Body Image Essay

There are beauty standards all over the world, but America has one of the most highest and unreachable standard of the all. In the article “Whose Body is This,” the author Katherine Haines reflects the issue on how narrow-minded society, magazine and the rest of media is depicting the perfect body. The ideal body in America is established as skinny, tall, perfect skin, tight body are characteristics that destroyed majority of woman’s self esteem (172). As girls get older and into their teen years, they have been brainwashed to need to look like the unrealistic, and photoshopped models in magazines and advertisements. Girls don’t feel comfortable to be in their own skin, because they were not taught to love themselves for who they are right in the beginning.

I have always been very obsessed with body image. When I was young, baseball was my sport. Soon after, I joined the swim team. During these years I’ve never looked the way that pleased me. When the age of fourteen came around, I decided to join the gym with a personal trainer. At this time, being overweight and unhappy. Never did I think the gym would mean so much to me in the future. Just before the age of sixteen, bodybuilding made a drastic impression on me. The art of building a well symmetrical body. Everything about this sport fascinated me because it gave a chance to create a new me.

Women and girls on average struggle with their self-esteem and their overall body image throughout their lives. It especially comes into effect with the constant portrayal of overly skinny mannequins or non-human representations in popular, stores, on the web, and on television (Clifford, 2011). In today’s society the average woman is bigger and mannequins are becoming smaller. It is difficult for the average woman to match their ideal

Today in modern society, we are driven by social forces. Not only do we strive for human approval and companionship, we also thrive on social media. The media plays such a pivotal role in what we buy, eat, wear, etc. that we are conditioning ourselves to fit the mold for the “perfect” or “ideal” body type. This social construct has been a pressing issue for many years regarding the female physique, but not as much has been said on behalf of men. When confronted with appearance based advertisements, men are more likely to experience muscle dissatisfaction, weight disparities, and anger and/or anxiety toward showing their body in public. This paper will address these facets of the media’s effect on male body image as well as presenting what has been done to address this quietly debilitating issue.

Young dancers and their bodies is a topic rarely out of the news right now. Those involved in the art form and the public have argued whether ballet has pushed the ideal “ballet body” stereotype to such an extreme that the ballet community is full of insecure, depressed and eating disorder ridden girls. The ballet school environment has been called a weight-obsessed subculture and a breeding ground for eating disorders. Body image is a major issue for young ballet dancers with potentially life-damaging consequences because of the distorted idea of body image instilled in them at such a young age. The main cause of poor body image in young dancers is the perceived idea that one must have the perfect ballet body. Body image issues can deeply

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 media has distorted people’s views on the way they look at their own body image. The media has shown what their ideal body type is, while leaving people to feel as if the average weight is not good enough. (Cardosi, 2006) We live in a world where people feel as if having zero body fat is the idea body type to have. Pictures of models for clothing stores, bathing suits, lingerie etc. all exhibit to this to be true. Body image is perceived to be negatively influenced by the media and the way that the media displays their models. Parents, teachers, adolescence and even children all find themselves to be comparing themselves based on what the media exposes. (Levine & Murnen, 2009)

Body image may be viewed as the way people see themselves and even imagine how they make look based off how they may feel about themselves. Yet it could also be viewed as the way other people see you. Body image, in medicine and psychology refers to a person 's emotional attitudes, beliefs and views of their own body (Positive and Negative Body Image). According to Positive and Negative Body Image, a negative body image develops when a person feels his or her body does not amount up to family, social, or media standards. Many people feel as if they don’t measure up to the belief of others. People who have accepted the way they look often feel good about their image and would be considered to have a positive body image. One’s appearance may not be measure up to how their family expects it to be or how it is perceived to be in the media, but once people learn accept and be proud of the way they look they’ll be better off in the long run. When a person is measured against the standards of the beauty seen frequently in the media and it doesn’t compare to how they feel about themselves it become discouraging. Having said that, long-lasting negative body image can affect both your mental and physical health which could lead to eating disorders down the road.

Body image is a multidimensional construct that plague society at large. In particular, eating disorders and sexual abuse impact a large majority of females. Sexual abuse is classified as, “a violent act against an individual that occurs within the context of an extreme power imbalance” (Stermac, Piran, and Sheridan, 1993, p. 251). However, this definition of sexual abuse is especially narrow and must be broadened. Sexual assault frequently goes unreported because victims are discouraged that their allegation is false. Though the traumatic event is over, the violation replays in the victims mind regularly. Moreover, denial and refusal to acknowledge the abuse instills anxiety, fear, guilt, anger, depression, and low self-esteem among victims. Clients seeking treatment for an eating disorder may not recognize the connection between their eating disturbances and sexual trauma and in consequence are disinclined to reveal a history of abuse to their therapist. Sexually abused patients often develop unhealthy coping mechanisms that stem from their traumatic experiences. Thus, engaging in disordered eating is an accessible option for

I chose my Facebook and Twitter accounts for this analysis. I chose these because these are primary accounts many employers look at and both of those accounts are also integrated with my Instagram account that host all my photos.

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

Is the first impression of a person always right? In the past, I thought impressions were correct almost one-hundred percent of the time, but then, I realized that a person can easily be misjudged. For example, the first time I came into your classroom, I expected you to be like the majority of coaches, dull and non-exciting. But in reality, you are actually a very lively coach that loves to interact with the students. For this reason, I think that first impressions of people can be right, but most of the time one really does not know a person until they have talked and bonded with them for a while. In my opinion, I think that people can easily be misjudged because of their physical features, such as the way the look or how the dress, the people they hang out with, or that person may just be having a bad day.

accepted in today’s world have a very negative mental attitude contributing to their compulsive behavior to be perfect. Women are enslaved to a beauty myth, chained to the false belief that our value is based on our appearance alone. (5) Women can be very vulnerable and susceptible to believing that such notions are reality, even though they know in their heart that it is not the truth. We allow ourselves to fall victim to the mind games that the media plays with us to convince our minds that thin equals good and fat equals bad. The need for the ideal body image takes its tolls on a female, mentally not just physically. When one gets caught up in the desire to please others it can distract [them] from what [they] truly feel. One who excessively pleases places her worth into the hands of other people and depends completely upon their judgment while doing their best to influence their judgment. (6) It is mentally unfavorable to depend on the critique of other for one’s own sense of self, yet it is an ongoing problem that occurs every day in many parts of the world.

Girls are taught from a young age that the key to success is beauty. The

In today’s society we let the media decide everything in our lives from what clothes we should wear, music we should listen to, and how we should look. One of the biggest problems that both men and women face is body shaming, because the media sets standards for young kids and young adults., they often times try and fit the description of “perfect” which leads these people to either be depressed because they do not look like people want them to look or harm themselves in order to achieve the desired look. The most common ways the media shames both men and women are by celebrities and how they are the “perfect” body, publishing magazines of what is the ideal man and woman, and by the people who believe being “too” fat is bad and being “too” skinny is bad.