Prevention

Prevention is a magazine intended for an older female audience. Its goal is to provide women aged thirty and up with vital information that helps them to prevent diseases and lead healthy lives. Women know that Prevention is a magazine for them because of the colors, advertisements, and articles displayed throughout the publication.

Prevention uses "girly" colors like pink and purple on its March 2012 front cover to attract female eyes. Inside the magazine, there are colorful images with white backgrounds to bring out a light and happy feel; light colors typically represent feminine qualities, while dark colors are harsher and subsequently seen as masculine. The plain backgrounds allow the pictures to catch the reader's attention, which is especially important for the advertisements.

The advertisements in Prevention focus on healthy eating, personal hygiene products, and medications. Since many older women are "dieting," its ads present low-calorie snacks, recipes with fruits and vegetables, and sugar free sweets. Products like Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair, Maybelline Instant Age Rewind The Eraser Treatment Makeup, and Poise Hourglass pads are geared towards aging women because men usually aren't worried about looking younger or using tampons. Medications like Aleve, Restasis, and MiraLAX are meant to help women who are dealing with the aches and pains of growing old.

Prevention contains articles that are geared towards older females as well. One article talks about how women's shoes can make them fat. Another article talks about Michelle Obama and her ability to spend time taking care of herself while she also raises a family and performs duties as the First Lady. There's even an advertorial of makeup products that tricks the reader into thinking that they're reading an article about makeup, when in reality they're just falling into the advertiser's hands. The question and answer section that deals with sexual health definitely represents women, especially the one story about buying vibrators.

Prevention has an audience of over 9 million readers, 86% of them being women. Their median age is 56 years old, which proves that their targeted demographic is older women. 61% of the women are married which is not too surprising; most women who plan on getting married do so by the age of fifty. Prevention does a good job of using signaling to appeal to its target audience.