Chris Tognotti's Home Is Where The Heart

Body image has changed throughout the years. The feeling that you have to have this perfect body has grown. Body image is an issue in today’s society especially through the media outlets.

As with females, body image among males is a prevailing symptom and underlying motivation for the development and continuation of the disorder.

Women are insecure. They constantly diet and scrutinize their bodies. They fall victims to the anorexically thin models appearing in the media. Why do men have it so easy? For years these questions are what women asked themselves. In a world where appearance is everything, women have been the main source of all the hype concerning the image and body. Advertisements have been criticized for years about putting the pressures of the “perfect” body into the heads of millions of women. Up until a few years ago, it was believed that only women had the eyes of society on them. Now the scales are balancing. More men are beginning to feel pressured, by the same society, to

Everyone has dealt with body image at some point in their life. Personally, I was always the tall, skinny kid. I could not gain weight no matter how hard I tried. I never had a negative mindset about my body image, but I did want to alter it in order to look like the models on the Abercrombie & Fitch bags or the guys in the gym commercials. Other than personal reasons, this topic interests me because of the attention that females have received about changing body image stereotypes. This effects men as well, but it is not as prominent an issue.

This raises the question about gender difference and the concept of body image and prevalence of

“Evolving Ideals of Male Body Image as Seen Through Action Toys” points out clearly that this pressure to conform exists for men today as well as for women. While Barbie dolls and GI Joe action figures are not the one and only reason that the majority of people feel insecure about how they look, they are a piece to the much larger puzzle. It is speculated that it takes a large number of combined factors that cause a specific person feel insecure about how they look. Countless times it is something that we unknowingly see or hear that effect how we think about ourselves. If we are always self-concise about how we look we are more likely to buy something that we observe in an advertisement, which claims to transform us to look better. Unfortunately the images that we have and are trying to obtain are unobtainable, so as a result, we continue to invest and spend time in pursuit of this alleged

When we look into the mirror we constantly pick at our insecurities; our stomach, thighs, face, and our body figure. Society has thought us that there is only one right way of looking despite the fact that we are all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Luckily we have corporations that shove detrimental products to fix our perfect imperfection. The easiest and most common thing to do is blame the advertising industries and corporations. It is not wrong to say that they are in part responsible but we can’t make this issue go away until we talk about patriarchy.

Body image issues are actually old news with a lot of people struggling about their personal appearance while growing up. With the power of media, it is very impossible for anyone not to feel any insecurities at all – including young men.

The amount of males that are unsatisfied with their bodies has tripled in the last twenty-five years. According to Helen Fawkner, doctor of philosophy, it has increased from fifteen percent of the male population to forty-five percent. It is an extremely severe problem that most people are not aware of. It can lead to suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and eating disorders, but the majority of people think that males do not have to worry about it as much as females. However, they have the same amount of pressure to have the perfect figure as females, it is just not delineated. Body image and eating disorders are not just female problems, men go through the same issues.

Body image is a person's perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. For the longest time, people have been worrying about the way they look, it's a feeling or occupation we were all born with. Whether it's male or female both genders have insecurities about themselves. Along with the fears of oneself, people also have to worry about the opinions of others. Today's society is all about the media and lately, people have been feeling really brave and aren't scared to tell people their opinions. You would think that women would be supporting each other and complementing one another, but instead they body shame each other and unfortunately, it's the same thing with men. Having this said what problems do men and women face throughout their life because due to body image issues?

Who doesn 't have body issues? From the most famous celebrities on down to the girl next door, women have suffered from the annoying and sometimes depressing issues of little things they 'd love to change about themselves. Unfortunately, society has been an impeding factor on young and older women view themselves and their value in the eyes of others. Women have gone to many extremes to ensure they 're deemed beautiful in the eyes of complete strangers. One can argue its mere vanity while others are in search of peace from within and think they have no other choice than to go under the knife. Either way, no one can deny that they haven 't looked into the mirror and have had thoughts of what could they improve on or

Often, people of all ages, race, and gender catch themselves gazing into mirrors for hours, blaming themselves for the way they look, not realizing that the media is actually the one to blame for many people’s body image. Body image is the way people see themselves, or how they assume other people see them. It is not likely to see a plus sized model in a magazine or a model on the runway with blemishes on her face. A person’s negative perception of their own body is not because they think it is wrong to look and be healthy; it is because the media is telling them that being a size 2 with flawless skin is healthy and beautiful.

An example about this issue that I found very interesting are the models of Victoria’s Secret. They are one of the strongest role models for many women around the world, in an article published by Uloop Inc. it is state how 99% of the population has a negative view of their body image, women being the 56%. This negative view can lead to anxiety, damaged relationships, and depression; these numbers have become alarming in a worldwide level. In the past Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show the numbers of viewers were 9.3 million; imaging this excessive amount of people thinking that those models are what perfection is, and what every women should aspire for. This article also talks about the average weighs (BMI) of a model in the Victoria Secret Show, this weigh being 23% less than the average female.

The article steers the focus off of woman with eating disorder to highlight the findings of males in growing numbers displaying signs of body dissatisfaction. In society woman were the stereotypical view of an eating disorder or any harmful behavior in efforts to achieve the perfect body image but the article presents a paradigm shift, were males are suffering just as much or even more than females. Pope, Olivardia, Gruber, & Borowiecki (1998), suggests that perhaps the perception of body image and their disturbances are indigenous to American culture predominantly. The suggestion is supported with evidence of a cross-cultural comparison to college men in America and Austria, American college men reported having a significantly greater dissatisfaction with themselves then Austrian college men. Agreeably, yes American culture places a strong emphasis on body images because television shows, magazine, dolls, actors and celebrities continuously portray the ideal human physique but it needs to be noted that every culture has a perspective of beauty that shapes the behaviors and minds of persons in that region, it may not be as candid as American culture but it still exists and influences

In today’s society we let the media decide everything in our lives from what clothes we should wear, music we should listen to, and how we should look. One of the biggest problems that both men and women face is body shaming, because the media sets standards for young kids and young adults., they often times try and fit the description of “perfect” which leads these people to either be depressed because they do not look like people want them to look or harm themselves in order to achieve the desired look. The most common ways the media shames both men and women are by celebrities and how they are the “perfect” body, publishing magazines of what is the ideal man and woman, and by the people who believe being “too” fat is bad and being “too” skinny is bad.