Analysis Of Disney 's ' The Outer Shell Of Innocence '

Body image encompasses how we perceive our bodies, how we feel about our physical experience as well as how we think and talk about our bodies, our sense of how other people view our bodies, our sense of our bodies in physical space, and our level of connectedness to our bodies. Over the past three decades, while America has gotten heavier, the "ideal woman" presented in the media has become thinner. Teenagers are the heaviest users of mass media, and American women are taught at a young age to take desperate measures in the form of extreme dieting to control their

Modern people live media-saturated lives, even children as young as 6 years old, have had some type of media exposure. Extensive exposure to media outlets can lead to body image issues. Body image is defined as, the subjective picture or mental image of one's own body (Smolak 2003). Body image is formed as people compare themselves to others. Because, people are exposed to countless media images; these images become the basis for such comparisons. These mental comparisons, have a strong influence on an individual’s personal perception of beauty. Media outlets create images and pressures about what our bodies should look like; however, sometimes these images have been manipulated, creating an unrealistic expectation of beauty. When an individual believes that their body is substandard, they can become depressed, suffer from low self-esteem, or develop eating disorders.

Women’s Body Image (www.wellesley.edu/Health/BodyImage) helped demonstrates the young influence of magazines. Those days when girls strive to be something they weren’t, were probably the most crucial days in body imaging. They succumbed into the pressure of looking how everyone else wants them to look. Such teeny bopper magazines sell to many young girls the idea of beauty. Teen Magazine is the princess of that royal court. In every young woman, or man’s mind, there is this longing to be desired. To be desired, you must be attractive. To be attractive, you have to look like that girl on page seventy-one in the latest Teen Magazine (Women’s Body Image).

In fact, “...Barbie is so exceptionally thin that her weight and her body proportions are not only unattainable but also unhealthy”( Dittmar, Halliwell, and Ive 283). This fact creates potentially dangerous situation for young girl to be influenced to emulate an unattainable body type. One particular research study conducted by Helga Dittmar, Emma Halliwell, and Suzanne Ive in 2006, found out that young girls, ages 5 to 8-years-old, who were exposed to Barbie, experienced self-esteem and body issues. “This is the first study in which an experimental exposure paradigm has been used with young children, thus offering a methodologically rigorous examination of Barbies as a cause of girls’ feeling of unhappiness with their bodies and their desire to be thinner” (Dittmar, Halliwell, and Ive 283). When 162 U.K girls, ages 5 to 8, were given picture books with either no pictures of bodies whatsoever, images of Barbies, or images of Emme (a doll with realistic body proportion), they young girls who looked at the books were more unhappy with their body image than those girls who read Emme or non body books (Diep par.4-5). Their study did not find these same finding in the oldest girl, however the evidence that Barbie is not influencing this younger population of girls, still points to the need for some type of change as this early pattern of looking up to an unrealistic body image

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%

We all in some point of our lives been, so delighted with a fairy tale movie or a book, but do not think about the drastic consequence it is portraying on having an ideal body image? Over, the decades we have seen how fairy tales have impacted every individual. From having our great grandparents to our parents reading and watching fairy tales at a very young age. Fairy Tales have been a great phenomenon for a very long time. With the making of Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, and much more loved by many people. As time his passing, people are realizing that fairy tales are affecting young girls at a very young age. Targeting mainly their body image. Body image is really important for many girls because they need to be up to date with the fashion trends society is putting out there. Now, a day’s many Fairy Tales movies are being created in looking slim, pretty, blonde, long beautiful dress, and perfect with no imperfection. In creating these false expectations on how a girl is supposed to look is drastically changing their minds. Also, is affecting their self-esteem in being low, due to not being satisfied with their body. Young girls want to be a princess because they have everything and receive all the attention. Having the characteristic of a princess is changing girls in evolving a false identity. In having a perfect body like a princess is causing other girls to not fit in because they do not fit in the category of perfect. Although, some accept

Flawless images used throughout the media saturate young girl’s minds, highlighting superlative women. For teenage girls this is hard to ignore with the line between fantasy and reality skewed my mass media and stress placed on obtaining an idealistic body portrait. In modern, Western society children are constantly bombarded with images of a false nature: many of which are photo-shopped to remove ‘imperfections’. But one of the most outraging/staggering facts is that children are not unaware of the demeaning and derogatory methods used by the media with ‘81% of 10 year olds scared of becoming fat’ (World Health Organisation) showing that the prominence of the media is becoming ever more apparent.

As a child, young girls saw Disney princesses with unrealistic body proportions, which in turn led them to thinking that to be a princess one would have to be as thin as them. These standards worsened as time went on, and it has had extremely negative effects on developing young girls. Things such as eating disorders have exponentially increased due to the "need" to be skinny. Thousands of girls look into mirrors and only see "flaws" created by the media's definition of beauty. Women should not define their beauty by how their bodies looks, especially when those standards are set at such unrealistic levels. The fact that even today these unreasonable beauty standards still thrive is sad, and their must be change. The only way for change to happen is to change the beauty standards, and show women that they are all beautiful. With the increased access and use of technology over the past decade, the media's representation of beauty through the use of photoshopped images, underweight models, and unrealistic beauty standards, have had an increasingly negative impact on young girls and how they

The portrayal of women in the media is destroying positive body image in young girls. According to Sarah Grogan, body image is “a person’s perceptions, thoughts and feelings about his or her body”. The media sends the message, from very early on, that what is most important is the way women look to the heterosexual male gaze, and that their value and their worth depends on that. It is easy to understand that the media perpetuates an unattainable beauty standard, but what is more difficult is realising how that affects our adolescents.

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

Anxiety, a stage of fear and worry, has ensued in an increase of depressive moods in young women. In the findings of Berg, et al, the study has demonstrated that same-sex body competition among young females with magazine or TV models can result in a negative self-evaluation of one’s body and depressive moods (264). This indicates that competition of body shape among female adolescents can guide them to feel pressured by the expectations of their body, worry about who looks better, and eager to obtain the ideal body image. Philip Myers and Frank Biocca, researcher associates and directors, agree with Berg et al when they argue that “contrast between one’s real and ideal body may lead to the depressive and unhappy views of their present body, discontented views found among many dieting women but especially those with eating disorder” (129). In other words, Myers and Biocca believe that comparison between the actual and the ideal body illustrated by the media can lead to depression and eating disorders because a female’s goal is to obtain the ideal body seen on TV shows and

The importance of the body image and what is considered to be the ‘ideal’ body are two of the primary factors that contribute to the negative affect of the media on the teenage society of today.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the depiction of beauty in animated Disney Princess movies and consequences the portrayal of beauty has on young girl’s individual self-esteem. This study includes one general hypothesis. The hypothesis states that young girls who idealize the beauty standards of Disney Princesses will have lower self-esteem than young girls who do not idealize their standard of beauty. I expected that young girls who have the desire to mimic Disney Princesses will have lower self-esteem because the beauty standards of Disney Princess are impossible to obtain; therefore, their perception of beauty will become extremely faltered, which will lead to a decrease in their self-esteem levels and a negative perception of their body image compared to Disney Princesses. Young girls with higher expectations regarding beauty standards, self-esteems will be negatively impacted due to the “beauty-goodness” stereotype presented in animated Disney films, for Disney films portray beauty over all human attributes, which skews young girl’s perception of beauty and their overall self-image. This study is similar to an experiment conducted by Bazzini et al.

Ever since the Disney Princesses were created, they have all had the same body shape: tremendously skinny. With the Disney Princesses becoming the largest girls franchise in the world, there is no denying the impact it can have on such young girls. These girls long for recognition and beauty, and expect nothing less than their favorite Disney Princess to reassure them of the perfect lifestyle they need in order to achieve their perfect lives. In our society today, girls are becoming over sexualized at a much younger age than normal. One’s physical appearance plays a significantly larger role today than it ever has before. With this in mind, I have decided to conduct research on how the Disney Princesses have impacted an individual’s outward appearance and body image. The Disney Princesses have always been a form of innocence for young girls. However, while it’s clear that the majority of people adore the Disney Princesses, still, most can see the impact it can produce on young girls that will follow them into adulthood.

From very early childhood young boys and girls are showered with the idea of “thin is beautiful”. Disney has been a household name for decades, and the company’s animated movies are treasured around the world. However, every princess depicted by Disney has a slim frame; but, that is not the only problem, their already slim appearance along with the even thinner waistline and virtually no curves provide children a glimpse of the impossible standards that will be seen repeatedly into their adult lives. The company prides itself on having strong, passionate princesses to show girls that anyone can be strong. Nonetheless, Disney does nothing to assist girls feel like the princesses shown in their movies. It appears that