Negative Effects Of Media On Society

The “Perfect” Body

For years people have played the “blame game” with media and its effects on society. It has been questioned whether the media helps or hurts more in its overall impacts. The multimedia sources consist of magazines, advertisements, TV shows, and social pages such as Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, and Facebook, all in which society seems to be addicted to. The real question is, is having all of these sources of media positively or negatively affecting society? Some people blame the media for harming society by causing eating disorders and a low self esteem. On the other hand, many others believe that it helps society in several ways such as keeping people physically fit and boosting self confidence by posting selfies. While

One of the main purposes of this workout crave is for the users to notice self improvement. Many say, from research, that this type of exposure influences them in a positive way and makes them want to work out more. These people state that by viewing posts of others who are working out and staying in shape, it inspires the viewers to change their way of eating and exercising to begin their journey of a lifestyle change (Pasko, et.al). By exercising and eating healthy, prevention to chronic diseases occurs as well as an improved mood. Also, posts about fitspiration lets others get involved on the lifestyle change and know the feeling that they are not alone on their fitspiration journey. A recent meta-analysis of studies looking at the effects of social media on health behavior change showed improvement on decreasing fat consumptions in viewers who saw these specific posts (Pasko, et.al). Also, fitspiration involves posts that link to demonstration videos of workouts, healthy recipes, and overall health tips. By having this link, the people who are involved in fitspiration have access to the people heading down the same path, which may provide a user with comfort and decrease the stress of not knowing what to do or where to start. In addition, the people posting the pictures are improving their confidence and body image as well. Posting can help a person stay accountable for their progress and

Many different brands today have made the decision to use plus size models to model their clothing in order to show that beauty is within everyone, not just the skinny. American eagle announced in 2014 that, in an effort to present more realistic role models for teens, it would not be continuing its use with photoshop or any other use of tools that could retouch images. This new idea was called #AerieREAL and was used for the Aerie lingerie section (McCluskey). An #AerieReal role model was chosen who was a size 14 and 25 years of age, to model lingerie as well as swim for the popular company. Iskra Lawrence, the chosen model explained, “I wanted to be a part of the campaign so much. I got told I wasn’t good enough, and I could never make it. And then Aerie told me I was beautiful because I was me. The real you is beautiful” (McCluskey). By using these plus size models and letting them know that they are beautiful just the way they are, plus size viewers could be positively impacted and feel as though they are beautiful too. The plus size portion of society won’t feel so bad about themselves if the models look more realistic in the ways that they