How the Media Affects the Self Esteem and Body Image of Young Girls

Through out society many teens and young women have been scrutinized for their bodies and appearance. Media is one of the leading contributor. Media has led to the sexualization and body image issues in teens and women. As the media idealizes women as a miniature size 0 with long blonde hair and blue eyes, it leads to the loss in self esteem. Every girl wants to look like Megan Fox, with her great body and good facial structure. Reality is we can't all look like that and it's what women, call "winning the genetic lottery".

Over time, the perfect body image has changed in many ways. This is very evident in the female sex, especially through media. “Americans spend about 68 hours per week exposed to various forms of media” (US Census Bureau 2009). This media exposure through outlets such as t.v., radio, music videos, movies, and the internet, all influence the way people think about gender. The media influence is very evident in the way people view women and think about women in different cultures. Media influence on women creates negative viewpoints with how women view themselves and even how men view themselves, in turn making it hard to break certain beliefs and stereotypes instilled on society.

The culture of media has now taken a large affect on young girls and their body images. Young girls are feeling dissatisfied with their bodies because of the way society views women. The media tells us what to look like, what clothes to wear, make-up, what cars to drive, and sometimes what to eat. Media is changing people constantly through advertising and by showing us the looks and fashions of celebrities. Advertising has negative effects on the formation of oneself as seen through the nature of the promotion of its’ products. This effect is particularly prevalent among young adolescent girls. Young girls feel the need to join dietary plans or result to eating disorders Advertising in society results in negative effects on girls through self-image that leads to harmful consequences. The media is the biggest factor contributing to girls’ dissatisfaction with their bodies, causing eating disorders.

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

Man, I wish I could look like that! How does she get her makeup to look so perfect? Her eyebrows are on point! She 's so skinny and fit looking. Her skin is absolutely flawless! I wish I looked like her! Why can 't I be like those girls? How many times have you watched television, searched the web, looked at magazines, or used your cell phone and have thought those things about a woman/teen girl that you have seen? Media has photoshopped, airbrushed, and tweaked pictures and videos to appear as perfect! The media has made young women feel as if their bodies are not good enough. Young women are being convinced that if they do not look like the “perfect” women on television then they aren 't good enough.

Due to young women being constantly indoctrinated by being told how to look and act, it is no surprise that effects on a young woman’s body-image are primarily psychological. Within the group of young women, adolescent girls are targeted when it comes to thin-ideals and negative body-images. Throughout many psychological studies, it has been noted that this is because a young girl’s body is going through many psychological and physiological changes that make them more vulnerable to a negative body-image. Bell and Dittmar describe why adolescent girls are more defenseless by saying, “ During adolescence, a primary psychological task faced is that of identity formation, and being socially accepted by one’s peers becomes

The author attempts to establish credibility. The 3 major contributors to this article are San Francisco State University psychologist Deborah Schooler, Monique Ward of the University of Michigan, and University of North Dakota psychologist Ric Ferraro. Each bringing with them insight as to how the media has warped and mangled the way men see their bodies.

Today, people seem to be judged on outward appearance more than ever. The people who face this judgement the most are young women. With the constant bombardment of beauty standards that must be met, many young women turn towards the advice of magazines. However, most of us don’t recognize the perfect girl on the cover, she’s supposedly the product of listening to the magazine’s advice. However, to the dismay of many young women, she is pure fiction, edited beyond realistic expectation, and yet our young women are expected to emulate this image. The result of such pressures can prove to be too much to handle and young women often resort to pathogenic dieting and experience body image and eating disorders. The increase in mental health disorders associated with body image in teen girls attributed to the unrealistic standards set in magazines targeted toward young women, therefore magazines need to use images that reflect the realities of the target audience and should not be heavily edited.

An average 6-11 year old watched 22 hours of TV a week and a combined average of 28 hours a week is spent on multiple media outlets. A tremendous climb of sexual content on TV has been occurring since the 1970’s; currently 70 percent of all TV programming includes sexual material increasing to 77 percent on prime time TV. Around 30 percent of the most watched child and teen programs contain sexual language, body attractiveness, and objectification of women’s bodies (Starr, 2012). The media outlets display popular culture that scream unhealthy messages to girls, burying healthy images instilled by parents that might be trying to break through. Girls are exposed to the messages so frequently that they cannot help but to absorb them and crave to become like the popular images. This leads to unhealthy values, attitudes, and thoughts held about oneself and

Ultra-thin models are plastered all over the media today, but have these influential sources thought of the negative outcomes that could change society forever? The notions represented by the media silently incline girls to conform to an ideal that is impossible to reach. Due to their malleable brains, adolescent females are subjected to the image of a perfect body through media’s adverse influence of what a quintessential girl is supposed to look like and the permanent impact it has on a girl’s life.

America is obsessed with body image. In today’s world, you can't go through the day without seeing the television, advertisements, magazines, or really any type of media portraying women's bodies. Due to the immense societal pressure that women should have the “perfect body” to be accepted, the nonstop reminders to change what they look like, struggling with body image has now become a major social phenomenon- and it's time for women to challenge that narrative. Women of all ages are facing face increasing scrutinization over their body image through media influence leading to invasive surgeries, increased depression, and eating disorders.

This limited time with parents limits the time that they can teach their daughters to think critically about the unrealistic way the media portrays women and girls. By seeing supermodels and other girls their own age who look “sexy”, teens become dissatisfied with their own bodies. Many end up with low self-esteem, and some with dangerous eating disorders. Due to the media, girls at younger ages are becoming dissatisfied with their bodies, proactively trying to change them, and feeling like they need to emulate something different than what their bodies can

Are people's opinions really their own, or are they a subset of others thoughts and opinions put together? The media is intended to send its message to the audience and many times, it is a great influence on the general population. The media has the power to influence the audience on what is appealing and what is not. One of the main controversies going on now, is how the media portrays the body image. The media promotes negative body images by aiming their attention on perfection, using subliminal messages, and reaching out to towards younger children.

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.

Our sex saturated media is also generating conflict in young girls’ development. The portrayal of women as sexual objects is discussed in the article “The sexualization of Girls is Harmful” by Olivia Ferguson and Hayley Mitchell Haugen. The article cites statistics of “prime-time television shows popular among children” remarking that “12% of sexual comments involved sexual objectification toward women” and “23% of sexual behaviors involved leering, ogling or catcalling at female characters”.(par 6) The feature provides www.aboutkidshealth.ca/ as an “online resource for information about areas of children’s health and family life”. (Par 1) This web site states “depression, low self-esteem and eating disorders” as consequences for media sexualizing women. (Par 2) The research defines “the objectification theory as a psychological theory explaining the