Gender Stereotypes On Adolescent Males

Agliata, D., & Tantleff-Dunn, S., (2004). The Impact of Media Exposure on Males’ Body Image.

The media has become a powerful source for changes in our society. There are so many factors and reasons for our society changing. Today I find most people obsessively worried about their body image. We all have a body and at one time or another, we worry about it. Women and men are both being affected by media sources such as television, advertising, magazines, music, and video games; not to mention the photo manipulation that goes along with it all. Questions can be asked; such as, “Is this the way our society should be leaning [obsessing over our bodies]? What could happen from here? Are there any solutions?”

Furthermore, media surrounds teenage girls in today’s culture. It is impossible to escape the sight of media. The media’s constant idealistic beauty is ever present to a vast amount of self-conscious girls. This image of beauty causes girls to have low self-esteem (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar). Media defining this perfect body image causes many adolescent girls to feel dissatisfied with their bodies and become depressed. “Viewing ultra-thin or average-size models led to decreases in both body satisfaction and self-esteem in adolescent girls aged eleven to sixteen, with changes in self-esteem fully mediated by changes in body satisfaction” (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar).

One reason mass media is so effective at portraying unrealistic body types as normal is because the mass media helps to set what is perceived as normal. In an article about the mass media’s role in body image disturbance and eating disorders, J. Kevin Thompson and Leslie Heinberg state, “A sociocultural model emphasizes that the current societal standard for thinness, as well as other difficult-to-achieve standards of beauty

Mass media is effective in teaching us what we “should” look like. Women should be thin. Men should be muscular. The skinny and muscular ideals portrayed in advertising encourage men and women to look a certain way. The depiction of the female ideal has helped shaped society’s perspectives about beauty. The media pushes you to “improve your body” by buying their products but soon the road to a skinny and toned body leads to a self destructive path of self hatred. The powerful ideas that the media transmits through words, images, and movement can have lasting impacts on the human brain, affecting how we think and

In the article, “The Negative Effects of the Media on Body Image” by Esther Vargas, there were several issues discussed about the negative effects that media has on body image in society. Many girls

Kover, A. (2009, April 30). Effects of the Media on Body Image. Retrieved March 21, 2017, from

Today in modern society, we are driven by social forces. Not only do we strive for human approval and companionship, we also thrive on social media. The media plays such a pivotal role in what we buy, eat, wear, etc. that we are conditioning ourselves to fit the mold for the “perfect” or “ideal” body type. This social construct has been a pressing issue for many years regarding the female physique, but not as much has been said on behalf of men. When confronted with appearance based advertisements, men are more likely to experience muscle dissatisfaction, weight disparities, and anger and/or anxiety toward showing their body in public. This paper will address these facets of the media’s effect on male body image as well as presenting what has been done to address this quietly debilitating issue.

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.,

Today’s culture has placed women across the globe in a position where they are constantly flooded with idealistic images that depict what the media perceives as the “perfect body.” Quite often, young university-attending females, those who are involved in social identity formation, are exposed to numerous forms of media that fabricate various experiences relative to body image. In the past, researchers have surveyed women who are exposed to body-related standards using multiple forms of mass media as a unified entity, which has caused for limitations since each means -such as magazine advertisements- differs in relation to how a thin idealistic image is portrayed. In light of prior research, Harper and Tiggman established that

The media is our source of constant information, and is presented in many forms such as, daily newscasts, social media like Facebook, and the magazines strategically placed in our doctor’s office. There is no surprise that it is also the dominant influence when it comes to society’s beauty standard either. Unfortunately media isn’t a positive influence all the time, and is the main force behind negative body image epidemic that plagues women, especially the 18-25 age group. In order to fully understand the severity of what some call a “Vanity” issue we must look into the facts of how exactly the media damages women’s perception of their own bodies, and then observe the extent of the damage done to the physical and mental states of these women

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.

This paper will discuss the view that the media generally has a negative impact on the self-image of women. The evidence to support this view has been provided by the arguments of women writers and the findings of empirical studies over the years. Media representations present an ideal for female appearance and behavior. Women, especially those who are young and impressionable, accept this seemingly authoritative ideal and develop a negative self-image when their own bodies fail to match it. The problem is that the media ideal is unrealistic. Women of color are given the message that they are not light-skinned enough and women of all types are given the message that they are not thin enough. This paper will describe the problem and will argue that the best way to overcome it is to increase women’s awareness that they are being manipulated by the media for the sake of increased profits.

Media today is more than just mass communication. It is a life style and part of the social construct of daily life in today’s society. Media is everywhere. It is our entertainment, our resource for knowledge and culture outside of our personal experiences, our communication not only to the masses, but a part of our interpersonal communication. The demographics of television appear that women watch television about 15 more hours a month (Newswire,2011), therefore exposed to more “thin body” imaging. In 2014, Victoria Secret

Media can be seen as a channel of communication in whereupon millions of people frequently use in their daily lives. So, with all of this technology around, how is the media portrayal of beauty affecting women? According to Cheryl J. Haas, Laura A. Pawlow. Jon Pettibone, and Dan J. Segrist, “Research has shown media exposure to unattainable physical perfection is detrimental to people, especially women and that inimical effects are currently more the rule than the exception” (1). When a person feels as if they do not compeer with the standard of beauty media has set, that individual develops negative emotions towards themselves which can lead to ailing eating habits including binge-eating, purging, or starving. Several studies further reveal a show in a decrease of self-esteem, including other psychological distress, following exposure to idealized media portrayal.