How The Media Influences An Individual

It is no secret that today’s society defines beauty as thin, long-legged women with statuesque bodies. Examples are found everywhere just by glancing at the closest magazine ads or by scrolling down the latest fashion article online. Normal, everyday women are being forgotten and tossed aside to make room for the “Top-Model”-like women currently crowding up Hollywood. Media depicts women as an unattainable image. They pressure ladies to buy the products they’re advertising; luring them with false advertisements promising that with it, they too could be perfect. While the media portrays women in a certain way for advertising and marketing benefits, it has caused numerous negatives effects to women’s self-esteems nationwide, it contradicts

Throughout their lives, women of all ages are constantly being bombarded with advertisements convincing them they must meet an ideal of the perfect body image. This is all thanks to companies that share a common goal to influence the mainstream population into believing they need to purchase certain products in order to compare to the impossible standards set by the beauty industry. In Dave Barry’s “Beauty and the Beast” he displays that it is planted in young girls minds that they need to look, dress, feel, and even act a certain way. However, men aren’t as affected by these capitalistic marketing schemes. In short, the media has affected the way women think of themselves.

In “Never Just Pictures,” Susan Bordo discusses the obsession with body image in the media. She begins with an example of Alicia Silverstone; when she appeared at the Academy Awards with a little added weight, the tabloids viciously slammed her. Not only this, but the media regularly attacks women with constant diet pill and plan ads in magazines, in newspapers, on TV, and even in public areas. These advertisements usually have a woman clad in a bikini on the cover. Magazines always have a new miracle diet advertised on their cover. The media affects young minds beyond what one may believe.

Demi Lovato once said, “I’m not going to sacrifice my mental health to have the perfect body.” However, today we find that many individuals are doing the completely opposite. In Susan Bordo’s, “Globalization of Eating Disorders” essay, they fall into the media trap, the self-image trap, where they are concerned of what people may think about them. Americans nowadays have pageants, modeling, and media to thank for this absurd notion. Fit women, along with strong men give this motivation to others to want to be like them. Most people should be comfortable with their own bodies. Americans are mesmerized with media and enthralled by one’s body image, and ,as a result, face ramifications like eating disorders and anorexia.

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,

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

Also, the media lowers women's self-esteem by making them believe that if they don't have the appearance of the young woman in the advertisement, their body is not classified as beautiful. Diana Vancura in her article, “The Media Focus Too Much on Looks” not only emphasizes the idea that the media ignores women's talents, but also the idea that they only “advertise a specific body type as beautiful” constantly. Once again we see how media puts down any beauty that

Looking good and being in shape is a top priority of today’s adults. According to the American Society of Plastic surgery (ASPA) 14.6 million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed in the United States in 2012. This is a 5 percent increase since 2011. The constant media advertisement of weight loss, sex appeal, and cosmetically enhanced beauty often leads to unrealistic standards of beauty and dissatisfaction in personal appearance. This overexposure to Hollywood beauty causes women to wonder how come they don’t look like that and often leaves them questioning what they can do to have a picture perfect body and face. According to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), the promotion of unhealthy standards of beauty by the media often leads to depression and dissatisfaction in personal appearance (Chittom 3). Media have a negative impact on women’s body image and how women respond to the media’s portrayal of what is beautiful by advertisements emphasizing the importance of physical attractiveness, using Photoshop and airbrushing techniques to alter images people see in advertisements, and disregarding healthy living.

Many negativities have resulted from what the media is portraying as the idealized body image; the body size of women portrayed in the media is noticeably getting smaller. The media will do everything to sell a product, especially when it tugs on someones insecurities. The term “thin-ideal media” refers to media images, shows, and films that contain very thin female leads (“Body, Of”). The media has made a thin body appear as if that is what the ideal body image should be, even if it is harmful to a person’s health. The average fashion model is typically 4-7 inches taller and 50 pounds lighter than the average American (Insel 292). Many consider that having good looks means you have good health; furthermore, it then makes it difficult for some women to go without thinking

Identity portrays qualities and beliefs that makes a person or group different from others. Your identity is influenced by language frames, culture, origin, membership and people's thoughts about you. Majority of people have many identities that can change depending on who he or she is with or type of setting he or she is in. Your identity is shaped by culture and by people you interact with on a daily basis. This is because a person can reflect their identity through the perceptions of people. The media has a huge influence on a person's identity whether it be on television or online such as Facebook. The media constructs a person's identity and how we portray ourselves.

In today’s world everywhere you look there are images of what our society considers beautiful. Television uses pretty skinny girls for the popular TV shows, magazines use pictures of skinny women in the articles, store windows use pictures of skinny models modeling the stores clothes, and billboards use young skinny pretty models modeling jewelry or other products. In reality, these women do not look like what these pictures portray them as. These

What does the media tell us about women? It tells us what is “most important” and that’s how we look. They surround us with images of ideal female beauty. We have been learning from such an early age, that we must spend our time to strive to be like the women in these images and to feel ashamed and guilty if we cant live up to these incredibly unrealistic expectations. But failure is inevitable, when the women we are being shown are photo shopped and airbrushed to seem thinner, with faces so flawless that there is not a wrinkle or a line to be seen. This idea of beauty that society is showing us is so edited that it can’t be achieved. Not even the women in these images we are being shown look like this. The media is beginning to dictate our lives, influencing our thoughts, opinions, and actions. Through this use of magazines, advertisements, and social media, we are being shown by society what we need to look like in order to be beautiful. Society challenges women to be strong and independent, by showing us that in order to be seen as the ideal female we have to look like a woman that has been altered with on a computer for hours until she doesn’t even look like

Today 's society is constantly presented with misrepresentations of the ideal body image through the advertising of diet plans and supplements. Companies in the fitness industry scam people into buying useless products or services by advertising with individuals that have, what the mass media sees as, the 'perfect ' body composition. In addition to getting consumers to buy into a product or service, these companies also aid society with the spreading of this fake idea of what classifies as the perfect body. They portray a body image that is unattainable for most individuals in society, despite how many of those supplements being advertised they buy. The models used in these advertisements, are in most cases, starving themselves, enhanced via illegal substances, or are photo-shopped to the point where even they do not look like the model displayed in the ad. All this has led to many people wanting to strive for that perfect body, that in reality, is impossible to achieve. In order to show the affect these advertisements play in our society, I will be deconstructing multiple ads in the fitness industry, as well as multiple peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles centered around the impact media has on an individual 's self-image.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most critical of them of all. Do you ever just stand in front of the mirror to point out and criticize all of your flaws? According to the Dove campaign, 92% of girls would change something about their appearance with body weight coming in at number one. There are many forms of media today and society uses models and celebrities on the covers of magazines and display them on television to send the message that you have to look a certain way according to them to be considered “beautiful”. Most models are well under a healthy body weight and the media tells women that you have to be unhealthy to be accepted in today’s society. Many women are very vulnerable when it comes to their weight and appearance and