Social Media Affects Girl's Body Image More Than You Think Analysis

91% of women are unhappy with their bodies. 5% of women naturally possess the bodies that are regularly displayed in the media. 80% of ten year old girls in america fear getting fat. 7 in 10 girls believe they are not good enough. As a result of my research I found that the body standard the media sets for adolescents leads to disorders, Suicide and self loathing.

Have you ever looked at an image on Social Media, seen a movie, commercial, or show and looked at yourself and felt ashamed or unsatisfied. Many women around the world have struggled with their weight and how others see them. Media images of ridiculously thin women are everywhere – television shows, movies, popular magazines. The Media often glamorizes a very thin body for women. These are also the pictures that are being shown to teenagers at a time of their lives that they are particularly susceptible to peer pressure and looking good(Tabitha Farrar). They see other women who look different than they do and think to themselves why can 't i look like that. The idea of the “Perfect Women”, long wavy hair, a nice slim body, practically a barbie doll, is what causes these women to think such harsh thoughts about themselves. Some women will begin to think that they are ugly, unacceptable, substandard, the list goes on. This idea that every girl needs to look the same, like a doll, to be beautiful is absurd, and the people who enforce such thoughts are just as damaging.

Social media is a powerful source in today’s society, 81% of the population in the United States alone has set up a social media profile. Many use the media for useful things, like educational opportunities and business inquiries. Although there are people who may look at it more in a concerning aspect. Many people today view the social media as a stage where they are judged and told what the real way to look and act is, more specifically, body image. Social Media has a negative impact on body image, through creating a perfect view physically which affects someone mentally, targeting both male and female, and turning away from the real goal of social media.

Media is influential on the development of adolescent females. Media portrays the female image and adolescent females adhere to this image. The different medial views adolescent girls adhere to are magazines, television, and the Internet. Each form of media has adolescent girls questioning their body images. According to Slater and Tiggemann (2015), “media’s constant focus on female bodies and body parts seamlessly aligns viewers with an implicit sexualizing gaze” (p.377). These images can cause adolescent girls to view their image as bad and do things in order to achieve the “perfect body”.

The ideal of a women magazine model are full of photos with women who are typically white and very thin. Many women will agree that they may feel pressured to dress or look a certain way because of the way the models look. The media can make women feel insecure about themselves and have low self-esteem. The messages in the media says that women will always need to make an adjustment to fit the “ideal” look. Since, the media portrays such images and make women feel like beauty is important women need to make sure they love themselves.

Models look really good on the cover of the magazines, but how are their bodies affecting young female adults throughout the world? In today’s day and age, media has a big impact on almost everyone - whether it’s social media, news broadcasts, advertisements or magazines. This exposure to media at a young age can affect self esteem. Due to Photoshop’s ability to create unrealistic photographs, it is negatively affecting the body image of teenage girls. Ever since 1839 when the first picture was taken, people have been trying to find ways to improve and alter the picture’s images.

Social media plays a big role in how society portrays body image. “Alternatively, an increased number of Facebook friends may provide girls with greater opportunity to rapidly make multiple social comparisons, itself shown to be associated with body image concern”(Tiggemann and Slater 82). According to the survey that was taken by Marika Tiggemann and Amy Slater, the more Facebook friends the girls had, the more likely it was that they had body image concerns. They were able to compare themselves to the other girls that they were friends with, which led to them to have an increase in their drive for thinness. “Further, these comparisons are likely to be with somewhat idealised images, in that girls mostly post photographs in which they look good or are doing something ‘cool’ (and can be digitally altered)”(Tiggemann and Slater 82).

Everyone always want or desire for something in this world. And to get their want they must somehow bargain for it; whether it was begging or persuading, they are still considered rhetorical techniques. In the story “Whose Body is This,” the author Katherine Haines talks about how society setted a certain standard of what a woman's body should look like, and it practically destroyed majority of woman’s self esteem. Haines further explains that pictures and advertisement on tv and magazines are teaching young girls that they need to look like the models in the picture. Girls don’t feel comfortable to be in their own skin, because they were not taught to love themselves for who they are, right in the beginning.

Through social media, messages, which cause many young women to question their bodies and overall self-image, are delivered daily. Media sells the idea that; “girls’ and women’s value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality and not in their capacity as leaders” (Miss Representation). Through advertisements,

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

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

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.

Nowadays, many teenagers imitate famous people that they followed on Instagram. This could have an effect on another factor such as their self-esteem. Following strangers such as celebrities and models may cause the individuals to have a lower self-esteem and feel dissatisfied with their life by seeing the pictures celebrities post day-to-day about their lavish lifestyles, “perfect” bodies, and pretty faces (Wallis 2015). Next, other studies done to test the exposure of images of models to girls have found that participants who viewed pictures of the models reported a significantly lower body satisfaction and self-esteem report than those in the control group who were not exposed to any models (“Social Media and Self Esteem - Dos &Don’t for Teens and Parents”). In addition, another study in Germany call this phenomenon the “self-promotion-envy spiral,” and it happens when Instagram users compare themselves to the people they’re connected to on the platform (Dion, “The Effect of Instagram on Self-Esteem and Life Satisfaction”).

It is clear that there is a loss of individuality when it comes to beauty. This is evident to see through social media and dating apps that are based on appearance, which is turning individuals highly superficial in relation to what is physically beautiful. Famous figures and social media influencers, for example the Kardashians, portray idealistic beauty standards. By these influencers selling products as well as themselves and their brand, consumers believe the gimmick that if they buy a product indorsed by their favourite celebrity, they will be one step closer to achieving what Eco describes as ‘the good and the beautiful’. However, this proves to have negative effects on self confidence, signalling that one has to conform to how a heavily social media influenced society perceives

Meaghan Ramsey's TED Talk "Why thinking you're ugly is bad for you" is a powerful speech about low body confidence. Ramsey talks about how society's pressure to be perfect is one of the main reason for young girls' (and boys') low body confidence and how these feelings of low esteem can impact their lives and futures. I chose to analyze this speech because I have experienced low body confidence and I have felt those feelings of low self-esteem. In Meaghan Ramsey's speech "Why thinking you're ugly is bad for you", she discusses how low body confidence is undermining academic achievement, damaging health, and limiting the economic potential of today's youth who are growing up in a world of social media. Ramsey has a strong start to her speech, using a photo and a story about her niece to gain the attention of the audience.