Girls All Around America

Under society’s customs for decades, young women have found themselves immersed in the pressure and anticipation to have exemplary bodies. Nearly every young woman prefers to be slim, have a perfectly shaped body, that is beautified by applying pounds of makeup to their face but does not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these measures imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless, naturally it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the that model. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough, our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a surging subject for young girls. Advertisements and pictures of lean female models are all over. Young women are measured and perplexed by their physical appearances with attire intended to raise their physical structures; social media, magazines, the society, marketing campaigns, advertisements, and the fashion gurus add to a strand of excellence.

For girls, everything changes after they start paying attention to make up and clothing. Every girl growing up especially their transition from being in Middle school to High school, change their lifestyle routine where as their mothers would use to lay out their clothes to them to them having to pick clothes out for school every morning. But when you reach that age, girls always have a place in their body they aren’t proud of or ashamed of. Magazines from big companies like, Seventeen, Girl’s Life, etc. that feature many young models and celebrities who are around their age with the perfect body shape and face which leads to lots of girls to know that they aren’t happy with their body. Article: Social Comparisons, Reflected Appraisals, and

Many girls growing up encounter self-esteem issues. These girls read magazines that tell them how they're supposed to look, and it's very hard for girls to escape these magazines. The physical appearance girls must mimic has standards. The first standard: You must be thin. Runway model thin. Although there is speculation that many models have eating disorders, this is the figure girls are required to emulate. The second standard: Your hair must be long and straight. Short hair is unacceptable because those of the opposite sex like long hair. Plus, long hair somehow equals beautiful. Short hair causes some individuals to speculate about sexuality and label girls. The third standard: Makeup and feminine clothing is a must. Being a "tomboy" is

During the adolescent years, kids go through some of the toughest and most confusing stages of their life. These years are a time for self-discovery, for learning, and for growing up to become the future of our world. The pressure to grow into something that is accepted and praised by society can be one of the hardest challenges to overcome. The ideas that society enforce regarding beauty standards and gender norms can be some of the most damaging. Young boys grow up believing that crying is a weakness, that any form of emotion is weakness, and it teaches them to bottle up their feelings and creates an unhealthy upbringing. Young women grow up believing that a pretty face is everything. They

Researchers have discovered that “ongoing exposure to certain ideas can shape and distort our perceptions on reality.” (Mintz 2007) Because young girls are subjected to a constant display of beautiful people in the media, they have developed a negative body image of themselves. Those who have a negative body image perceive their body as being unattractive or even hideous compared to others, while those with a positive body image will see themselves as attractive, or will at least accept themselves and be comfortable in their own skin. During adolescence, negative body image is especially harmful because of the quick changes both physically and mentally occurring during puberty. Also, young girls are becoming more and more exposed to the media and the media keeps getting more and more provocative. Young girls are looking to women with unrealistic body shapes as role models. It’s hard to find, in today’s media, a “normal” looking

Celebrities often change the perception of teenagers of how they should look. They portray this image that their value is based on their outward appearances and that they have to be thinner to be successful in life. If they are reserved and quiet they are boring, if they are loud and outspoken they are an attention seeker, if they are unique they are weird. It is difficult for them to then find a place to fit in in this world centered around outer beauty and the media’s idea of perfection. To them, thinness is idealised to be “attractive”. Standards of beauty of this have increased the teenagers’ desire to resolve to plastic surgery to fix their imperfections.

As everyone knows, the stereotype for women is absolutely impossible to live by. Of course, young girls are going to want to try to grow up a little too fast and act a little too old for their age. Some of the effects that the stereotype has on young girls can completely ruin their lives. There is a massive amount of teenage girls with eating disorder and who self harm because of how badly they try to fit in. Many young girls consider themselves unhappy with their life because they do not look, act, sound, or live the same lives as the women on television, in the movies, and in the magazines.

First lets start with how we are supposed to look. Men and women both judge us. We have to always be “on point” or “on fleek”; like seriously that is what society has came to. Today I seriously had a conversation with a guy about he really liked this girl because of her eyebrows. FREAKING EYEBROWS. Girls are excepted to be skinny, but curvy. Beautiful, but not wear makeup. Smart, but not too smart. Fun, but not too adventurous. We have to be stylish, but also not to girly. Girls are taught to care what everyone thinks, but not let them define who they are. How are girls supposed to function in this crazy society that we now call life?

Have you ever felt pressured to look a certain way after looking at a magazine or scrolling through Instagram? Sense of not feeling pretty enough, you lose just a couple of pounds, or you would be closer to perfect? Remember your mom telling you, “you should not have eaten those seconds, it is a lot of carbs,” her voice plays in your head. You feel upset and belittled when you remember your best friend complaining she now wears a size two in jeans, while you wear a seven. You find yourself disappointed and ashamed. This situation is all too familiar with young girls in today's society. Girls often feel unhappy with themselves for many

Girl can change various ways with the onset of adolescence, some of those ways are mentally, emotionally, and appearance wise

Over the years a debate over who is to blame over the decline in how girls perceive themselves has arisen. With Photoshop being the societal norm concerning the media, it has become difficult for many to understand where the line between real and near impossible standards lies. Youths see an image edited to “perfection” and strive to reach the standards that they imagine due to the images displayed on magazines, television and social media. From Disney to magazines like Vogue the mass media bombards audiences with fake beauty that they, as normal people, will never be able to achieve. The mass media is responsible for causing the rise in the number of people with a poor body image, eating disorders, and cosmetic surgeries.

Society has taken over women and teen girls live. Popular culture deliberately portrays an unrealistic body image to teen girls in order to create a desire that drives women and teen girls to do anything to have that body image. Celebrities have a great impact on a teen girl’s life. Many celebrities have done cosmetic surgery to have the look that is considered as the perfect body. Popular culture is harming society, teen girls are buying magazine to see what the latest news on celebrities is.

As a matter of fact, teenage girls are not the only ones who fall victim to the ideal of beauty. Teenage boys are going through very similar situations. Media and advertisements set their standards for men to be tall, muscular, board upper body, v-line and have beards etc. Neither males nor females live without having standards set up for them by society and media. “Widely held perceptions of beauty and perfection can have a deep and lasting cultural impact on both women and men.” Some impact is that these standards will continue to exist in our future culture and both genders will never feel comfortable in their own skin/body. Both men and women would continue to judge themselves and their beauty. Magazines and advertisements usually have images of men without their shirts in order to show off their muscles and to attract customers. This makes members of society expect to see a six pack,v-line and pectorals when a male takes off their shirt. This gives teenage boys fear to take off their shirt when going to the beach or smaller situations like going inside a pool because they are scared to be criticized for not being muscular. Magazines display images of these fake models for both men and women which creates intimidation.“Study of mass media magazines discovered that women’s magazines had 10.5 times more advertisements and articles promoting weight loss than men’s magazines did (as cited in Guillen & Barr.1944).” The ideal of beauty targets women more than men. In

In today’s society, the public is exposed to technology at even younger ages than ever before. Everywhere you go these days you see kids even as little as three holding their parent’s phones or even their own, watching videos or playing games. But as said in the article Does Social media impact on body image by Philippa Roxby, as kids start becoming teenagers their technological uses advance and they start to rely on social media sites for new sources of communication, and their main channel to the outside world. Based on studies conducted by psychologists they have come up with a conclusion that social media has a direct relationship to body image concerns. I believe that in today’s society we should focus on promoting self-confidence as most of the adolescents have a very low assurance of their own bodies. Although a study conducted in the article The Upside of Selfies: Social media isn’t all bad for kids by Kelly Wallace says that a survey which resulted in 52% of the teens saying that social media positively influences them. Even though social media platforms have some beneficial aspects such as they make people want to go on diets, exercise, and eating healthy, the teenagers don’t really look/understand the negative aspects of it. The impacts that are carried with social media are mostly negative such as fancying teenagers to lose confidence in themselves and has become a toxic mirror to them. The visual platforms impact

From young ages, girls are told what to be like. They’re constantly exposed to the “perfect girl”, the girl that a boy wants. This behaviour can cause damaging effects by the time they’re just 12 years old. The stereotype that girls need to be protected and looked after by big strong men is constantly pushed. By the time they reach puberty, it’s all about being modest. Being told that’s “not lady like”, to sit with your legs crossed, not to wear a short skirt or you’re a word that rhymes with flut. Many girls come to think that this is normal behaviour, that this is what they’re meant to do.