Body

A day hardly ever goes by without hearing something about body image in our society. It seems to be all around us today and there is little we can do to avoid it being around us. I don’t like seeing this affecting our society, because I see it changing us in a bad way. In gathering information on just how and why people worry about their body image, ideas on how to prevent this obsess on were also

Body image is an important concept in many adolescent and young adult minds. To have a positive body image is to know that you are beautiful. To be beautiful is to reach the standards of beauty in society. However, society is constantly changing those standards as time goes by. Many young men and women strive to reach the positive, even if it means their health, money, and mind. They have the media, such as magazines to thank for these wonderful standards.

High school graduation rates are not only a public health crisis for the country and there is a local problem with high school graduation rates in this community as well. All non-profit hospitals are required under the Affordable Care Act to conduct a community health needs assessment (CHNA) every three years (Showalter, 2017, p. 446). The CHNA is performed for the entire community, and not just individual organizations and gives a lot of insight in the health needs of the community. The data gathered from the most recent CHNA in 2015 shows that Stark County ranks forty-one out of the eighty-eight states in Ohio in terms of overall health outcomes (County Health Rankings, 2015). The risk factors that are correlated with not graduating high

This source is going to be used specifically to show how body image varies from each individual to the next due to other factors such as those mentioned above. When discussing body image a one size fits all definition and experienced is assigned , but this source will show that no two experiences are the same. The examples in this novel will also be used to show that these differences need to be taken in consideration when starting to find out what method works to help an individual create a more positive body

represented within the studies, thereby reducing selection bias with regards to race. Wang et al. (2013) and Holmedahl et al. (2014) took the measurements at a hospital sleep center. Azuma et al. (2014) obtained study subjects from an urban wholesale company in Japan, with the measurements coming from portable monitors worn at the office and at home over the course of one week. Stanchina et al. (2013) used records from hospital outpatients. The remaining studies used measurements taken from university sleep laboratories.

The controversy over the unrealistic body image portrayed by the culturally iconic Barbie doll has been a topic of interest in sociology for many years. The research on this subject aims to determine the role that Barbie plays, if any, in the prevalence of negative body image and self esteem issues in young girls. The Barbie doll, introduced by Mattel, Inc. in 1959, can easily be considered the most popular doll in the world with 99% of 3 to 10 year olds owning at least one Barbie doll, and an average of eight Barbie dolls each just in the United States (Rogers, 1999). Barbie has received extensive criticism over the years for her ultrathin and highly unattainable body proportions. A majority of the relevant literature has focused on the influence of body ideals on adults, and not enough has been directed towards the impact it may have on children (Brownell & Napolitano, 1994). Some overall trends in the research on the influence of Barbie on young girl’s developing body image and self concept include Barbie’s role in socializing young girls, scaling Barbie dolls to an adult height in order to compare body proportions to real life adults, and conducting studies to assess the impact on body image that exposure to Barbies may produce. The following section will elaborate on these key themes in the current research discussing how the female body image is unrealistically depicted by Barbie dolls.

America is obsessed with body image. In today’s world, you can't go through the day without seeing the television, advertisements, magazines, or really any type of media portraying women's bodies. Due to the immense societal pressure that women should have the “perfect body” to be accepted, the nonstop reminders to change what they look like, struggling with body image has now become a major social phenomenon- and it's time for women to challenge that narrative. Women of all ages are facing face increasing scrutinization over their body image through media influence leading to invasive surgeries, increased depression, and eating disorders.

Body image has become a primary focus for individuals and in some instances is resulting into an obsession, especially in women. Media instills in men and women an ideal body standard causing unrealistic expectations, some resulting to the extremes to obtain the perfect body that is being perceived in order to conform. More and more people are aspiring to become media’s “ideal body image” to be considered attractive. The American media is becoming detrimental to individuals as it is negatively influencing the perception people have of themselves and their bodies.

Robbins et al. (2012) discuss in “Pilot Intervention to Increase Physical Activity Among Sedentary Urban Middle School Girls: A Two-Group Pretest-Posttest Quasi-Experimental Design” whether girls in one school that receive nurse counseling plus after-school physical activity club showed a greater improvement in physical activity, cardiovascular fitness, and body composition than girls in another school assigned to an attention control condition. The purpose was to determine whether intervention provided a significant effect to physical activity, cardiovascular fitness, and body composition. The between-subjects conditions were: the group of girls (n = 38) receiving nurse counseling plus after-school physical activity club versus the

Body image has a huge impact on confidence in today’s society, especially when introduced at a young age. Today, there are various categories of beauty that many people compare themselves to. The list of unrealistic beauty standards could go on and on. For example, the idea that every woman should be “thin”, have “perfect” hair and “flawless” skin, while also dressing well. This idea affects one’s everyday thinking, especially through the products we purchase.

There have been several articles calling attention to the images children are exposed in cartoons, or Disney productions, but what about the toys they play with? In the death grip of my two year old sister, like many other young girls, lies a fairy princess Barbie doll. Barbie has been the toy of choice for girls everywhere since her debut fifty years ago, representing the ideal girl with a perfect life to match that can not be achieved. Barbie and other dolls alike negatively affect young girls causing body image issues and low self-esteem.

In the article, “ Influence of Barbie on Gender Identity” Barbie is considered to have a negative impact on households in America because of the way Barbie looks, discriminated as from other minorities, and the roles she has as a woman which are stereotypes. Many feel as though Barbie gives young girls insecurities at a young age and that when young girls interact with a Barbie they are supposed to act and think in a mature way. One person wrote in this article that Barbie has never influenced her gender identity when she was growing up. She never thought about Barbie as a bad influence. As she stated, “ All I was worried about was whether or not Barbie had all her accessories and looked pretty once I clothed her” (qtd.

In 1959 Mattel Toy releases a womanized figure called Barbie, a doll with unrealistic body proportions. Little girls all over the world idolized this toy, wanting to grow up just like Barbie. The blond hair, skinny waist and blue eyes toy. Parents were thrilled by this toy but little did they know it created a big self-esteem drop and brought their child’s insecurities up.

Body image is a major concern amongst the majority, primarily the youth of the female population, ranging from as young as five years old to tertiary students, ’74.4% of the normal-weight women stated that they thought about their weight or appearance ‘all the time’ or ‘frequently’’ (Brown University, unknown).

Background & Audience Relevance: We are often told that looks don’t matter but the media says otherwise. Many of us spend a great amount of time on digital devices or on television and during that time we come across images of what is known to be the ideal body image.