Body Esteem : The Causes Of Poor Body Image

As a wise man once said, “To love yourself is to understand you don't need to be perfect to be good.” However young girls have so much pressure put on them to look in a way that is not only unrealistic but also unhealthy. As a result of this, young girls have a very negative body image and self-confidence.The problem is the unrealistic body standards that media and society have set for girls. According to SSCC, the average American woman is 5’4 and 140 pounds. There is a clear problem when the media is only advertising women that are 5’11 and 117 pounds, which is the average American model. Even though the body of a model is very rare and uncommon,girls are expected to look like they do. However, by promoting a positive body campaign, stopping the portrayal of fake and photoshopped models in the media, and expanding the diversity of models, we could lift unrealistic body standards and start accepting everybody as beautiful.

Researchers who have done content analysis of girls’ magazines suggest that unrealistic beauty images and focus on traditional femininity may damage girls’ self-esteem. (Melissa A. Milkie. 191). Upon years of looking in the mirror and not liking what they have seen, young women often become unhappy to the point of depression when comparing themselves to those with a more developed body image (Meg Kramer). Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest and affects how you feel, think, behave, and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. Statistics prove that the strongest risk factor for suicide is depression and 15% of those who are clinically depressed die by suicide (ANAD). Constant unhappiness with appearance can cause an individual to have a mental distortion of themselves thinking they are overweight or unattractive and can be perceived as problematic if the individual tries to “fix” themselves. Although some researchers believe that advertisers purposely normalize unrealistically thin bodies, in order to create an unattainable desire that can drive product consumption, the result poses serious potential harm to young women who view the images

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.

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).

Social media creates an ideal body image in an adolescent’s mind that affects them in various ways. Having an ideal body image can lower self-esteem in some adolescents’ creating eating disorders, and this idea of getting plastic surgery as they get older. Social media is steadily increasing and has heavily influenced adolescent’s to be more aware of their body figure. As a result, many adolescent’s have developed low self-esteem due to the fact that social media continues promoting fit women and creating the idea that women need to be thin to be loved or accepted by society; this can cause harm to adolescent’s because they feel the need to fit in to society.

Being a woman of twenty, I know how much this can affect young girls. Body image influences are everywhere, social media, television, magazine and unfortunately for us, the current presidential election. Kim, Kim and Moon describe body image as “a plastic, constantly changing concept, continually modified by bodily growth, trauma, or decline, and significantly influenced by the ever-changing interaction with the social environment” (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). This is an extremely true statement for young girls in today’s society. With the shows on television today and social media such as Instagram and Facebook, everyone is forced to be at their peak physical fitness and look their best all the time. The only way someone can achieve a realistic body image is when their self perceived body weight is the same as their current body weight. An unrealistic body image is the result of their self perceived body weight being different than their current weight (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). What some people fail to realize is how deeply body image can affect a persons emotional being. Having an unrealistic body image can cause people to contract eating disorders, emotional issues, anxiety, low self esteem and finally, depression (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). These feelings can cause suicidal thoughts and behaviors especially in young adults. Multiple studies have presented evidence that adolescents who commit suicide are more likely to have different body attitudes than those who do not, though it is not always the case(Kim, Kim, Moon

It was once said by the common woman, “Zero percent of women haven’t struggled with body image issues.”

The influence of the media on all aspects of culture and society has been a issue around the world. One of the social cultural aspects particularly influenced by the media is body image. A surprisingly large number of individuals, the majority of which are young women, develop their body image in with the ideas advanced by the media, which judge women’s attractiveness based on how thin they are. Body-image plays a very important role in our individualistic society. Modern beauty image standards which favor thin body image create an unrealistic expectation on young women, often resulting in eating disorders and other destructive practices, like self-harming, unnecessary or elective cosmetic surgery, decreased self-esteem and the use of harmful substances, like diuretics.

Body image has become a topic of conversation, with girls as young as five years old. Their conversations consist of their freckled complexion, the color of their hair, and even worse, their weight compared to others. The fact that at such a young age they are already finding concern and dissatisfaction with looks, can be alarming. With images of unattainably thin and flawless bodies scattered all over the media, there is no wonder that our younger generation is questioning their beauty and image. These images appear all around; on bill boards, in magazines, on television

Expectations including unatainable beauty standards with young women being objectified and unrealistically portrayed the most in the media. Everyday we as consumers of media are subjected to these images, morphing our mentalities and leaving individuals that don’t meet society’s expectations and standards particularly vulnerable. The encouragement from the media to embody an impossible image for the majority of women can lead to a number of different mental health problems. Statistically unrealistic images formed and reinforced by the media affect young women and girls more so than their male counterparts in regards to mental illness, particularly disordered eating and body image issues. At one treatment facility for anorexia and bulimia, of 138 patients, only four were male. (Bokind-Lodahl) Nearly all of these 138 patients stated that they had developed an eating disorder because they had wanted to be as physically desirable as possible, to them and many other women in America translating to being as thin as possible. All of the patients were very vulnerable to actual and perceived rejection, however the patients that identified themselves as female were more likely to believe that their bodies and sex must somehow be the reason for that rejection. So why are so many girls and women affected by body image issues? Between the ages of thirteen and

By age six, girls start to think about their weight and become self-conscious. Forty to sixty percent of girls, ages six to twelve, are concerned about being too fat. This idea, caused by society is carried throughout their life, causing self-esteem issues, which can lead to depression. Sixty nine percent of girls who read magazines said that the pictures influenced their idea of an “ideal body”. Forty seven percent said the pictures made them want to lose weight. This idea, that you have to be skinny to the point of starvation, in order to be beautiful, is affecting girls. In fact, only five percent of American women naturally have the body type that is portrayed on advertisements. The average American women according to the NEDA is five foot four weighing 165 pounds, whereas the average Miss America winner is five foot seven weighing 121

As girls begin to hit puberty, their bodies start to change. Their bodies will gain fat and move away from this ideal thin body image (Kerr 2010). In a study done by Clay, Vignoles and Dittmar they showed three groups of adolescent girls magazine images. Two groups viewed magazine covers with female models who were somewhere between underweight or a little below average weight, while the third group viewed magazine covers with inanimate objects. The researchers found that the first two groups resulted in a less likely report of body satisfaction and self-esteem than the third group (2005). This demonstrates that when adolescent girls are exposed to the media’s thinness they feel like their size and shape is not good enough.

Body image crisis is strong evidence which support the idea that media negatively affect the psychology and behavior of children and teenagers. There is an inherent interconnection between the modern media and body image. Today’s media creates stereotypes of perfect bodies which make children and teenagers who do not fit the image lose confidence in them and become depressed. Perfect women according to modern magazines and television should be thin and perfect men should be with large muscles. Children and teenager are not aware of the fact that images that are show in the media are often edited with Photoshop and that everyone is beautiful in his or her own way. These are the reason why they are influenced more by perfect images in the media

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

According to a study performed by Brown and Witherspoon, “on average, a child or adolescent watches up to 5 hours of television per day and spends an average of 6 to 7 hours viewing various media combined” (Morris and Katzman 1).Young people consume huge amounts of media per day, more than most other groups. This statistic means that they are exposed to standards in the media a lot more, allowing for the media to have a pretty heavy impact on them. Not only are adolescents more exposed to the media, but they are also at a very impressionable time in their lives. A lot of young women and girls think that they are overweight, even if most of them are within normal weight ranges; “44% of adolescent girls believed they were overweight and 60% were actively trying to lose weight,” according to one study (Morris and Katzman 2). Even without accounting for the possible effect of the media, negative body image or low self-esteem is an epidemic amongst a lot of young girls that have no physical reason to lose weight. But because young girls are the most impressionable group of people, there is a veritable plethora of possible causes to the increase in negative body image in adolescents that may include the