How Does Media Shape Standards Of Beauty

All over the world, women are being corrupted by the impact set by the media. In the essay “ The Truth About Beauty” by Virginia Postrel, it exposes companies like Dove, giving women hope they can eventually gain the appearance of the models they broadcast if they use Dove’s products. It is commonly said that “ Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but who is the beholder? I believe it is the media. Not all physical beauty is evenly distributed unfortunately.

For centuries, women have found it to be difficult to live up and be the standard “runaway model”. Women have the pressure to fit in to be considered beautiful since ads and media have distorted society in how they view and evaluate beauty. The false representation of models in the beauty commercials have made women want to replicate them even though they don’t know what’s behind the editing. Even though this is a huge matter, companies did not stand back but instead made more commercials that self-degrade women constantly, except one. The Dove Evolution Commercial- “Campaign for Real Beauty” focuses on the way they change women sending a strong message to women about beauty and what it really

The argument of The Beauty Myth is that as women have received more eminence, the standard of their personal appearance has also grown. Wolf’s position on the issue is that this type of social control is potentially just as restrictive as the traditional roles of women. The Beauty Myth discusses how society’s viewpoint of beauty is detrimental to women because it causes many emotional and psychological problems to women who strive to become “perfect”. This book is important due to the fact it raises awareness to the issues that many young women are currently facing.

Moreover, as Richins (1991) reports, women always make social comparisons between the advertising models and themselves. As a result, advertising images create negative affect and increases women’s dissatisfaction with their own appearance. Since those images are edited through the consistent usage of digital technology, these idealized images do not portray women in a healthy manner. Indeed, these enhanced images would give these young girls the impression that they need to be ‘perfect’, just like these ‘fake’ images. According to Reist in ABC’s Gruen Session (2010), ‘young women get the message that they need to be thin, hot and sexy just to be acceptable’ in this society. Therefore, by generating the wrong perception of real beauty, the responsibility is pushed to the marketers, as they portray women with this stereotypical body type as acceptable. In addition, as the brand, Dove’s tagline in its advertisement - What happened to the ‘real beauty’? (Reist, 2010), marketers need not market their products in manners portraying women as airheads. Consequently, marketers gave most consumers viewing the advertisement, the wrong impression that

Beauty standards in the media are one of many reasons feeding and eating disorders are a rising problem. The unrealistic body types of being extremely thin, in pop culture, are influential factors for many teens, especially teen girls. According to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), anorexia nervosa is a “restriction of energy intake, intense fear of gaining weight, and a disturbance in the perception of one’s body size” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Individuals diagnosed with anorexia tend to place a high value on their shape and weight, which can interfere with their daily lives. Individuals diagnosed tend to view of their body shape in a distorted representation. The motivation to become

Low self-esteem in girls is something very common nowadays and with the media advancement is becoming worse. Celebrities are what many people desire to be, and this can change the perception of people by creating an obsession with how they look and what does the society thinks about them. As Research psychologist of Dove Dr. Phillippa Diedrichs talks about in her article titled “Is Your Daughter’s Perception of Beauty Distorted by the Media?”. She argues about how the images of women are manipulated from what it should be the real picture; she provides a help for many mothers that are worried about the mental state of their daughter’s.

Fair skin, long hair, light colored eyes, and thin bodies, all categories under the European ideal of beauty. While women who have these features are, of course, beautiful, the media and modeling industry have molded these ideals into the ultimate standard to compare the beauty of millions of women across the world. Whether consumers are flipping through channels on TV or pages of a magazine, European beauty standards are emulated in the actors and models the media cast, and with the rise of social media, these ideals have only become more prevalent. The use of these standards may seem harmless; however, Eurocentric beauty ideals have had devastating effects on both the women who do and do not fit within Eurocentric beauty standards.

The media have constructed attractiveness for a long time many sociocultural standards of beauty and. Especially women’s body images have been a primary concern because the value of women has been measured how they look like. How women have similar body traits with the modern female body images has been a significant and essential issue, historically. The sociocultural standards of beauty which have been created by the greed of the media have dire impacts on young females. The current beauty level of the female body image in the media is thinness. In fact, the preferred female body images have been changed through the media. Throughout history, sometimes skinny women’s body images were loved, and sometimes over weighted women’s body images were preferred. Whenever the media have dictated the ideal female

Beauty standards are portrayed everywhere: on magazines, social media, ads, commercials, and even flaunted among peers. While the ideals are supposed to promote health awareness, fitness motivation, and self love, it unfortunately results in many unfavorable consequences. Women are constantly “penalized for not being beautiful and at the same time are stigmatized, even pathologized, for not feeling beautiful, for having low self-esteem, for engaging in behaviors like dieting and excessive exercising, or for having eating disorders” (Johnston and Taylor 954). Beauty standards are unrealistic and unhealthy to pursue, and misinforms the public on what true beauty is. While not all beauty image ideals promote negative feelings and dissatisfaction, many believe that the negative effects far outweighs any positive effects.

Because of the fashion industries portrayal of beauty in advertisements, a value system that focuses on looks and external beauty is built by the men and women that are exposed to them (Sheehan 108). Although the word "fashion" is often used in a positive sense, the Fashion Industry itself may have some significant negative impacts. Many studies connect the exposure to such advertisements and media coverage of thin models to women with a negative self-esteem and issues with body image. The images of women that are presented by the Fashion Industry, especially in magazines, represent an image that is nearly impossible to achieve. As a result, many women and even men turn to eating disorders in hope to become the image of beauty that has been created for them by the Fashion Industry and the media. So, it can be argued that sociologically, the Fashion Industry indeed has a negative impact on the values, self-esteem, and the perception of women and men such as listed below. factor

It 's not a mystery that society 's ideals of beauty have a drastic and frightening effect on women. Popular culture frequently tells society, what is supposed to recognize and accept as beauty, and even though beauty is a concept that differs on all cultures and modifies over time, society continues to set great importance on what beautiful means and the significance of achieving it; consequently, most women aspire to achieve beauty, occasionally without measuring the consequences on their emotional or physical being. Unrealistic beauty standards are causing tremendous damage to society, a growing crisis where popular culture conveys the message that external beauty is the most significant characteristic women can have. The approval of prototypes where women are presented as a beautiful object or the winner of a beauty contest by evaluating mostly their physical attractiveness creates a faulty society, causing numerous negative effects; however, some of the most apparent consequences young and adult women encounter by beauty standards, can manifest as body dissatisfaction, eating disorders that put women’s life in danger, professional disadvantage, and economic difficulty.

Many young women in today’s society struggle with confidence and their body image. This is a huge problem in society and many people have spoken out against the influence of media on women’s body image. However, it continues to be a major problem and more can always be done to raise awareness about societies unrealistic expectations for women’s beauty. Dove’s Choose Beautiful campaign was started to promote the self-esteem of women and encourage them to see their beauty, however there are some criticisms, including the company using this campaign to increase their sales. Dove is selling a product with the expectation that confident, beautiful women will purchase it, however people still have the ability to resist the ad industry.

Everyone has a different view of what is beautiful. Why are we never happy with how we look? Why are we so quick to compare ourselves to others? The simple answer to these questions is: Media. The media is constantly showing images of what is considered beautiful. These images greatly affect society and often impact the way people view themselves. Most of these images are unrealistic, and send unhealthy expectations to women; however most women are willing to do anything they can to achieve this look. In recent times, the notion of thin at all costs defines our culture. The media builds the idea of distorted body images, creating a belief that beauty is achieved through body weight.

Television is a rising source of entertainment and information. Many people use it as a fashion guide- a way to determine what is "cool" to do, or how one should look. Even seemingly innocent shows such as America's Top Model, Family Guy or One Tree Hill reflect a certain image of how a gendered individual should look or act. Yet media would not have such a huge impact on society if the people did not support it. Peers have a lot of influence over the people they come in contact with. The desire to be loved and accepted often outweighs one's sense of respect for themselves. In order to fit it, many people go to extreme lengths to make themselves fit the ideal image society places on a gendered individual. Media's influence on American

Beauty standards have been socially constructed in diverse and various shapes in every society or culture in the world, and cause people to think they are not beautiful if they do not fit the common standard of beauty that has been set by the society. Most people are pressured into the standard by the social milieu. The people who are different from the socially pursued standard of beauty do not think the standard itself is absurd, but they rather tend to be insecure about their appearance. Once people see the beauty through individual’s perspective, not through the socially constructed standard, they would realize how much they have unconsciously forced each other to be fit in the beauty standard. This is something that I have also experienced. I was not a person who fit in the standard of beauty, and that made me shy and timid. However, once I saw myself through a different perspective of beauty, I could see it as a social problem that unconsciously forces one particular standard of beauty.