Cruel Optimism Analysis

Every single day women are faced with the questions of whether they are pretty enough, skinny enough, whether men are attracted to them, whether they can be loved or not, and whether people think they are beautiful. Images of “beautiful” females are plastered all over the media, commercials, Internet, movies, TV shows, ad campaigns, etc. In today’s society the “perfect female proportions” are nearly impossible for one to healthily obtain, but this does not stop women of all ages to going through impossible measures in order to be one step closer to what they consider “perfection.” For many girls all ages, shapes, sizes, around the world, eating disorders are becoming more prevalent for weight

On top of this, 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures and runway models influenced their idea of a perfect body shape (only 5% of the female population naturally has the body type portrayed as ideal in advertisement). This is obviously a problem because, growing up, girls everywhere are told that they’re pretty and that being pretty is the most important thing about them and they start basing their worth on their looks. But then, every single woman they see on TV, in movies, in magazines, any woman considered “hot” and “beautiful” doesn’t look like them anymore, which brings on deadly disorders like anorexia and bulumia that wreck the lives of young girls. Since 90% of people with eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25, we should be asking ourselves “what is causing my child to develop destructive habits at such a young age?” The answer is that they’ve been told that the type of body

It seems like every young girl dreams of becoming a model these days. Every young girl has the desire to get thinner than other girls in order to look like models on T.V, magazines and so on. The New York Times publishes articles for the majority of the audience to read, which is mostly adults. Mim Udovitch’s article, “A Secret Society of the Starving” talks about two major eating disorders that are anorexia and bulimia within many girls. Udovitch reports stories about three girls that are going through these disorders or have gone through them. The three girls Udovitch includes are Claire, Chaos, and Futurebird. Ken Jackson’s interpretation of

Beauty standards in the media are one of many reasons feeding and eating disorders are a rising problem. The unrealistic body types of being extremely thin, in pop culture, are influential factors for many teens, especially teen girls. According to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), anorexia nervosa is a “restriction of energy intake, intense fear of gaining weight, and a disturbance in the perception of one’s body size” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Individuals diagnosed with anorexia tend to place a high value on their shape and weight, which can interfere with their daily lives. Individuals diagnosed tend to view of their body shape in a distorted representation. The motivation to become

These young women feel an overwhelming need to make their bodies “better” in order to look like a model in a magazine. This may seem harmless, but it leads to young women turning to extremely excessive exercise routines and restricted eating in order to obtain their dream bodies (Fitzsimmons-Craft p. 144). Habits such as these lead to plenty of health problems, including dehydration, anorexia, and bulimia. The combination of body dissatisfaction and social comparison is toxic to young women’s physical and mental health.

Today’s society is a consumers’ society in which trying to obtain perfection is one of the fastest selling businesses (DeLaMater Pg. 12). Mass media, advertising, and fashion industries are being accused of feeding off females dissatisfaction with their bodies by portraying unhealthy thin role models in order to sell their products. This unachievable physique and lifestyle has led today’s adolescence down a dark path of such extreme eating disorders as anorexia and bulimia. Although it may sound nice to be societies perception of thin, there are consequences to these eating disorders such as cardiac failure that lead to horrifying defects or even death.

Girls especially are told that they are supposed to look how famous people look, but are not told how vastly edited and corrected the models in the pictures are. Today, women as young as 11 and 12 have began developing eating disorders due to the constant media bombardment telling them to look a certain way—incredibly skinny—which forces them into starvation. Psychologists have coined the new disorder ‘”body image disturbance syndrome” or BIDS. BIDS is characterized by the incessant feeling of being ‘fat’ when someone is perfectly healthy usually turning to one of two options: anorexia or bulimia. Anorexia is the act of not eating to achieve a body image, but this often results in gross malnourishment. On the other hand, bulimia is characterized by binge eating large meals followed by self-induced vomiting. The motivation behind bulimia is that if they keep the food in their body just long enough to absorb the nutrients, they can vomit the actual bulk of the food that makes them look overweight. The sad reality of the fact is that not only are the nutrients not completely absorbed until they reach the intestines, but the stomach acid brought forth with their vomit virtually rots away their

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “the body type portrayed in advertising as the ideals is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.” (“ANAD”) Body image has been a controversial theme because of the influence of the media. It is a widely known fact that eating disorder cases are on the rise. The concept of body image is a subjective matter. The common phrase, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,” holds true meaning in this sense. One’s view and value of their body is self-imposed. Falling into the destructive eating disorders reveals much about a person’s psychological and emotional state. Examining the mental, physical, and emotional conditions behind recognized eating

Employing her essay with key terms like body image, anorexia, and bulimia among other disorders, the essayist has written her piece rife with appeals to pathos to define them; the essay’s introduction carries her readers into a girl’s mind who struggles with her appearance

As many as 20 percent of those who suffer from anorexia will die early from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems. While there are many possible causes and triggers for these disorders, the media’s influence on body image cannot be overlooked. "My problem is the top of my legs and my bottom, which sticks out. I would like a smaller bottom because I find it difficult to fit into some jeans." Harriet’s obsession with her body scares her mother, sadly Harriet is not the only one who faces this problem daily. 40% of girls aged between 6 and 12 want to change their appearance. Don’t you think this is wrong? Kids who should be worried more about spelling words and math problems are being wrapped into the Medias image of a perfect body. Teens are more afraid of gaining weight than they are of cancer, nuclear war, or losing a parent.

The writer may suggest that one should not focus their attention on the topic of abortion, but rather live life to the fullest. The author mentioned cruel optimism as an ideology that people intend to achieve in order to become happy in the society. The writer quotes

“The incidence of anorexia nervosa among 10 - to - 19 year olds during a 50 year period found that it parallel changes in fashion and idealized body image and young women who have greater body dissatisfaction have earlier onset of smoking” (Huffington post) Girls would rather skip meals to lose weight than be comfortable and secure in their own bodies. 58% of college-age girls feel pressured to be a certain weight, and approximately 91%. women are unhappy with their body and resort to dieting or more severe methods to achieve that shape. They think they are not good enough just the way they are, and they have to look like the women they see on T.v, when in reality the women they are trying to look like do nott even look like that in real life. “Only 5% of women in the entire world, naturally look like the body type portrayed in media” (11 facts about body

To continue the discussion about her idea surrounding women and girls and their preoccupation with beauty standards it is easy to segue the conversation into the dangers of this preoccupation. The numerous repercussions of this preoccupation with unrealistic beauty standards is manifested in both physical and mental effects. One of the effects that was discussed to a large extent is eating disorders, which affects both the physical and mental aspects of a woman’s (or man’s) well being. The effects of eating disorders, in particular anorexia which is categorized by restrictive and obsessive eating behaviors, can be catastrophic. As Naomi Wolf discussed in a person story about her own eating disorder

Young women are much more likely to develop eating disorders fueled by unrealistic cultural standards for weight in Western societies (pg. 448). We often see on television or on social media, what the “ideal” body looks like. Young women are looking at this and comparing themselves to what they feel like they should look like. In reality though, the “ideal” body is a complete sham. It’s not about how “ideal” a body can look or be, but rather how healthy you are as a person. A personal example of mine was when l was around thirteen years old and l looked at a fashion magazine with a bunch of beautiful models on the front cover. At the time, l thought to myself, “Oh, they’re so pretty! I want to look like that too!” But in reality, l was hurting myself by taking extreme measures to either be as skinny or as porcelain as these models. The truth is, l would never look like them, no matter how much l tried. My body was built a certain way, and of course l can be healthy and exercise and eat nutritious food, but if l was going to do that, it would be for my own personal reason and not to look like someone l wish l could be. Like me, a lot of young women go through this, but unfortunately, go through much more extreme measures like developing eating

A seven year old girl is sitting in her living room watching her nightly hour of television while eating an after school snack. A Victoria’s Secret commercial comes on depicting the image of beauty for her and she is immediately enthralled. She goes to bed that night thinking about how beautiful the “Barbie Dolls” on television were and she strives to be like that when she grows up. Ten years later, the same girl is now seventeen years old and living in a world inhabited with eating disorders and anxiety. She is living in constant fear that she is not “pretty enough” and feels that people will “like her more” if she lost “just a couple more pounds.’’ For the last two years, she has been overly obsessed with perfecting her body image. Teenagers,