A Culture Of Perfection : Media 's Influence On Adolescents

It is no secret that today’s society defines beauty as thin, long-legged women with statuesque bodies. Examples are found everywhere just by glancing at the closest magazine ads or by scrolling down the latest fashion article online. Normal, everyday women are being forgotten and tossed aside to make room for the “Top-Model”-like women currently crowding up Hollywood. Media depicts women as an unattainable image. They pressure ladies to buy the products they’re advertising; luring them with false advertisements promising that with it, they too could be perfect. While the media portrays women in a certain way for advertising and marketing benefits, it has caused numerous negatives effects to women’s self-esteems nationwide, it contradicts

Under society’s customs for decades, young women have found themselves immersed in the pressure and anticipation to have exemplary bodies. Nearly every young woman prefers to be slim, have a perfectly shaped body, that is beautified by applying pounds of makeup to their face but does not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these measures imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless, naturally it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the that model. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough, our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a surging subject for young girls. Advertisements and pictures of lean female models are all over. Young women are measured and perplexed by their physical appearances with attire intended to raise their physical structures; social media, magazines, the society, marketing campaigns, advertisements, and the fashion gurus add to a strand of excellence.

Throughout their lives, women of all ages are constantly being bombarded with advertisements convincing them they must meet an ideal of the perfect body image. This is all thanks to companies that share a common goal to influence the mainstream population into believing they need to purchase certain products in order to compare to the impossible standards set by the beauty industry. In Dave Barry’s “Beauty and the Beast” he displays that it is planted in young girls minds that they need to look, dress, feel, and even act a certain way. However, men aren’t as affected by these capitalistic marketing schemes. In short, the media has affected the way women think of themselves.

Furthermore, media surrounds teenage girls in today’s culture. It is impossible to escape the sight of media. The media’s constant idealistic beauty is ever present to a vast amount of self-conscious girls. This image of beauty causes girls to have low self-esteem (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar). Media defining this perfect body image causes many adolescent girls to feel dissatisfied with their bodies and become depressed. “Viewing ultra-thin or average-size models led to decreases in both body satisfaction and self-esteem in adolescent girls aged eleven to sixteen, with changes in self-esteem fully mediated by changes in body satisfaction” (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar).

Mass media is effective in teaching us what we “should” look like. Women should be thin. Men should be muscular. The skinny and muscular ideals portrayed in advertising encourage men and women to look a certain way. The depiction of the female ideal has helped shaped society’s perspectives about beauty. The media pushes you to “improve your body” by buying their products but soon the road to a skinny and toned body leads to a self destructive path of self hatred. The powerful ideas that the media transmits through words, images, and movement can have lasting impacts on the human brain, affecting how we think and

Under society’s norms for decades, young women have been put under the pressure and anticipation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin and curved, beautified by applying pounds of the makeup to their face but not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these standards imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model along the cover of Vogue being called flawless, it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the photocopy. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a pressing issue for young women. Advertisements and posters of skinny female models are all over. Young girls not only could be better but need to be more upright and feel driven to throw the perfect figure. Moreover, girls are evaluated and oppressed by their physical appearances. With supplements and apparel designed to enhance a facial expression; social media, magazines, and marketing campaigns and advertisements add to the burden of perfection. The fashion industry is a prime object of body image issues, as they believe clothes look better on tall and svelte women. Established on a survey participated by 13 to 17-year-old in the U.S., 90% “felt pressured by fashion and media industries to be skinny”, with more than 60% routinely compares themselves to models, while 46%

Many people have a habit of asking others on the internet for opinions on what they look like. This creates body image anxieties. At the same time, women were being more objectified in media, with an extreme emphasis placed on their bodies (Klein). Some people believe that the answer to body anxiety is to give a bigger range of body examples in the media. Dr. Phillipa Diedrichs, University of West of England’s Centre for Appearance Research, said,“The more time spent on Facebook, the more likely people are self-objectify.” Media is everywhere, so telling them to ignore it is not going to work. Steps could be taken to help girls to not compare themselves to the unrealistic

Media in regards to tv social media, news broadcasts, magazines, and all other forms in which are presented on a widespread coverage to society. The documentary explains how from an early age girls get the message that their value, their worth, and their potential for success depends on their looks. On the flipside boys are getting the message from an early age that looks and how a girl dresses is what important. They bring up the idea of how when one considers the “ideal women” their capacity of education, knowledge, life experiences, strength, and who they are as a person are often left out. The ideal women is typical in regards to her looks alone in regards to weight, height, hair color, skin color, and the way in which she dresses”. As mainstream media grows larger and wider, girls are becoming increasingly self-conscious at younger and younger ages and the shelter in which we try to protect young children is become harder to maintain. A group of young high school women were interviewed about the challenges they have faced as a result of mainstream media and their peers and the results were shocking. Every flaw one could bring up from being told they were ‘too skinny’. 'too fat’, their natural hair was ‘too nappy’, their skin was ‘too pale and so forth’. Society is teaching women all the things that are wrong with themselves and not paying any attention to how it is effecting women of this generation and already playing such a

The media is our source of constant information, and is presented in many forms such as, daily newscasts, social media like Facebook, and the magazines strategically placed in our doctor’s office. There is no surprise that it is also the dominant influence when it comes to society’s beauty standard either. Unfortunately media isn’t a positive influence all the time, and is the main force behind negative body image epidemic that plagues women, especially the 18-25 age group. In order to fully understand the severity of what some call a “Vanity” issue we must look into the facts of how exactly the media damages women’s perception of their own bodies, and then observe the extent of the damage done to the physical and mental states of these women

Researchers have discovered that “ongoing exposure to certain ideas can shape and distort our perceptions on reality.” (Mintz 2007) Because young girls are subjected to a constant display of beautiful people in the media, they have developed a negative body image of themselves. Those who have a negative body image perceive their body as being unattractive or even hideous compared to others, while those with a positive body image will see themselves as attractive, or will at least accept themselves and be comfortable in their own skin. During adolescence, negative body image is especially harmful because of the quick changes both physically and mentally occurring during puberty. Also, young girls are becoming more and more exposed to the media and the media keeps getting more and more provocative. Young girls are looking to women with unrealistic body shapes as role models. It’s hard to find, in today’s media, a “normal” looking

Images of female bodies are everywhere. Women, and their bodies, sell everything from food to cars. Women's magazines are full of articles urging women to fit a certain mold. While standing in a grocery store line you can see all different magazines promoting fashion, weight loss, and the latest diet. Although the magazines differ, they all seemingly convey the same idea: if you have the perfect body image you can have it all…the perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career. The media, whether TV, print, or Internet advertising, seems to play a huge role in influencing women of all ages; from adolescence and teens, to women in their twenties and thirties, as well as

The ever evolving social media platforms are constantly allowing teens the opportunities to compare themselves to unrealistic versions of the human figure. Apps that can airbrush everything from waist lines to teeth provide unrealistic comparison. Teenage girls who spend nine and a half hours a day on some sort of technology with access to social media are having a harder and harder time separating the ways their body should look and the way media thinks they should look. The article expresses concern for the rate of which sources of comparisons for teenage girls’ bodies are multiplying. Celebrities are no longer the only source of

Because money is the primary concern, “corporations play on the insecurities of teens by making them believe that to be really ‘in’ they must have their product” (Berg 239). The idea of being alienated from peers is enough to motivate an impressionable young girl to purchase an advertised product solely to attempt fitting in with others. There has been a dramatic increase in eating disorders and distorted body image since the rise of media. “So great is the pressure to achieve a certain look, the percentage of girls in the United States who are ‘happy with the way I am’ drops from 60 percent in elementary school to 29 percent during high school because of the pressure to achieve a certain look” (Berg 268). Young girls and women are made to believe that “these beauty standards are actually empowering” (Douglas 214). By focusing heavily on looks as a determinant of self-worth, females have begun to believe that the words “sexy” and “strong” are synonymous. Sadly, few women are seeking strength and empowerment through focusing their energy in more positive places. The qualities that make a person good on the inside, such as intelligence and kindness, have been put on the back

Over the years a debate over who is to blame over the decline in how girls perceive themselves has arisen. With Photoshop being the societal norm concerning the media, it has become difficult for many to understand where the line between real and near impossible standards lies. Youths see an image edited to “perfection” and strive to reach the standards that they imagine due to the images displayed on magazines, television and social media. From Disney to magazines like Vogue the mass media bombards audiences with fake beauty that they, as normal people, will never be able to achieve. The mass media is responsible for causing the rise in the number of people with a poor body image, eating disorders, and cosmetic surgeries.

The unrealistic standards of beauty is hurting this generation of what the media and society thinks a girl has to look like, for many years the media has been trying to construct the ideal image of what a “perfect woman” should look like. They believe there only beautiful if they have long legs, great hair, and curves in the right places (HuffingtonPost2017). Which is not the influence that we want to carry down to future generations of girls who feel like they must live up to the expectations of girls who have the “perfect body”. With media apps being popular in the 21st century, there was a survey done on some of the top media apps, their study #statusofmind surveyed almost 1,500 young people aged 14 to 24 on how certain media apps impact health ( CableNewsNetwork 2017). Body images statistics say 80% of woman say images,