Social Media's Negative Influence On Body Image

Body image is something that is a constant struggle for many. It does not target a specific age group or gender. However, many people with body image issues are adolescents and younger adults. It also does not discriminate, meaning anyone’s life can be affected by body image issues. In fact, most of us already have or will have a body image encounter. A person’s body image can come from, what they see by watching a television show, what they see on social media, and from their peers. As a person ages body image issues become less significant; they have accepted who they are, and are not bothered by how they look to others.

Magazines, TV, music, books, and movies help one make decisions and take action whether consciously or subconsciously. This large sphere of influence, however, is not always beneficial for those who suffer victim to these forms of public entertainment. The medias version of beauty, shames those who are considered overweight and scares almost everyone into thinking that being thin is the only way to be pretty. Jolene Hart emphasis how important beauty is in the American culture in her book Eat Pretty: Nutrition for Beauty, Inside and Out: “There’s a multi-billion-dollar industry built on helping us achieve greater physical beauty” (Hart 33). By creating this manipulated and untrue image of beauty, the American culture encourages eating disorders like anorexia (undereating) and sustains obesity (overeating). When interviewing Shannon Herman, a licensed professional counselor and certified eating disorder specialist, she revealed that adolescents in 2015 are exposed to media about body types and sizes more than any person in history. It goes without saying that mixed messages are bounding and truth is always relative. There are no absolutes. Media does not have mercy on anything but perfection. The perfection that surrounds today’s media causes eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. In order to achieve the body culture claims to offer, one resorts to dieting and exercise; dieting and exercise,

Be prettier! Be skinnier! Be more fashionable! Media has an impact on how teens perceive their body image. Some teens seek opinions from friends, while others take cues from media, social environments, or music to define them. Body image is defined as perceptions, feelings, and behavior toward one’s body (Common Sense Media P13).There is an unrealistic body misconception of being “flawless” like celebrities that make teens want to modify their bodies. This refers to the exposure to increased media through the years; Media is contributing to dangerous behaviors that include but are not limited to: cyber bullying, unhealthy eating habits and self-harming.

For decades women have been put under the pressure of looking a certain way. This pressure, primarily begins in the adolescence- teenage years of a girl’s life. Teenage girls are expected to have perfect bodies.Thin- but curvy, tan- but

How do people see themselves in the mirror? The way your body is represents who an individual is as a person. Everybody looks different. Even though everyone has an opinion about what they would want to look like. Changing one's personal features would take away from simply being them. Honestly they should just be happy with who they are as a person and how they look. The media should just accept that no one is going to look how they want them to look because it could cause all types of problems and it just not healthy emotionally and physically. Multiple issues can be caused such as depression, self harm, and could even lead to suicide. The media should just try to stay out of everything that has to do with one's appearance and not have celebrities

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.

The media negatively influences female perception of the body image in America. Advertisements, magazines, billboards and commercials portray women to be thin and flawless. The media’s perception of the perfect body image causes women to have a low self-esteem that can influence eating disorders, such as, bulimia and anorexia. Media influences cause women to look at image rather than personality, and creates a negative opinion about heavy people.

“When you were born they put you in a little box and slapped a label on it. But if we begin to notice these categories no longer fit us, maybe it’ll mean that we’ve finally arrived—just unpacking the boxes, making ourselves at home.” Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

In today’s society, the younger generations are focused on their body image and of others compared to generations in previous years. Many are very conscious about how their appearance is and have a created a stereotypical image for the average male and female. Also, many have become judgemental and prejudice towards other because of their body image, not personality and behaviors.

Nevertheless, we live in a society where thinness is highly valued but come with greatly consequences such as suffering from low self-esteem. The ideal standards of perfection and beauty are to hold a thin body image in order to avoid this overpowering illness; low self-esteem in females. In the article “Searching Out the Ideal: Awareness of Ideal Body Standards Predicts Lower Global Self-esteem in Women” the main focus is to apprise the audience of the awareness women carry mentally to get the thin ideal body image women are supposed to have. Low self –esteem cause women not to love or care about themselves. If you can’t love your own self no one will even with illusion of achieving the perfect body your left unhappy. Also, many women encounter certain illness common by women who are victims from low self-esteem due to body image. Such illness consists of anorexia, , and even bulimia. Anorexia is an eating disorder women have in order to not gain weight so they can look thin, just like how society wants them to be. Bulimia is another eating disorder that is made up of binge eating which means that the individuals vomit the calories they consumed to avoid weight gain. Society has no clue on how much many women may suffer due to dissatisfaction in their own body. The major fear a woman faces is the fear to gain weight that leads to a distorted body

Media is a very strong and influential force on both people and their actions in many different parts of the world. Specifically, in American culture media is used to perpetuate and infiltrate the masses and project what the next expensive purchase will be and who the next popular celebrity will be that can promote those items to the public. It is a cycle that is continuously moving and evolving with the changing times, as media continues to update and consume larger portions of the human lifestyle. “According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2006), Americans will spend approximately 3,592 hours this year on media usage with 1,704 of those hours being watching television.” This number is only projected to have risen since the data was collected by

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.

Whether it’s magazine covers, instagram, twitter, on television or just on the world wide web in general, everywhere we look we see stunning models. Models that are incredibly thin and can look good in anything. Our society is obsessed with how perfect they look, yet at the end of the day women everywhere looks in the mirror and doesn’t see the body of the girl she sees on social media. Even though women come in all shapes and sizes in nature, the expectation to have a skinny, perfect body just seems to be the expectation for our society nowadays. Society puts too much pressure on females to have the perfect body. The emphasis for a girls ideal body to be perfect, thin, but curvy at the same time affects women emotionally and causes them feelings of, body dissatisfaction, can cause eating disorders, and major psychological issues.

The song, Scars to Your Beautiful written by Alessia Caracciolo, speaks to the very challenge every young girl experiences by wanting to be seen as beautiful. What is more, the song contrasts the lengths women will go to in order to make themselves appear more beautiful, but perhaps the line “you should know, you’re beautiful the way you are” is the most profound statement for this generation. According to Peta Stapleton, Gabrielle J. Crighton, Brett Carter, and Aileen Pidgeon
(2017), body dissatisfaction is defined as “dysfunctional, negative thoughts and feelings pertaining to one’s weight and shape.” Specifically, Kathleen Berger (2014) states, “Many adolescents obsess about being too short or too tall, too wide in the hips or too narrow

Social media has been a constant habit of teenagers, checking their phones in the morning and right before bed. As adolescents are on the media 24/7, teenagers are seen as being easily deceived online, which I believe is true. Therefore, these young people’s mental health is being damaged.