Media Influence On Women's Body Image

We use celebrity ‘news’ to perpetuate this dehumanizing view of women, focused solely on one’s physical appearance” (Anniston). Young girls do not have a mature understanding of how those magazines work and how to make a wise judgment about the standards of beauty diffused by magazines. That leads them to try to imitate the pictures in magazines (most of the time those pictures are photoshopped) and try to be in perfect shape with a skinny body and a flat stomach and a low weight. When they can not reach that body and fulfill the standards, they develop psychological issues and have a health

"The Impact Of Advertisements Featuring         Ultra-Thin Or Average-Size Models On Women With A History Of Eating Disorders."         Journal Of Community & Applied Social Psychology 15.5 (2005): 406-413. Academic         Search Premier. Web.

In the article Body Image & the Media: An Overview, the author describes the ways in which people’s opinion of themselves are being altered due to the unrealistic standards being viewed in the media. Since the growth of media and internet, people have been greatly exposed to what a “perfect” body should look like. These unrealistic standards have taken a toll on people’s physical and mental health. One envisions a perfect body image and is concerned about how others will perceive them and how they perceive themselves.

Dissatisfaction amongst today’s youth regarding their personal body image is increasingly common, warranting a necessary change in the norms and behaviours that are portrayed to Canadian youth. The necessary change that must be implemented moving forward is the portrayal of healthy and attainable body images through media. A 2012 ABC News article stated the average model weighs 23% less than the average woman (Lovett, 2012). Such an appalling statistic is something that must be tackled as we progress toward the future seeing as it showcases to the youth of today that anorexia and unhealthy body weight is seen as desirable or attractive. The relation between such a statistic and anorexia is clear.

Anorexia survivor Erin Treloar said “my eating disorder was perpetuated by retouched magazine photos”. Beauty standards has such a giant effect on women emotionally, psychologically and physically. The pressure on women to be thin leads to unhealthy weight loss practices (Battle & Brownell, 1996), eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1998) and low self-esteem (Tiggeman & Stevens,

When having a negative body image or high body dissatisfaction, one believes their body is inadequate. Because the media has recently been promoting an extremely specific body type only a few are able to obtain, an increasing number of people are viewing their own bodies as unsatisfactory. The two aspects of media causing the most damage to people’s body image are advertisements and social media. Adolescents from ages 13 to 18 are those affected the most due to the media’s messages. Although teenage girls are known to be the group damaged predominately by the media’s messages, recent research shows that teenage boys are also at risk of gaining a negative body image due to these messages.

Given these points, the thin and muscular ideal being portrayed through the use of media constantly reminds individuals about how that is a standard that they should meet, leading them to have a negative body image. The idea of body dissatisfaction starts when individuals are very young in today 's society, and is supported by many around the world. Being so accessible to the media allows individuals to become more vulnerable to viewing images of celebrities that will affect them in a negative way and will have them wanting to change their appearance, even if that is not how those celebrities really look. Body discontentment has reached a whole new level to where the rate of eating disorders has increased. Individuals commonly compare their

This constant fixation on physical perfection has created unreasonable beauty standards for women, ones we cannot possibly achieve on our own. Such standards permeate all forms of popular media, particularly fashion magazines and advertisements. Women are bombarded with the notion that we must be thin in order to be desirable. These images project an

The article states “with adolescent females being more inclined than males to discuss appearance and weight loss concerns with peers … girls talked to friends about dieting”(Lawler, Nixon 60). This shows that the desire to lose weight is something very common among adolescent girls and it is something that is talked about causally. The desire to be built differently is something that is not even seen as normal without the thought of how damaging it truly is to adolescents' self-esteem. The article also states “Body image dissatisfaction is of growing importance owing to its implication as a risk factor in the subsequent onset of eating disorders (Stice et al. 2002), depression (McCreary and Sasse 2000), emotional distress” (Lawler, Nixon 59)” This shows that the a negative body image cause a great deal of emotional anguish, and has a very negative effect on one mental and emotional health.

“I’m so fat, why can’t I be skinny just like her!” “How does she get the perfect body, while I’m stuck with all of this fat!” These statements are common among teenage girls of today’s society. Social media of today shows unreal pictures of photoshopped models and the “perfect life”. This leads to discontent of young women with their body and lives.

The stereotypes of teenage girls through Magazines Media is a part of our everyday lives we tend to scan it, see it, watch it and absorb it into our minds constantly. The majorities of teenage girls across the world are influenced by what the media say 's and publishes. In today’s world, magazines key target is advertising secure products. Teenage magazines are associated with tactical fashion and beauty tips that include many images of beautiful girls to persuade teenage girls to purchase the products they are advertising. Just look at this magazine cover of the popular Teen Vogue where it characterizes classical representations of adolescent girls.

From an early age, we are exposed to the western culture of the “thin-ideal” and that looks matter (Shapiro 9). Images on modern television spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful. Often, television portrays the thin women as successful and powerful whereas the overweight characters are portrayed as “lazy” and the one with no friends (“The Media”). Furthermore, most images we see on the media are heavily edited and airbrushed

This self-view can lead teenage girls to begin extreme dieting, exorcising or develop a full-blown eating disorder, such as anorexia (Berger 2014). Therefore, it is important for society to encourage young girls to know that they are beautiful just the way they

Men and women nowadays are starting to lose self-confidence in themselves and their body shape, which is negatively impacting the definition of how beauty and body shape are portrayed. “...97% of all women who had participated in a recent poll by Glamour magazine were self-deprecating about their body image at least once during their lives”(Lin 102). Studies have shown that women who occupy most of their time worrying about body image tend to have an eating disorder and distress which impairs the quality of life. Body image issues have recently started to become a problem in today’s society because of social media, magazines, and television.

So when people look and see that they don’t look like they’re favorite super-model it can put a downer on their self-confidence. This causes many girls feeling that they aren’t good enough in society, society won’t accept them because they aren’t perfect and they start to not like their body. When for many females they can’t lose as much weight as their friend can just because of their genes and how they were born. “The lack of connection between the real and ideal perception of their own body and firm willingness to modify their own body and shape so as to standardize them to social concept of thinness…” (Dixit 1), being focused on unrealistic expectations can cause women to lose themselves and change their attitude on how they view their body, and not for the better.