Mass Media 's Influence On Body Image

Mental health is a big part of obesity many children are suffering from disorders like depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and even suicide attempts. With the way media portrays body image today it is hard for a child to not get discouraged. Women in magizes are photo shopped and air brushed to look as skinny as possible, men are photo shopped and air brushed to look toned and fit. Young men, women and children look at these photos and see an unrealistic person. With that they set unrealistic goals and end up harming themselves in the end. By forming eating disorders and mental disorders, eating disorders by trying to archive a body type that is not real and mental disorders by looking at the results of not having that body type. Children

As a wise man once said, “To love yourself is to understand you don't need to be perfect to be good.” However young girls have so much pressure put on them to look in a way that is not only unrealistic but also unhealthy. As a result of this, young girls have a very negative body image and self-confidence.The problem is the unrealistic body standards that media and society have set for girls. According to SSCC, the average American woman is 5’4 and 140 pounds. There is a clear problem when the media is only advertising women that are 5’11 and 117 pounds, which is the average American model. Even though the body of a model is very rare and uncommon,girls are expected to look like they do. However, by promoting a positive body campaign, stopping the portrayal of fake and photoshopped models in the media, and expanding the diversity of models, we could lift unrealistic body standards and start accepting everybody as beautiful.

“Thin is beautiful” “Get thin fast” “Thin is ideal” “Need to get skinny for the summer” These would be some of many negative messages that are being instilled into young minds from the media. The mass media has a great influence on an individual’s body image. The media distorts reality, promotes weight-teasing, and with the lack of diversity, it leads to body dissatisfaction, that would be a person’s negative thoughts about their body, and can inevitably lead to eating disorders. Also, media distorting reality can lead to mental illness and a low self esteem. The body image of many people does not reflect who they are but it rather reflects what the media portrays.

The physical effect s that the media has on a young girl’s overall beauty and body image are staggering. Many young girls put their bodies through painful physical transformations. They want to look just like their favorite celebrities or to fit into the latest fashion trends and appeal to the media’s idea of what the opposite sex wants them to look like. Willis’s The Culture of Beauty, argues this point by saying “The Media distract women from focusing on what bodies do… dressing up, dressing down or sculpting our bodies in pursuit of a profile the we’d be happy to avoid dressing altogether. They print lessons available to male readers regarding what’s ‘desirable’ and ‘ideal’ when it comes to the sizes and shapes of women’s body parts”(106-107). What’s even more disturbing is the physical appearance of girls who starve themselves to reach the

Works Cited America the Beautiful. Dir. Darryl Roberts. By Darryl Roberts. Prod.

Cusumano, D. L., & Thompson, J. K. (2001). Media influence and body image in 8–11 year-old

What is beauty? Is it having a skinny body, a blemish free face, and long blonde hair? For some girls it is. Beauty is a main concern for many girls, especially as they are growing up and going through adolescents. They admire women in magazines and on television, dreaming to be just like them. Unfortunately, what they do not realize is that no one has the perfect smile, perfect skin, or perfect hair.

In comparison to the time span of history, the media is a relatively new presence in the world. Despite its rather contemporary status, the media is a wide-spread entity in modern society. From television to the internet, and from social media to online news sources, almost every modern American has access to the media in some way. Media has affected the way of life in many ways, including the way people view themselves. Body image and the media have formed a relationship, and this relationship effects many people. It becomes particularly important to focus on this relationship, especially when it comes to how it is changing the way people feel about themselves.

Under society’s norms for decades, young women have been put under the pressure and anticipation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin and curved, beautified by applying pounds of the makeup to their face but not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these standards imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model along the cover of Vogue being called flawless, it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the photocopy. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a pressing issue for young women. Advertisements and posters of skinny female models are all over. Young girls not only could be better but need to be more upright and feel driven to throw the perfect figure. Moreover, girls are evaluated and oppressed by their physical appearances. With supplements and apparel designed to enhance a facial expression; social media, magazines, and marketing campaigns and advertisements add to the burden of perfection. The fashion industry is a prime object of body image issues, as they believe clothes look better on tall and svelte women. Established on a survey participated by 13 to 17-year-old in the U.S., 90% “felt pressured by fashion and media industries to be skinny”, with more than 60% routinely compares themselves to models, while 46%

Society and the media play a big influence on body image and self esteem, which are two big reasons why people look to cosmetic surgery. Women make up for a really big majority of all cosmetic procedures. Of the 7.2 million cosmetic procedures in 2008, women make up 87 percent of those procedures. (Driscoll and Griswold). Why is this statistic so high? The reason is that the media and society pressure women to look a certain way, and if they do not look that way, the women look to cosmetic procedures to conform to society's expectations. Doctors and surgeons will even use societal influences to rack up patients. Doctors use advertising that connected cosmetic surgery to improving self-image, and that attracted people who had aesthetic insecurities.

(Why would something like the Tv, magazines, or pictures effect a way girl thinks or sees herself) It affects girls because it's basically all they see, polluted all over the world like waste. In media today they somehow find a way to interject body image into everything. “It’s like welcome to the dazzling world of social media where today’s youth are often living their lives out loud and on full view of an online audience.” We should restrict the aspect of appearances out of the media, even if it’s a bit. The media makes girls want to change themselves. Girls mental understanding of what they look like is disoriented by their thoughts, because of the media..Younger girls are getting ideals presented and pushed onto them

Through my research I have discovered also that teen’s social groups play a role on influencing body image.

Media such as the internet, broadcasting, and publishing is a way to express opinions and keep up to date with the latest fashion trends. While these trends continue to go on, new trends are thought of, the trends may be a little tricky to keep up with even for celebrities. While the thought of being perfect for society, cause many adolescents to breakdown for following the false beliefs of society. Some people may use the media to be updated on important news. On the other hand, others believe the media is a horrible setting, resulting in adolescent to do whatever it takes to become just like them, poisoning their minds to become something they are not. The media produces bad influences for body image and messes with adolescents’ minds.

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.

With the ever increasing size and influence of mass media in our daily lives, we are seeing more and more individuals suffer the negative effects of being constantly exposed to images of “ideal” bodies in the media. This can cause a negative perception of one’s body image and contribute to developing eating disorders. We have to focus on developing effective interventions that will decrease the negative effects of media and photoshop on body image. There have been numerous studies that have shown us how he media can lead to a negative perception of a person’s body image. The movie and music industries, as well as advertisements constantly portray an ideal and beautiful body for women and men as one that is thin (in many cases, extremely and/or unhealthily thin).When people see these images and then look at their own bodies, which are often times different from what is portrayed as ideal, they begin to think they are not beautiful, are too fat, too pale, too-whatever. This dissatisfaction with one’s body can often lead to low self-esteem, depression, and can even lead to developing eating disorders. There are websites devoted to eating disorders, such as anorexia, encouraging people to engage in harmful behaviors in order to be thin. Studies have shown that just visiting this websites can lead to a more negative self-image and increase the desire to be thinner. Also, many of the celebrities and models that women and men look up to as having the ideal body have admitted to