Body Image vs. Media

Every time you flip a magazine, change channels, or go online, you are struck with images of models who are super skinny with flashy outfits and have excessive make-up on. Ads not only try to sell their products, but also promote how females should look like. These models are airbrushed and photo shopped which is false advertisement. The media progressively encourages a thinner body image as the ideal for women. We see advertisements every day. Some of these ads use manipulative strategies that influence our choices and spending habits. For example, “One in every three articles in leading teen girl magazines included a focus on appearance, and most advertisements used appeal to beauty to sell their products.”(Teen Health) To grab the viewers’ attention, especially females, they include

In our society today a business is not a business without an advertisement. These advertisements advertise what American’s want and desire in their lives. According to Jack Solomon in his essay, “Master’s of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon claims: “Because ours is a highly diverse, pluralistic society, various advertisements may say different things depending on their intended audiences, but in every case they say something about America, about the status of our hopes, fears, desires, and beliefs”(Solomon). Advertisers continue to promote the American dream of what a women’s body should look like. They advertise their products in hopes for consumers to buy them, so they can look like the models pictures in the ads. Behind these ads, advertisers tend to picture flawless unrealistic woman with the help of Photoshop. In our society today to look like a model is an American dream and can be the reasons why we fantasizes and buy these products being advertised. “America’s consumer economy runs on desire, and advertising stokes the engines by transforming common objects;signs of all things that Americans covet most”(Solomon).

There are no questions to whether the media has influenced the self-consciousness people have on their body or not. Whether it is the front of a magazine cover or in a film or television show, the selection of models or actors are primarily thin or fit leading readers and viewers to worry or want to change the way their body looks. Body image is the way one sees oneself and imagine how one looks. Having a positive body image means that most of the time someone sees themselves accurately, and feels comfortable in their body; negative body image, what the media exemplifies for the majority of the time, is just the opposite. The media uses unrealistic standards of beauty and bodily perfection to drive ordinary people to be dissatisfied with their body image which can result in the search to obtain these unreachable goals.

For many years the media has been blasted as the cause of numerous negative events that continue to happen in our society. Anti-media supporters have placed the blame for increased violence in the nation on media’s exposure to violent entertainment shows and movies. Media’s promotion of the thin ideal in female models and actors as well as media’s use of very muscular male models and actors may perpetuate the idea that the average person should either be skinny or muscular. An average person who is not skinny or muscular may feel as though they are not living up to society standards which greatly effects their emotional self-esteem. However not every person encountered indicates they are negatively affected by media’s emphasis on skinny or muscular people.

Constantly seeing women and young girls with “perfect” bodies in advertising makes other women feel as though they should go to unhealthy extremes to try and achieve those same looks.

Mental health is a big part of obesity many children are suffering from disorders like depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and even suicide attempts. With the way media portrays body image today it is hard for a child to not get discouraged. Women in magizes are photo shopped and air brushed to look as skinny as possible, men are photo shopped and air brushed to look toned and fit. Young men, women and children look at these photos and see an unrealistic person. With that they set unrealistic goals and end up harming themselves in the end. By forming eating disorders and mental disorders, eating disorders by trying to archive a body type that is not real and mental disorders by looking at the results of not having that body type. Children

The issue of distorting body image in the media and its effects on people is not a new concept to modern time. There is a long history of body image’s powerful place in society because of people’s impressions of each other based on body image. Research has been done on the effects and outcomes of this issue. Recently, consumers have fought with the media to try and achieve a safer way to spread information and let these media outlets be successful without having severe impacts on adolescents especially, among other age groups. The general ethical principle that the stakeholders use in this fight is similar to utilitarianism, because each stakeholder believes they are bringing the greatest good to the greatest number of people. The stakeholders

Body image remains to be a very controversial topic in today’s society, because of how easy it is to become a hate crime over a small comment on how small or big someone’s body is. Today, it is unavoidable to see the look that it seems society wants us to look. Professor Susan Bordo writes the article, “Never Just Pictures”, describing her investigation between the media and its effects on how people view their bodies. She uses ethos, logos, and pathos to bring in the attention of the people, in order to get her message across to be aware of media and how they portray the ideal body image. Bordo notes the patterns of the different types of models that magazines and commercial ads use, to say that even though they have changed the face of beauty, they never really changed the body of it. And she analyzes the affects that these ads have on how people view their bodies, and alter what the ‘ideal’ body image is. Bordo uses other sources to prove her argument mainly allowing readers to have more reasons to side with her argument. Having reviewed this article, I think that we should publish this article in the Shorthorns, because it will attract the attention of most people, since right now young people still struggle with differentiating between what is a real body and what is a body that has been altered for the likes of what the media likes.

Teens often feel flawed if their bodies do not match up to those of models and actors. Media’s portrayal of women is a mirror image of what society wants teenagers to look like. Advertisements often stress sexuality and the importance of being physically attractive in an attempt to sell products, however people are concerned that this is pressure on women to focus on their appearance.Photoshop and airbrush are currently at their extreme such programs have existed for removing minor imperfection such as stray hairs, the advancement in technology has made it possible to manipulate an image creating unrealistic perfection. Celebrities are airbrushed to perfection on their album or movie covers but it is not actually them. Aside from enlarging eyes,trimming thighs, and airbrushing away wrinkles, more dramatic measures are now taken Images were not inclined to the manipulation with Photoshop and airbrushing which create images as it is seen today. Magazines did not start airbrush and Photoshop their models until the 1980s. In the fifties, models like Marilyn Monroe would grace the weekly covers but they would have been seen as overweight by today’s

The women in the advertisements and the magazines are 20 percent thinner and about six inches taller than the average woman, so they are not accurate representations of the average female. This gives the females who are exposed to this altered material a false sense of reality. Since the majority of female models have the same body type, women are given the impression that that is how the average women should look, but little do they know, most of those models are underweight and can be considered Anorexic. Advertisement not only digitally alter, airbrush and Photoshop the women in their images, they also objectify them.

What we have yet to understand is that this sort of beauty is not real. Everyone can obtain a personally healthy weight, but this does not mean every individual will be “skinny”. And not every individual will have perfect skin, glossy hair, white teeth, and glimmering eyes. But, because society still struggles to accept those who do not look like supermodels, the concept of beauty will continue to be distorted.

Body image is a huge issue around the world. It has affected so many teens,adults,and children all around the world. Since many people are so use to seeing media images,it becomes their basis or their main idea for how their body should look like. If people don't say anything or speak up, future generations of body image will get worse, increasing the amount of stress on young children.

Many forms of media portray women in different ways. Between advertising and produced media women appear all over the place. Many companies try and make these women come in many different shapes, sizes, colors, and age. However, a lot of these women are portrayed in a very objectified manner. In some adds you continuously see women dress in next to no clothes and although they try to make the women diverse in different ways, it seems that they always hover around attempting to show the perceived “perfect women”. How do these women affect the way female viewers look at themselves? Does it Have a harsh effect on their body image, or does it give them irrational ideas for their idea of beauty? All these questions tie together and can make one

The ultimate goal for the media aims to persuade viewers to buy a product by creating the idea that there is some special value in the product by using powerful influences in their advertisements. Sponsors that fund the products are often powerful with a lot of money and try to find out, through research, the types of values that will persuade the audience to buy their products. This is usually through the use of constant changes in the standards of beauty that influences a person’s body image. Body image is defined as a person's inner conception of his or her own physical appearance (Definition). Every person strives to look like their ideal image of perfection. If a person is happy with their appearance and body shape, then they have a positive

What is the real need to have to have unhealthy looking girls on the cover of everything? There isn’t, no reasons that are important anyway. I know that some people don’t get it, they don’t get the problem with it, they don’t put the two and two together that the reason that all of those rates are going up, are a result to the things that are exposed with body image. The magazines, the internet, the famous celebrities, the actors on television, the everything. The facts about Media Influence on Body Image: 69% of girls in 5th – 12th grades reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape – National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders