certainly the latter. I guess the answer is not to read them. But I might them become a complete social disaster.

yes!!! i have not bought one for years as i became really aware that i just felt so down about myself after reading them, seriously it wasn't healthy..
of course if i see them in the dentists waiting room i have a good nosey but it reminds me why i don't like them and why i am happier without comparing myself to all the people in them!

you know what, i apear to have stopped buyin them

i used to buy every bl;ardy magazine going

maybe it's something to do with having a 2yo and a 8mo -- no time

i have a subscription to house and garden, but that's all

totally agree. I respect what they are trying to do by featuring inspirational females but my god I feel SO completely inadequate after reading yet another 'new mum decides to set up organic museli company with friend and is turning over 1 million within 1 year' type story.
better off reading about chantelle's dramatic weight loss and other miserable z list stories. prehaps not.

I did go through a stage of reading them, but I came to the same conclusion as you.

I just think they're unbearably tedious, bear no relation to my real life at all, and leave me feeling bleh.

I buy DeathRay now, if I want something to flip through.

they are so dull I never buy them any more and when I did I seldom bothered to read them - it's just rehashes of stuff- waste of money...

I think the problem is that I am the defined target audience for these magazines. I should like what they write about. And indeed, I do find some of the articles interesting. But mostly they just make me feel like crap.

And maybe it's because I live in the country and not the city (gross generalisation I'm aware), but I NEVER see people dressed like the ones they feature or who spend that much time thinking about their beauty regime.

Someone out there must love them and do look the people featured. Surely.?

Ooh yes JoshandJamie I know what you're saying about Country/City thing. I find this with the Style Magazine in the Sunday Times..I mean who are some of those fashions aimed at?

I get gardeners world now

I totally agree. I stopped buying the glossies a while back, partly out of boredom with the features, and partly as my life so does not resemble the glossy ideal, and never will.

now have a subscription to private eye. it's so much more fun, and as I am in the slow readers' group it seems to last me about 2 weeks.

I find them boring & annoying wouldn't spend a penny on the tat..although I do read the ones people bring into work

the only part I enjoy are the articles that are relevant to me, and the interviews. I rarely like the clothes, NEVER take any notice of the beauty or applying eyeshadow ~(does anyone?) one of my best friends is deputy editor for one of these magazines and she admits much of it is continually regurgitated from past issues and the beauty pages are mostly copied press releases. in fact why on earth do I buy them!? it's still a treat to open a brand new magazine but rarely do now unless at the hairdressers or car journey

I don't buy them. Can't remember the last time I did.

But isn't that the point. If they can make you feel fat/frunmpy/ugly they can then sell you all the crap they advertise. No point in telling you how blardy wonderful you are and then expecting you to buy the over-priced junk is there ?

Even Parenting magazines seem to have the same effect - you aren't a real mother until you buy this pram/ these nappies etc.

i get passed loads of magazines so don't buy any but sort of read most of them, tbh there's better advice in womans own than some of the more aspirational glossies.

Spot on, Orm. I hate them too. I feel quite insulted by them. The assumption seems to be that all women love clothes, make-up and handbags and want to please their man in some horrid, shallow way (see:Cosmo). That is why I find them depressing.

glad you started this thread, i'm reading Eve right at this minute and it has no baring to my life (but still reading anyway!)

i agree. load of wank most of it.

Start reading Take A Break, Chat and That's Life instead. I do and it leaves me feeling very grateful that, no matter what else may be going on in my life, I do not have a ponytail facelift or come home from work to find my husband dressed in my best underwear with the cat licking salmon paste off his willy while my next door neighbour spanks him.

in Eve there is always a section at the end called "my rebellious moment!", this always gives me a laugh, usually is some daft bint who now lives abroad (wow what a rebel) or someone who spent a fortune on a new hanbag/dress/etc.

what a load of crap

do you know, I quite like Easy Living now, I know it makes me feel ancient but its good reading

Oh God they are appalling tasteless trash. Don't read them, ever (except when you go to the doctor, just to remind yourself never, ever to waste money on them).

you can buy a book for the cost of a magazine

i never buy them

i dont like being told what to do

and you cant argue back at magazines kile yopu can on mn

idf only my rebellios moment had been buying a handbag