Body Image Affecting Young Adolescents

Throughout history, body image has been determined by various factors, one of them being the media. In the article “How Social Media Is a Toxic Mirror,” written by Rachel Simmons, she shares the story of a woman who admits to being afraid of leaving her apartment without putting on makeup. “I don’t get to choose how I’m going to leave my apartment today,” one young woman told me, “If I could, my body would look different. But I cant choose which picture makes my arms look thinner” (Simmons). One word: Fear. The woman fears the opinion of others. She second guesses herself before she steps foot outside her apartment building. It displays the lack of confidence she has towards herself as an individual and the control the media has over her. The author goes on to discuss how teenagers look up to social media by obsessing over how many likes

These pressures from social media outlets are always be presented in a variety of ways in attempts to appeal to everyone. Many of the ways perfection is demonstrated is having the perfect body size. “Media … help[s] to create the context within which people learn to place a value on the size and shape of their body." (De Encio) Once the outlet reaches a person and gets its point across, the person then comes to realization with their issue. Outlets such as America’s Next Top Model and stores like Victoria’s Secret exploit the importance of perfection in order to capitalize on the insecurities of society. The informative nature of these platforms are the reasons why approximately 42% of girls between the ages of 6 and 8 want to be thinner. This appalling statistic expresses the inhumane expectations in which society creates for itself. Man only realizes that all of the faults inside them are turning them into a perfection craving zombie, oblivious to everything else. Man created this laziness as a side effect to complete this taylor-made cycle. The infinite loop that perceives an

Is the media to blame for young women becoming obsessed with their body image? Is the media becoming so prevalent in young women's lives that it is altering the way they see their own body and affecting the way they feel about themselves?

“ The media needs to take responsibility for the effect it has on our younger generation....why aren’t we regulating things like calling people fat”(Lawrence)? The actress Jennifer Lawrence expressed her opinion on what she believes, that the media is responsible for the damaging body image that has affected the younger generation. Considering this, recently there have been more studies and research on what has formed this ideal body.Also, the research conducted uncovered that the famous doll Barbie is one of the main reasons for the desire to have an unrealistic body. The negative body image in female adolescents has been affected by the influence of impossible body types in the media such as the doll “Barbie” and characters in popular

In this current time period, young girls are becoming increasingly obsessed with body image. The mass media’s intense objectification of the female body combined with poor representation of differing body types it becomes substantially difficult for young girls to view their bodies as anything less than an object. Participating in an athletic activity such as running, helps girls appreciate the practical use of their bodies instead of viewing them aesthetically.

What is body image? A two-dimensional model of body image incorporates both perceptual and emotional components. It focuses on both how we feel about the size and shape of our bodies and how accurately we perceive our body size as well. A more recent cognitive approach suggests that body image is a complex set of cognitive schema. A schema is a grouped body of knowledge. Groups of schema are readily available for important tasks such as guiding behavior, circumstantial scripts (or dialogue), and evoking the appropriate emotional, somatic, visual, and auditory responses in certain situations. The cognitive schema for body image is an organized domain of knowledge about oneself and others.

What good does making a human being appear skinny do for society? Why would a photographer transform a woman's countenance when her true natural beauty is what viewers long to see? How does presenting a woman smaller than her true size affect teenagers in today’s society? These questions are what society struggles with daily when one looks at a magazine, images of celebrities, billboards, or anywhere in the media. Photoshopping, a new artform, has taken over the media and has achieved high amounts of popularity. This trenchant art has also taken over the lives of teenagers in a controversial way. By studying and watching the manner in which one’s body can be edited, altered, trimmed, even manipulated in a simple photograph, one is able to determine

When females view images of the idealized thin woman, they often alter their eating habits in attempt to match the unrealistic photo they have witnessed. Every girl strives to be and feel beautiful. In consequence, when they see an image wherein it is so appraised and approved of, and they do not match that image whether it is of facial features or especially body size, they feel as if they are not good enough nor attractive themselves. The Kardashians, for example, have bodies that everyone approves of, but they achieve this in unnatural ways such as surgery or expensive medicines that makes them lose weight. They are extremely rich, unlike many people, and therefore have more money to maintain the body that is on social media and that everyone admires so much. Many people, whether they are fans or not, then attempt to appear as those harmfully deceiving photos by attempting to lose weight fast and easy, which is often the harmful way to go. Instead of exercising

I am an “old head”, so I have been through this not only with myself, but with my son, stepson, and step daughter. And my boys had it the most difficult. We are very slender in stature, my boys don’t have big chest, “six pack” stomaches, however they are teller then me. I watch them criticize themselves and their bodies, my step daughter too, but not so much as the boys. I thank God everyday that today they are happy, healthy adults.

The models in various ads generally picture the feminine and masculine identity in an unrealistic way. In the article “How Real is Reality TV,” Snow tries to slim down in order fit into her wedding gown. During the show, Snow says, “They portrayed me as an overindulgent pig, like all I do is eat my face out.” Although many advertisers do promote uniqueness and individuality, they still corroborate the fashion trends. In this article, the show promotes a healthy diet and workout, but simultaneously it forces the audience to think “the slimmer the better,” as they exaggerate her normal sized body into being obese. Many teens intake such messages and reflect it upon their body size, shape or

How would you feel if you were being manipulated on your body image, rather than your talent, and beauty? Beauty is skin deep, but in the understanding of fashion industries, modeling businesses they believe that beauty is physical appearance. Fashion industries, modeling businesses are more than just clothing and making young teenage girls lives better. In fact, every teenage girl who is interacting with the fashion world is often being manipulated to look a certain way. Teenage girls are being pressured into a surreal ideal weight to becoming perfect for their industries. Teenage girls are trying to strive for perfection without realizing the negative side to their actions. While these teenage girls are facing huge difficulties, the fashion

This experiment involved girls, 6-10 years old, playing with dolls with various body proportions. After that they had a taste-test and filled out a questionnaire about body image. This study concluded that playing with thin dolls affected the girls eating behavior. They found that girls ate less food when playing with a thin doll then when played with an average sized doll. The researchers showed evidence that the physical appearance of a model can influence the ‘normative’ standard of food intake in an eating context. This is evidence that what might seems as just harmless children toys can have a serious effect on young girls. This helps my argument that these toys do have serious consequences. Although this particular study does not really

These are the women that are likely to go through extremes trying to achieve the “acceptable look”.   These days there are so many things that a women can do to make herself more beautiful. Women with low self esteem are more likely to buy and wear more make up, to enhance the beauty in their face, extensions to enhance the length or thickness of their hair, and contact lens to change the color of their eyes. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. One of the current trends on social media is called the Kylie Jenner Challenge. Kylie Jenner is a television reality star with what are considered very full beautiful lips. This trend challenges teens to swell their lips to massive sizes using bottles or shot glasses. To complete the challenge the participants place their mouth in anything with a narrow opening, and suck as hard as they can until your lips swell to achieve what’s called the “bee-sting pout”. Young girls and women then take to facebook, instagram, and twitter to post their results, Many regretting their decision. This challenge causes extensive bruising and bleeding of the lips. There are also waist trainers to help form a smaller waist, some women even where padded panties to give the illusion of a bigger butt to resemble Kim Kardashian. These are just some of the things that support the

Did you know that over 90% of girls ages 15-17 want to change at least one thing about their body? Body image can hurt self esteem, and even cause eating disorders. The media affects how you think about yourself. Body image has a big effect on teenagers.

The media is constantly rating women on their clothes, appearance, and hair. For example in people magazine there is a section called Best Dressed and Worst Dressed, in this section they out the top ten best clothing worn and top ten worst dressed. Women in the media are constantly being graded on hair, makeup, and clothes and society does not accept them for their accomplishments. The media also shows a lack of tolerance towards overweight or thicker women. Women who are heavier or are looked as being heavy are an easy target to the media. Keeping up with the Kardashians star, Khloe Kardashian, is constantly attacked of being heavy compared to her siblings, she finally broke down in tears explaining her discomfort. “I’m so tired of pretending that I’m happy with my weight to be a good role model, because I’m disgusting”( Khloe Kardashian breaks down in tears). Another group of women who receive a lack of tolerance and are being attacked are ones who are “not sexy”. Women are pressured to wear clothing that makes them look “sexy” but women who are not good enough are made fun of wearing something out of their comfort zone. "Lady GaGa, for example, walking around in her bra and knickers and being really sexy but still she's not sexy at all, to me” (Lady GaGa is not sexy).