Laura Vanderkam, City Journal

Journey Through the Checkout Racks

Start with something that hasn’t changed: American women’s obsession with their figures. The January 1963 Redbook featured a cover line on a 10-DAY DIET TO HELP YOU RECOVER FROM THE HOLIDAYS; the February 2013 issue cajoles readers to “get to your best weight ever” and promises “the plan and the push you need.” The April 1963 Ladies’ Home Journal pledged ideas on how to “dine well on 300 calories”; the February 2013 issue offers a more cheerful take on weight control: “Yay! Retire your fat pants forever.” One shudders to think of the pounds lost and gained over five decades of readership.

Given current obesity rates, the readers of women’s magazines were probably thinner in 1963. But their magazines weren’t. Flip through the weighty 50-year-old issues, and you’ll soon feel, literally, a massive cultural shift in what women expect from their periodicals. In 1963, consuming a magazine could take days. lost and gained over five decades of readership. (….)

Maybe that’s one reason that today’s women’s magazines are so short. The February 2013 Ladies’ Home Journal runs just 104 pages. The longest features top out at six pages, and they’re graphics-heavy. No longer do editors view their product as something that you’ll curl up with for hours over the course of a month. Instead, a magazine is something that a woman-on-the-go can grab to fill those scarce snatches of “me time”: 15 minutes of waiting for the kids at soccer practice, or 20 minutes on the bus to work.