Media Influence on Body Image Outline Preface: The old adage says that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, however, in recent times the obsession of a signified perfect body has been escalated by media greatly. While most communities teach young individuals that physical beauty does not matter as compared to the inner beauty, this seems to contradict the same as depicted by media through reality shows, billboards, magazines, and a myriad of other platforms. In recent studies, body image perceptions have thus resulted to eating disorders amongst both females and males alike more likely affecting the teenagers and the young adults. This study thus seeks to determine the relationship between the media, body image, and eating disorders. Thesis Statement: Individual acceptance is a norm widely accepted across different societies, however, in recent development the portrayal of the perfect body image through media platforms has caused great body dissatisfactions and consequently leading to eating disorders amongst teenagers and young adults.
People tend not to sometimes love the body they were created in because of the way the media culture has acculturated certain body shapes and sizes. Body image refers to a person’s mental representation of their body. The way people view their body mentally can either be positive or negative. In today’s society where the media culture and celebrities dominate almost everything including a certain way people should look, have made most people have a negative body image. As a result of people having negative body image, it has contributed too many eating disorders, low self-esteem and low self-confidence.
People tend not to sometimes love the body they were created in because of the way the media culture has acculturated certain body shapes and sizes. Body image refers to a person’s mental representation of their body. The way people view their body mentally can either be positive or negative. In today’s society, where the media culture and celebrities dominate almost everything, including a certain way people should look, have made most people have a negative body image. As a result of people having negative body image, it has contributed to many eating disorders, low self-esteem and low self-confidence.
I have chosen this topic because most young adults compare themselves to celebrities on social media, but they shouldn't be doing that as everyone is unique. Body image affects a lot of adolescents in today's society and that has driven me to undergo research for this topic. Body image is how an individual physically and mentally thinks of themself as for example weight and your clothing size. Body image is mostly about your physical activity and how much you do but, things can get in the way of that for example peer pressure, family and social media. Social media is a big influence as a lot of young adults want to look like a certain person for example Vogue Models.
Does the media cause poor body image? This is a very important question I plan to answer during this essay. However, there are other questions we need to answer first, such as, what is body image, how important is body image, and how does the media portray body image, to fully understand the role the media has regarding this topic. What is body image? According to Webster’s Medical Dictionary body image is, “a subjective picture of one's own physical appearance established both by self-observation and by noting the reactions of others.” (Body Image, n.d.).
Introduction: Every person has a certain perception of his or her physical features. This perception is created by various influences including parental guidance as well as educational instruction. However, with the increasing access to various forms of media, body awareness is often based on what the media presents as ‘acceptable’ or the ‘norm’. These media sources include TV, magazines, Facebook and many more. The perception is also created by the trend of a certain time and by what people regard as either acceptable or unacceptable.
The media influences people all the time to have a negative body image and nobody is doing anything to stop it. With mounting evidence of the media having negative effects on body influence, people are becoming concerned (Eating Disorders). There are many causes and effects of this problem, but there are also things we can do to fix it. Body image is how a person thinks or feels about his/her body (Body Image). Many people do not even notice, but the media influences body image almost every day.
Media has been present since long time ago, they presented the ultimate fashion or the ideal body. Media advertisement is our new tool to get into the young mind, to obtain something from them “buy this brand and look like the model we have, you will be loved ’’ or “ looking like thin model will give you popularity”. Women have been the more affected by this media shaming phenomenon “Studies indicate many people, especially women, measure their self-worth based on appearance” (Finley, 2012).To understand more about how mass media show a negative effect on our body image, we firstly need to
More times than not it has a negative impact on the people. They believe that in order to fit in with the crowd, they need to look like the photoshopped models that the media feeds us. Many people develop body image issues that often lead to mental illnesses, like bulimia, and extreme methods, like plastic surgery, to achieve the perfect image. Having acne made it tough for me to feel as if I was pretty. For years I felt awful about my appearance, that there was something wrong with me.
There are a number of pressures that influence how one perceives their own body image. The largest pressures on the ideal body image are spawned from the influence the media have on society and the reactions that emerge from interpreting the media and advertisements. In documentaries such as Killing Us Softly and Dying to be Thin, the media is entirely made out to be the lone culprit of body image skewing. However, the media cannot be completely to blame. Many pressures emerge from family members or members of society that have the influence to shape how one feels about themselves, which has been apparent since the Victorian Era, and can still be seen today in the case of Frank Bruni.