Is Body Dysmorphic Disorder? Essay

Body image and beauty standards have changed drastically over the years. By establishing impossible standards of beauty and bodily perfection, the media drives people tobe dissatisfied with their bodies. This dissatisfaction can result in disorders of behavior as people try to achieve unreachable goals with unhealthy

In a generation filled with entertainment and technology, there are many advertisements that exist. Advertisements, such as clothing advertisements, involve lots of touch ups on the model, making what the world sees, a fake reality of what human body look like. For some of the North American population, these advertisements do not affect them; they will look at the body of the model and not think much of it. But for those who suffer from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, this will affect them in a completely different way. Body Dysmorphic Disorder is “a body image disorder characterized by persistent and intrusive preoccupations with an imagined or slight defect in one’s appearance” (ADAA, 2014). The impact that advertisements can have on those suffering from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, can be crucial to their mental health. These individuals will begin to obsess over changing something about themselves that may not even be an imperfection about them. But since a model or someone else looks a certain way and they do not, they will do anything they can to change it, which can be very unhealthy. Those with Body Dysmorphic Disorder will perform different behaviours to attempt at hiding or improving their flaws (ADAA, 2014). Some of those who are suffering may even develop an eating disorder.

At the end of my speech, the audience will have a better understanding on how society plays a big role on women’s body image. They will also be able to identify the relationship between body image distortion and eating disorders. Finally, I will provide further understanding on the crucial factors of eating disorders, as well as the different treatments available.

The influence of the media on all aspects of culture and society has been a issue around the world. One of the social cultural aspects particularly influenced by the media is body image. A surprisingly large number of individuals, the majority of which are young women, develop their body image in with the ideas advanced by the media, which judge women’s attractiveness based on how thin they are. Body-image plays a very important role in our individualistic society. Modern beauty image standards which favor thin body image create an unrealistic expectation on young women, often resulting in eating disorders and other destructive practices, like self-harming, unnecessary or elective cosmetic surgery, decreased self-esteem and the use of harmful substances, like diuretics.

People now a days have a problem with the way they appear. For hundreds of years, people, especially females, have been concerned with their weight, the way they look, and the way people perceive them. In the article, Do You Have a Body Image Problem? author Dr. Katharine A. Phillips discusses the concerns with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Dr. Phillips uses her knowledge or ethics to discuss the effects that BDD has on people today. She also uses emotion to show the reader how people are seriously affected by this disorder. In Dr. Phillips article, she discusses how people are emotionally and socially affected by the body dysmorphic disorder, and how society is also affected by it.

Teenagers experiencing body dysmorphic disorder tend to make unhealthy decisions, therefore, they need an app that can reduce distress, increase healthy food intake and provide relaxation exercises because that will help them feel more satisfied with their life. Body dysmorphic disorder is a condition of a person that is repeatedly stressed about their appearance flaws. Victims of body dysmorphic disorder are mainly teenagers of this generation, who are overly conscious of their body image, therefore, they may choose to avoid company, take on severe diets and exercise, past their limits. Anything unpleasant or that exert their comfort zone is considered harmful as it will cause the brain to take dangerous decisions, like, commit suicide. To get teenagers to do these things in a comfortable and controllable way, we need an app that could track how much time is spent alone, what nutritious foods are needed and how much exercise should be done.

Body dysmorphic disorder is a psychological disorder in which a person thinks about their flaws and imperfections for hours a day and take extreme measures in order to “perfect their body” so it can finally appeal to them and be the way it is “suppose to be.” Those who suffer from this disorder cannot control there negative thoughts and it can prevent them from doing everyday activities such as attend school and attend work. They are more prone to miss social events than go out to show off their results and are insecure about how they tried to fix there “imperfections.” And are never satisfied with their results as they undergo more drastic measures to reach their end goal such as plastic surgery, continuous self-tanning, hours of laser surgeries

A psychosomatic disorder includes Body Dysmorphic Disorder. This disorder allows a person to think negative about their real selves for many hours each day. This is because they believe that any part of their body is not perfect for them. They believe that no matter what their friends or family tell them about how great they look, they wish that they had a better and skinnier body, face shape, etc. Since this disease doesn’t let them control what they think, it is hard for them to not be stressed out because their mind causes them to be in an emotional distress state, which causes their daily routines to be disturbed (ADAA 2014). According to Anxiety and Depression Association of America, they stated that “it affects men and women almost equally”

A large nose, acne-prone skin, single eyelids, and the list goes on. We all wish we could change that one imperfection we have. However, some of us can accept it and carry on with our lives; not for sufferers of body dysmorphic disorder.

Therefore, the commendation of such look and shape commercializes unhealthy body image and procreates eating disorders. Unfortunately, at present the commercialism of a perfect body is encountered by almost everyone on everyday basis. The public is bombarded daily with images of glamorously thin women in commercials, on billboards, in movies in magazines and etc?According to Melanie Katzman, a consultant psychologist from New York, the media has actively defined the thin ideal as success and treats the body as a commodity. (Rhona MacDonald, 2001) It is evident that the persistent advocating of the media and the society produced a constant pursuit of thinness, which became a new religion. A study conducted by Harvard researchers has revealed the effect of media and magazines on adolescent girls in high schools. The children were exposed to fashion magazines and television commercials, and a while after were given self-rating surveys. The study found that sixty-nine percent of the girls said that magazine pictures

The superficial quality of physical appearance has been held to a high regard for most of human history. Unfortunately, this focus on external perfection has been the root of many mental illnesses, including Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Body Dysmorphic Disorder is characterized by the obsessive fixation upon a person’s perceived, often nonexistent, physical deformity (“Studies” 1).

If you could critique anything on your body what would it be? That is a question nearly everyone would have an answer to. We may hear people complain about a certain physique on their body that they are not quite satisfied with. Some may be unsatisfied with the following appearances: face blemishes, a crooked smile, a chipped tooth, big feet, small ears and etc., just to name a few. Others may think or complain about their appearances on a daily, and that my friend is what you call, body dysmorphic disorder.

The female body image is highly influenced by the mass media and the media’s portrayal of women, ‘70% of college women say they feel worse about their own looks after reading women’s magazines’ (University of Massachusetts & Stanford University, 2006), the portrayal of women in the media has an unrealistic approach and brings out body dissatisfactions and this results in eating problems and disorders.

A female should not feel insecure with her body when she is comfortable in her own skin, whether or not she weights 130 pounds or 150 pounds at 5’5”. According to Rehab’s study of the evolution of the female figure over one hundred years, “the body shapes of the most admired models have remained consistently slimmer than that of the average American woman.” Due to the significant increase in mass media throughout the twentieth century of the United States, there has been a noteworthy impact on the popular image of women. A woman being dissatisfied with their body is a everyday trend around the world where as

Body image has become a huge issue in society today, with magazines such as Shape, Covergirl, Vogue, Seventeen, or celebrities such as Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie, or Kylie Jenner. Women, especially teenagers, find themselves thinking that they have to look like the model they saw in a magazine, or on social media. The media is greatly responsible for the growing of the “ideal” thin women. Statistics show that diet and weight control advertisement appear ten times more in women’s magazines than men. Showing thin models next to them which leads girls to eating disorders, harming their bodies so they have an “ideal” image of what they think they should look like.