Why Thinking You Re Ugly Is Bad For You Analysis

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.

As guest editor of Star Telegram newspaper, I did what was asked of me and reviewed the article written by Susan Bordo “Never Just Pictures”. Bordo focuses on body image and our perception of beauty and how we are “supposed” to look according to the media. “Never Just Pictures” should be published because Susan Bordo has factual evidence to back up her reasoning to her claim about body disorders, the role that different types of media have on society, and how it is creating a false image of what true beauty really is.

The unrealistic body images portrayed by both genders in the media have long term impacts on an adolescent’s self-esteem and future, so take a long look at yourself in the mirror and learn to love what you

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.

With this issue, Instagram may affect the point of view of the teenager about body image. For example, a lot of Instagram users make this app as a platform for them to promote themselves. In the past, Facebook used to be a platform for posting everything such as pictures, status, or even blogs. Unlike Facebook, Instagram is especially focused on photos (Moreau). It allows users to take a photo from their mobile devices and edit it by using filters, blurring effects, color adjustments, etc., in order to enhance the image before posting it on the profiles. According to the studies on the Internet, the author argues that “Most teens and tweens only post the good news such as a college acceptance letter, a new award, or information about that wonderful date the night before” (“Social Media and Self Esteem - Dos & Don’t For Teens and Parents”). As we can perceive from that article, most teenagers would probably never choose to post that shabby, rolled out of bed late and barely got to school on time while still wearing sweats image on Instagram. Instead, they post their best pictures. However, the good compliments are not always received on those photos. Instead, some comments may be rude and impolite giving a lot of words such as “fat”, “ugly”, etc. Consequently, these images combined with those words only increase negative body image and low social media

There has been an increasing number of women that are dissatisfied with themselves due to constant external pressure to look perfect. YWCA’s “Beauty at Any Cost” discusses this in their article saying that, “The pressure to achieve unrealistic physical beauty is an undercurrent in the lives of virtually all women in the United States, and its steady drumbeat is wreaking havoc on women in ways that far exceed the bounds of their physical selves” (YWCA). Being surrounded by society’s definitions of beauty has definitely taken a toll on American women’s confidence. This toll becomes evident from statistics such as, “7 in 10 girls believe that they are not good enough or don’t measure up

Beauty Pageants deprive children of their confidence and childhoods because they lower girls self esteem. In today 's society, many magazines, movies, and runways pressure women to look a certain way, and to act a certain way. Young girls, even girls as young as one years old, can be affected by today’s obsession with fitness and perfection. These girls can take drastic measures to change what they look like, even going as far as starving themselves (Freymark 29). Beauty pageants are notorious for highlighting outward looks,and to many girls who believe that they are not beautiful enough, being judged on one 's appearance can cause a devastating blow to a girl’s confidence. In fact, Freymark states in her article “ Let the Girls

African American rapper “Lil’Kim” publicly admitted to getting surgery and bleaching her skin, saying “really beautiful women that left me thinking, how I can I compete with that? Being a regular black girl wasn 't good enough.” This trend of women being unhappy with their bodies is not uncommon. 53% of 13-year-old American girls are unhappy with their bodies, this grows to 78% by the time they are 17 (Maine, 2011). Due to this, more women result to practices making themselves more “attractive”. One of these practices is the art of wearing cosmetics. Self-conscious women are more likely to wear cosmetics than less self-conscious women and report that they believe their social interactions are more pleasurable when they wear makeup (Miller &

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.

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.

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. “Body dissatisfaction, negative body image, concern with body size, and shape represent attitudes of body image.”(Dixit 1), women are so obsessed with looking good that they are missing out on enjoying

For example, girls will style their hair to “become more attractive” (Berger 2014), or they will purchase ‘minimizer,’ ‘maximizer,’ ‘training,’ or ‘shaping’ bras, hoping that their breasts will conform to their idealized body image” (Berger 2014). This all appears to be harmless activities, yet when body image is only addressed outwardly and not psychologically, there can be an increase in poor and destructive behaviors. For instance, body image dissatisfaction can lead to poor self-esteem, which can create a cycle of increased body dissatisfaction, followed by decreasing self-esteem (Stapleton et al., 2017). Ultimately, a teenage girl can find herself in a cycle of “depression, eating disorders and obesity” (Stapleton et al., 2017). On study in 2012 revealed, “Two-thirds of U.S. high school girls are trying to lose weight, even though only one-fourth are actually overweight or obese” (Berger 2014). 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

Popular models such as Kendall Jenner and Alexis Ren is known for their ‘perfect’ bodies. They post daily of their ‘fitspo’ images, gaining millions of likes and compliments. These compliments about their appearance support the importance of body image in how you are judged as a person. These images, send a destructive message about their appearance as well. Ms Morgan stated that ‘appearance-based talk and body comparison can be unremitting, with little understanding of how detrimental it is for self-esteem and mental-health’.

Body shaming is one of the biggest problems in today’s generation. It is the practice of making critical, potentially humiliating comments about a person’s body, size or weight. It is obvious that all of us come in different shapes and sizes but society and the media puts a lot of pressure on us with beauty stereotypes and standards to deem some as healthy and some not. Recently, there has been a lot of controversy recently about body image and body shaming, especially among teenagers. Body shaming is an extremely personal concept and can take a negative toll on a person. The harmful effects of body shaming among teenagers include lowering their self-esteem and confidence, leads to their poor mental helath and causes weight gain.

American society has created unhealthy beauty standards that people want to live up to, but they ridicule those same standards when their goals can’t be achieved. Woman criticize how other women look but are offended when others do the same to them. There is “fat-shaming” and “skinny-shaming,” and now, no one's body seems to fit the “ideal” mold that Americans have crafted. It’s a hypocrisy of ideas. Body shaming is certainly not a new phenomenon, but social media outlets have caused it to spiral out of control. In today’s day and age, there are a variety of apps dedicated to looking at, evaluating, and commenting on other’s bodies. The growth of social media has caused widespread body shaming, leading women and men alike to cast their self-morals aside, and bully others for