Effects of Media on Body Image

Modern people live media-saturated lives, even children as young as 6 years old, have had some type of media exposure. Extensive exposure to media outlets can lead to body image issues. Body image is defined as, the subjective picture or mental image of one's own body (Smolak 2003). Body image is formed as people compare themselves to others. Because, people are exposed to countless media images; these images become the basis for such comparisons. These mental comparisons, have a strong influence on an individual’s personal perception of beauty. Media outlets create images and pressures about what our bodies should look like; however, sometimes these images have been manipulated, creating an unrealistic expectation of beauty. When an individual believes that their body is substandard, they can become depressed, suffer from low self-esteem, or develop eating disorders.

It is essential to examine the cause of media’s increased influence on self-estem and body dissatisfaction before debating the possible solutions. First of all, as Geissler indicates in the essay, “We live in a fat-fearing and food moralizing culture where magazines, movies, and a multimillion dollar ‘health’ and diet industry all pump out the message ‘thinner is better’.” (330) The ideal of slender

The purpose of this study is to determine if media is the primary factor affecting a person’s body image or if the person’s body image is impacted more by their social relationships in their life or if their body image is affected by the combination both the media and relationship within peer

Recently, a hot topic has been the effects of media on body image. There has been speculation that media can lower an individual's satisfaction with their body. Scott Westerfeld portrays this same idea in his book Uglies. All Tally Youngblood wants to do is be a Pretty like her best friend Peris (Westerfeld, 2005). In Tally's world this is normal; at sixteen everyone has a surgery to them into beautiful human beings (Westerfeld, 2005).

Media holds such high standards in today 's society, and media as a whole has gotten so much power throughout the years. There are so many different forms of media in today 's world: newspapers, magazines, televisions, the hundreds of websites on the Internet, social media applications, computers, and novels. Media advertises thousands of different things, but something that has stayed consistent over the years is advertisement on body image. Media advertises a specific body type, pushes different dietary needs to achieve this body type and thus creating the standard of in order to be beautiful, this particular body type must be achieved. However, what advertisers seem to be neglecting is the effect their advertisements are having on its viewers. The constant push to achieve a certain body type has affected the health of thousands of people around the world, and directly affecting the eating disorder epidemic.

Media is a significant force in modern culture, particularly in America. Sociologist refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and created culture. Communities and individuals are bombarded constantly with messages from a multitude of sources. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is and is not important. The messages that the media portray are conflicting and it is impossibly hard to achieve both messages since one is orientated toward fast food consumption and the other it orientated toward an extremely thin ideal. Many researchers have hypothesized that the media may play a central role in creating and intensifying the phenomenon of body dissatisfaction and consequently,

From the mid nineteen hundreds to present times the media has greatly influenced society's acceptance on body image. Even today, women are still mocked for being obese. Heavier women are a continued target in today's society by magazines containing headlines such as "How to lose weight." and "How to be skinner". The number of dieting and exercise articles in popular women's magazine increase every year. (Wykes & Gunter pg.67) These magazine articles may be helpful to some people but to an adolescent it leaves them

The media group that retouches images skews the “normal” body image of people through many of its outlets, including models in advertising and magazines, and actors in TV and movie productions. “The average model portrayed in the media is approximately 5’11” and 120 pounds. By contrast, the average American woman is 5’4” and 140 pounds” (Holmstrom, 2004). This statistic shows how the media manipulates consumers into believing that because they are not what the average model looks like, they are not living up to a certain standard which implies that they need to look like that to be beautiful. Another research fact that shows a similar concept is that, “In the United States, 94% of female characters in television programs are thinner than the average American woman, with whom the media frequently associate happiness, desirability, and success in life” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This association of female thinness and happiness, desirability and success makes consumers believe they must achieve this unrealistic thinness to achieve more ultimate goals and fulfillment in life. “The media also explicitly instruct how to attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body-contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This idealization of thinness in the media is seen so much, and is extremely harmful to women’s self confidence and is often associated with body image dissatisfaction, which can be a precursor to social anxiety, depression, eating disturbances, and poor self-esteem (Yamamiya et al.,

The results of this study indicated a low effect size for all studies. The participants who were shown pictures in the media of thin models tended to think there was something wrong with their body weight. Other participants who viewed models who were overweight tended to have a positive outlook on their body image. Another study that was conducted by Han, 2003 looked at female Korean college students and the way in which media exposure affected the way they perceive body image. This experiment was conducted by using 42 college female college students who were exposed to images of thin models in magazine ads. After viewing the images for about 5 minutes the women were then asked to fill out a questionnaire. This questionnaire was built to see their indication on body dissatisfaction and eating disturbance based upon the pictures that were shown. Then an upward comparison was used to see whether they agreed or disagreed with the images of the models shown. As these results stated the females that were exposed to the pictures of the thin models showed a higher level of upward comparison then those who were not shown the models. Participants in the experimental group also perceived the thin models to be more practical than those who were participants of the control group. A second part of this experiment used 75 female college

Accompanying unrealistic images of women, the media spends billions of dollars yearly to advertise the various techniques that eliminate body discontents such as dieting pills and exercising machines, and exploits female magazine reader’s insecurities. Whether magazine advertisements aid in the gradual depletion of body image or fail to impact it at all will be the purpose of this investigation, supplemented by a literature review and organized by a theoretical framework, to support a firm analysis.

Therefore, the commendation of such look and shape commercializes unhealthy body image and procreates eating disorders. Unfortunately, at present the commercialism of a perfect body is encountered by almost everyone on everyday basis. The public is bombarded daily with images of glamorously thin women in commercials, on billboards, in movies in magazines and etc?According to Melanie Katzman, a consultant psychologist from New York, the media has actively defined the thin ideal as success and treats the body as a commodity. (Rhona MacDonald, 2001) It is evident that the persistent advocating of the media and the society produced a constant pursuit of thinness, which became a new religion. A study conducted by Harvard researchers has revealed the effect of media and magazines on adolescent girls in high schools. The children were exposed to fashion magazines and television commercials, and a while after were given self-rating surveys. The study found that sixty-nine percent of the girls said that magazine pictures

Images in the media change almost constantly, but in the last 30-40 years, models and actresses have been getting increasingly thinner as time goes on. Recently, research has shone a light on EDs and their possible connection to the media as anorexia and bulimia rate increased during the 1970s, questioning whether the media was the cause of this increase (Driscoll and Campbell 2). This research has brought the possible connection between images in the media and body image to the attention of the public. The attention brought to the topic has sparked the controversy as people jump to either defend or berate the media for their portrayals of people’s bodies. As previously stated, media ideals change all the time. Since the turn of the century, the ideal female form has fluctuated between voluptuous and curvy, such as Marilyn Monroe, and thin and boyish, such as the flappers of the 1920s, but since Twiggy’s debut in the ‘70s, the standards have focused on thinness (Chittom and Finley 2). Even with the constant change and fluctuation, there has, historically, been an equilibrium in what body shape or size is “beautiful.” Twiggy’s debut, which started the skinny trend in the media, lines up with when the increase in EDs reportedly began, furthering the question as to what effect mass media has on women’s self-esteem and body

The female body image is highly influenced by the mass media and the media’s portrayal of women, ‘70% of college women say they feel worse about their own looks after reading women’s magazines’ (University of Massachusetts & Stanford University, 2006), the portrayal of women in the media has an unrealistic approach and brings out body dissatisfactions and this results in eating problems and disorders.

Body image has become a huge issue in society today, with magazines such as Shape, Covergirl, Vogue, Seventeen, or celebrities such as Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie, or Kylie Jenner. Women, especially teenagers, find themselves thinking that they have to look like the model they saw in a magazine, or on social media. The media is greatly responsible for the growing of the “ideal” thin women. Statistics show that diet and weight control advertisement appear ten times more in women’s magazines than men. Showing thin models next to them which leads girls to eating disorders, harming their bodies so they have an “ideal” image of what they think they should look like.

Research indicates that exposure to thin ideal images in women's magazines is associated with heightened concerns for body shape and size in a number of young women, although the media's role in the psychopathology of body image disturbance is generally believed to be mediated by personality and socio-cultural factors. The purpose of this research study is to know and gather solid facts and reasons about fashion magazines affecting the teenagers’ body image in a form of research to self evaluation through careful accumulation of acceptable data and relevant resources for such data to be precise and spontaneous in its respected details to support results.