From Girls Bodies Women Analysis

“The average American is exposed to over three-thousand ads every single day, and will spend two years of his or her life watching television commercials” (Kilbourne). Everyday people are exposed to billboards, television commercials, influential mall kiosks, and magazine images that portray beautiful, flawless, perfect women selling a product. The women in these advertisements have had their hair, makeup, and even their body profile altered in order to look a certain way. That altered image is what Americans think beauty should be. Advertisement companies are continuously photoshopping women in their advertisements, giving a false idea of what women should look like; this is wrong and it needs to be banned in the United States.

Janna L. Kim (2007) discoursed (as cited in Vandenbosch & Eggermont, 2012) Media as a tool that can shape the perception of females on their ideal figure. “Sexual objectification in media is characterized by a striking emphasis on female appearance. The media’s ideal women are styled according to the latest fashion trends, and their bodies have all the right curves.” (p.

Throughout society many teens and young women have been scrutinized for their bodies and appearance. Media is one of the leading contributors. Media has led to the sexualization and body image issues in teens and women starting at young ages. As the media idealizes women as a miniature size 0 with long blonde hair and blue eyes, basically describing a classic Barbie doll. All of these ‘ideal’ body images lead to the loss in self esteem. Every girl wants to look like a runway model or now a days the Kardashians, with their great bodies and good facial structure, even though most of it could be due to plastic surgery. How does media affect body image today with women?

Images used of women in the media usually present women as sex objects to be viewed by males. The media representation of women suggests women should have the appearance of mannequins, tall and thin, with very long beautiful flowing hair to compliment their glowing blemish free skin, with long perfect legs. It can be argued that the media encourage women to view their bodies as an ongoing project that is in constant need of improving. The content of magazines aimed at women mainly contains information and images based on beauty and fashion, with

The body is often seen as something naturally given. Different types of bodies can be seen in shapes, sizes and physical build. However there is this idea of what aesthetically is socially acceptable. With women in the media industry being promoted in a certain way it is important to recognize that social construction of the body is a global issue. With this idea it could be said to have largely contributed to the fact that most if not all women are dissatisfied with their bodies. Media as an industry depicts that slenderness is preferred. This factor no doubt has impacted the rise in eating disorders and women's willingness to have cosmetic surgery in order to fit such ideal of slenderness which are depicted in magazines and television programs.

Photoshop is one of the main causes of the skewed ideal body image in America. Everything about a picture can be changed, giving people, especially women, an unrealistic goal to reach physically. “From the magazines they read to the commercials they see on TV, there needs to be a way for them to know those images they see on a daily basis aren’t even close to being real” (Reimold,

For over ten years, analysts have been looking at the part that introduction to glorified media pictures of female perfection plays in young ladies ' and ladies ' frequently antagonistic association with their own bodies. There is much confirmation that one normal for this perfection, as spoke to by the media,

The way people behave and think is the final product of socialization. From birth we are moulded to become the person we are today and therefore the sexualisation and objectification of women through modern media has a subsequent impact on female body image. This is especially insidious because of the media’s ability to create culture rather than reflect it.

“The average American is exposed to 30,000 marketing messages each day, telling us where to go, what to eat, what to wear, what to drive … in fact, nearly everything we do has its roots in marketing” (C. Chambers, personal communication, May 30, 2017). With that being said, media images often times set a stereotype of what women should be. Women compare themselves to the images projected out in the media, images that are unrealistic for some and motivating for others; thus, resulting in a varied perceptions of self. “Beyond self-esteem lies the concept of self … the interpenetration of self and society” (Gecas, 1982, p. 10), of which media plays a prominent role. Girls and young women are especially susceptible to lowered self-esteem and body image issues (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008).

Recently, model, singer, and actress Zendaya did a photo shoot and upon the pictures being released she made an Instagram post revealing how the photo was retouched with lighting and camera filters to manipulate the image. She made a statement stating, “These are the things that make women self conscious, that create the unrealistic ideals of beauty that we have. Anyone who knows who I am knows I stand for honest and pure self love.” With that, Zendaya took it upon herself to release the real picture. In response, the magazine took a swift step to pull the magazine and have the images restored to their original, natural state. If models and celebrities are not really as thin and flawless as the images we see of them, how can anyone possibly fulfill the beauty ideal that they represent? In her book The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf criticizes the media for the flawless and unrealistic illusions created by makeup artists and photographers, arguing that such unobtainable perfection invites young women to compare their unimproved reality to physical ideals that do not really exist (CITATION). According to one study, 69% of girls claimed that magazine models influence their concept of the perfect body shape (CITATION 3). The pervasive acceptance of this unrealistic body type creates an impractical standard that is damaging to the body images of

First the article “The sexual objectification of Women in Advertising: A Contemporary Cultural Perspective” and Women’s exposure to thin and beautiful media images: body image effects of media-ideal internalization and impact reduction interventions” discusses the negative impact media has had on women’s self –esteem. It argues that the media is detrimental to how feel women feel about their bodies. For the methodology, the participants were put into small groups and given a picture of a fashion model and was asked to fill out a survey. After viewing a picture of a model. The results showed that women had negative self-perception of themselves compared to the model. In the article, “A picture is worth Twenty Words (About the Self): Testing the Printing Influence of Visual Sexual Objectification on Woman’s self-objectification” the researcher investigates how women’s self-image is altered by the media’s objectification of women.

In the podcast “Girls and Sex” expressed how often women gain confidence based on their body image. Rather frequently we observe the media playing a huge role in sending out messages to young women what the ideal

Models can get a bunch of things worked on to make them appear to be perfect. They can get surgeries that can fix any flaws that they have. If they hate something about themselves they can pay someone to fix their flaws. They can get their body parts fixed and they can change anything and they can improve their perspective of themselves. Magazines can also photoshop and edit pictures to make people look better than they actually look. They can change what their hair looks like, what their eyes look like, and their teeth too. They can change heir body shape to make their body figure look better. Women do not realize that people can change a picture pretty fast and make them look like someone different. They can edit their photos but they cant always change what their make up and hair color and everything else looks like because all of the good apps cost a lot of money and require brains and style to be able to function the app. Women want to be compared to women in a model status and one day wish they could look like them but if someone as myself could learn how to photoshop pictures then I would show women that I could change them as fast as other people can change those models that they look up too. Women body image has horrible out looks on women. It gives them insecurities and believes that they need to be someone else that they clearly are not but they think they needed to be that person

Back in 2009, Reebok launched an advertisement for tennis shoes that focused in on the model’s buttocks. The slogan, “ Nice booty, great soles.” An example of how advertisers often use sexuality and the “appeal of physical attractiveness to sell products”. Young girls see that, take in the model’s physique and want their own skin, legs, and butt to look exactly the way it does in the picture. ( Fox, 1996) In a survey taken by a popular teenage magazine, “27% of girls believed that media pressured them to have a perfect body” (October, 1999). “A poll was taken in 1996 by the international ad agency, Saatchi and Saatchi,showing that ads made women fear being unattractive or old” (Peacock M, 1998). It has been suggested that media can severely impact a woman 's opinion on her body, which can lead to unhealthy desicions as women and girls try to reach this unrealistic goal for the extremely thin body idealized by the media.

The role of media today is increasingly critical, as it can now interfere in everyday life through several platforms and devices. Images in the media project an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of feminine beauty that can have a powerful influence on the way women view themselves. From the perspective of the mass media, thinness is idealized and expected for women to be considered "attractive." Almost all forms of the media contain unrealistic images, and the negative effects of such idealistic portrayals have been demonstrated in numerous studies. Therefore, the idealistic representation of women in the media has a harmful repercussion/effect on our society.