How Body Images Affect Women 's Healthy Practices By Consuming Tobacco On Their Daily Basis

     Plato once said, "We behold beauty in the eye of the mind...." What some people consider beauty others may not. From the actresses that are shown on television, movies, models that are in magazines, and the pop stars that create hip and modern music videos, one could be under the impression that to be beautiful you must thin. Actresses such as Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Michelle Gheller, Clarista Flockheart, Courtney Cox and Debra Messing all have staring roles in their own television shows and are all extremely thin. The audiences of these shows being mostly women and adolescent girls, what kind of message about body image are they sending out?

There are no questions to whether the media has influenced the self-consciousness people have on their body or not. Whether it is the front of a magazine cover or in a film or television show, the selection of models or actors are primarily thin or fit leading readers and viewers to worry or want to change the way their body looks. Body image is the way one sees oneself and imagine how one looks. Having a positive body image means that most of the time someone sees themselves accurately, and feels comfortable in their body; negative body image, what the media exemplifies for the majority of the time, is just the opposite. The media uses unrealistic standards of beauty and bodily perfection to drive ordinary people to be dissatisfied with their body image which can result in the search to obtain these unreachable goals.

Not a day goes by without us hearing about the dangers of smoking and the numerous effects that cigarettes can have on the human body. We have all see the thousands of television commercials urging people to quit smoking, including the infamous ‘Marlboro Man,” who died from cancer due to the cigarettes he once promoted for many years. Smoking is often used as a weight control strategy among female smokers. The pressures that women sometimes feel to look a certain way can be overwhelming and make women desperate to fit into society’s idea of what women “should” look like. There are many different “so called” benefits that come from smoking such as reduced anxiety, improved mood, and weight control. On the flip side, these benefits can easily be achieved through physical activity and proper stress management.

Bergstrom et al. (2009) reported that women who viewed the ads of thin female models and had higher BMI's reported more concerns about their weight after viewing the ads. Bergstrom et al. (2009) states "…we found that the adverse effects of viewing thin women in media images increased as BMI increased. " During their study, they also found that the impact of media will be greater if there is greater discrepancy between one's own reputation and the comparison target (Bergstrom et al, 2009, pp. 274).

In Susan Bordo’s article “Never Just Pictures,” she expresses her understanding of how images in the media alter the way our society sees itself. She starts off addressing how critical society has become about the weight of those in the spot light. This cruelty has emerged from critics comparing those in the media such as, athletes, actors, news castors, etc. to super models who are expected to remain at an extremely low weight percentage for fashion shows and photo shoots. In just about every magazine, there are advertisements for a weight loss products or promises, or show models glamorized while they look to be on the verge of starvation. She implies that magazine editors only care about selling products and do not consider the effect the

Ladies by and large know more about wellbeing matters than men and take better care of their health. Wellbeing focused conduct consist of two general classifications which are health behavior and illness behavior

This has led to a media obsession with health and body image. She uses an example in the beginning of the article, citing how the media was extremely critical of Alicia Silverstone’s weight gain, openly criticizing the fact that she was larger than she had been in her recently released film. Bordo explains how this sort of body-critical mindset has an adverse-effect on people, especially children. “Children in this culture grow up knowing that you can never be thin enough and that being fat is one of the worst things you can be” (Bardo 1). This sort of image-obsession leads children to feel unfulfilled, as if by not meeting the standards of beauty defined for them by popular culture, they are somehow deficient or “worth” significantly less than those among them who more closely align with these cultural

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 largest forms of media we encounter in our daily lives are the advertisements and commercials we see on TV, the Internet and in magazines. One of the key strategies used to reinforce the feminine image is to depict every woman to be “thin.” This strategy is used all over the media and this depiction of “women should be thin” is negative. For example, “Seventeen” magazine, Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario is featured on the cover captioning, “Get an insane body – It’s hard, but you’ll look hot.” This idea that the media is portraying to all women and girls is publicized wrongly. Everyone thinks that being thin is hot and if you are not thin, you don’t belong to society. However, this happens because women and girls are too taken away by getting slim,

Fashion magazines and the media are filled with beautiful women that appear to be extremely thin. Every time someone turns on the television or looks at magazines they see some kind of advertisement for fitness programs or some method of dieting. There is a strong emphasis on dieting and maintaining some ideal weight. Looking at these ads full of “skinny” women gives other women a sense of insecurity about themselves, making them think that thin is the way to be. Society in general tends to think that all women are supposed to appear to look like these surreal images that we see on television and in magazines. You hardly ever see plus size models on TV or in magazines advertising a product. It seems to me that if you are not a Cindy Crawford, Tyra Banks, or Naomi Campbell then you don’t have a chance of succeeding in this fat phobic world.

The source discuss the effect that the media has on body image. The writer of Media and Body Image said that "the major reason many people has a negative body image is because of the impact that the media have had on our perception of body image" (Walden Center, n.d.). This statements shows us that the media finds thinness attractive, so they promote thin body has the one body type that is beautiful knowing that there are many types that are beautiful. What we see on social media is something that could actually not be real, most of the actors and actresses that we would see on television could actually

It is a little strange that this should be so. After all, these are not the conventional images of nudity that society judges as beautiful. In her essay “Beauty (re)discovers the male body”, feminist philosopher Susan Bordo explores the female stereotypes to which I refer. In a world ruled by images, she claims, women portrayed in the media influence the average woman’s notion that she must be seen. Further, media’s emphasis on displaying women with thin figures signals to society that this is the normative body type, the ideal. Even those advertisements which are meant to highlight women’s “great careers or exciting adventures” (216) are pervaded by thinness: “The plots may say: ‘The world is yours.’ The bodies caution: ‘But only if you aren’t fat.’” (Bordo, 216) Thus, it is unsurprising that women internalize these messages and reproduce them with rigor, criticizing others’ who might not live up to this stereotype. When obese women do appear in the media, such as in diet commercials, their bodies are portrayed as undesirable. Thus, the everyday obese woman is prompted to be ashamed of her body. She is signaled hide it, with or without clothes, when she knows herself be the object of assessment.

Have you ever taken a second to compare the size of men and women today to the sizes years ago? Recently there is a huge new trend of becoming as thin and fit as possible and thinking this is how one becomes beautiful. No one actually knows where this idea has emerged from. In the past big has been known as being healthy and beautiful. Take for instance Marilyn Monroe, she was the pin up girl for many men and wasn't exactly thin to today's standards. Today's celebrities wear sizes 0 - 2 and are the supposed poster girls of what beautiful looks like. There are many factors that are causing people young and old to get caught up in the new health and fitness craze. One of these factors affecting almost everyone is the media. Celebrities are

The article says that many people think men’s health is important in family structure and it affects the whole family into widowhood. Men take more responsibility to support family than women. Although women are getting more power and working as much as men do, men still have more things to manage and care financially and mentally. However, men’s health is greatly under recognized even though men are working a lot for his family. Men as a group are measurably less involved in preventive health care. The article also says, “Thirty-three percent of men have no regular physician, as opposed to only 19% of women.”

Society today has become a place where appearance is regarded as very important. It is believed that beautiful people are the happiest and most successful and when it comes to weight and physique size matters. Another social norm in our society is smoking. Whether it stems from the ideal that smoking is cool or from mere addiction, smoking has become so common that it is no longer frowned upon generally speaking however being overweight is. Women today especially want to fit into society’s perception of what the “ideal woman” looks like and will do almost anything it seems to gain this satisfaction. From gym memberships, extreme diets and exercise programs to the latest diet pill or supplement craze. Women will endure almost anything to be the ideal weight. Among these conceptions is the idea that smoking can prevent a woman from gaining weight or can assist in keeping the weight off. One familiar mindset is “what better way to stay thin than to smoke?” and it is a widespread idea. Though smoking can in fact be tied to benefits such as weight control, stress reduction and improved mood, it is still the number one cause of preventable disease and death.