Essay On Negative Body Image

Do you read magazines and spend hours agonising over the fact that your body couldn’t look more different to the models you see? Do you read magazines and see celebrities and models with perfect body shapes? Remember this one piece of advice: you’re real; they’re fake. Thanks to the art of Photoshop, these models and celebrities are able to have their images touched up and altered until they reach what society perceives to be ‘perfection’. However, the truth in the matter is that there is no such thing. Many young teenagers are feeling the pressure to live up to the standards of a Victoria’s Secret model, however you only have to Google “Victoria’s Secret Models without airbrushing” to see that these very images that make us criticise our bodies and feel inadequate, are not a true reflection of what these young women look like at all! Like the rest of us, they have round tummies, droopy breasts and blemished skin. If that’s the case, why is this not what we are shown when we flick through Cosmopolitan or Vogue? Not only are we being lied to, our children are too! Are role models obessed with the profit or

As we have mentioned negative body image can develop from a very early age, which is devastating considering the severe consquences which can occur; eating disorders, emotional distress, low self esteem, anxiety and social withdrawl are all associated to with a negative body image. A negative body image is a disorted proportion of shape, where we percieve parts of our body to be unlike the reality. It is vital that we do something to help young people to have a postive body image. We then become convinced that only other people are attractive and that our body shape is a sign of personal failure, slowly we soon become to feel ashamed, self conscious and anxious about our bodies. Finally we feel uncomfortable and awkward in our own