Essay on Media's Unrealistic Portrayal of the Ideal Body

The media has become a powerful source for changes in our society. There are so many factors and reasons for our society changing. Today I find most people obsessively worried about their body image. We all have a body and at one time or another, we worry about it. Women and men are both being affected by media sources such as television, advertising, magazines, music, and video games; not to mention the photo manipulation that goes along with it all. Questions can be asked; such as, “Is this the way our society should be leaning [obsessing over our bodies]? What could happen from here? Are there any solutions?”

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.

Malcolm X, a civil rights activist, stated that “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have to power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent and that’s power. Because they control the minds of masses.” Unfortunately, some people lose their lives trying to get an “ideal body.” From the article “NYC Girls Project - Media and Girls,” this organization conducted a study in 2010 that stated that “63 percent of girls think the body image represented by the fashion industry is unrealistic and 47% think it’s unhealthy. Due to these reasons and others, the media influences individuals in a negative way because of how it reinforces racial/gender stereotypes.

Mass media is effective in teaching us what we “should” look like. Women should be thin. Men should be muscular. The skinny and muscular ideals portrayed in advertising encourage men and women to look a certain way. The depiction of the female ideal has helped shaped society’s perspectives about beauty. The media pushes you to “improve your body” by buying their products but soon the road to a skinny and toned body leads to a self destructive path of self hatred. The powerful ideas that the media transmits through words, images, and movement can have lasting impacts on the human brain, affecting how we think and

This is particularly apparent with the effects of advertising media. Bordo points out that “miracle diet pills and videos promising to turn our body parts into steel have become as commonplace as aspirin ads,” (par.1) which influences an idea of the kind of body one should aim to achieve. Additionally, it presents the notion that, with such products, reaching one’s weight goal will come with more ease. It gives an incentive and makes people accustomed to the belief that losing weight is necessary. By exhibiting this pattern and concept that advertising media is inducing, Bordo gives insight as to why there is an influx in the desire to lose weight and to achieve it by any means necessary. She also suggests that the “ideal of the body beautiful has largely come from fashion designers and models” (par 2).With the exaltation and emphasis on the gratifying physique of a woman’s body, many young women find themselves corresponding to the ideals the fashion industry places on both its fashion and models. Remarkably enough, Borodo conveys that, not only are females following in the fashion industries’ steps, men are falling underway as well as “more ads featuring anorexic-looking young men are appearing too” (par.2). In presenting the fashion industry for what it represents and influences, Bordo effectively reveals a fellow cause of

In the article, “The Negative Effects of the Media on Body Image” by Esther Vargas, there were several issues discussed about the negative effects that media has on body image in society. Many girls

Media knows that belonging and love will sell perfume to attract, make up to look your best, items to keep your family safe and other popular items just to have what you need to fit in or belong to a certain in group. Media not only influence a person’s purchase choices but also can sway their political opinions. What is seen on the news can influence people to hate a certain group because they are a threat to the safety of families or politically influence a vote for a candidate because so families will prosper. Media influences self-esteem by suggesting finding love or being able to fit in a person should have a certain body type and if that goal is not met a negative self-image or feeling of failure could ensue. Eating disorders have been tied to media’s trend toward portraying women in certain model thinness and promoting only that body type (Neda Feeding Hope).

Media holds such high standards in today 's society, and media as a whole has gotten so much power throughout the years. There are so many different forms of media in today 's world: newspapers, magazines, televisions, the hundreds of websites on the Internet, social media applications, computers, and novels. Media advertises thousands of different things, but something that has stayed consistent over the years is advertisement on body image. Media advertises a specific body type, pushes different dietary needs to achieve this body type and thus creating the standard of in order to be beautiful, this particular body type must be achieved. However, what advertisers seem to be neglecting is the effect their advertisements are having on its viewers. The constant push to achieve a certain body type has affected the health of thousands of people around the world, and directly affecting the eating disorder epidemic.

Media has greatly evolved since starting, but has bad evolved with it? Print media, digital media, and now social media surround everybody today. Media surround us when we go to the store and see magazines, when we sit and home and watch TV, and especially when we go online. Over time, media has created its own idea of beauty. Medias influence on body image can’t be overlooked. Media and eating disorders have a cause and effect relationship. In Helens article, “Eating Disorders: A growing problem on college campuses”, she expresses that, “In today’s media-saturated world, young women are bombarded with one message: be thin” (Helen, 2014, Paragraph 9). Today media shows that to beautiful you have to be an unhealthy weight. If media doesn’t change its view of beautiful, then the rate of eating disorders triggered by media will go up. We need to figure out a way to help now.

Media is a significant force in modern culture, particularly in America. Sociologist refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and created culture. Communities and individuals are bombarded constantly with messages from a multitude of sources. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is and is not important. The messages that the media portray are conflicting and it is impossibly hard to achieve both messages since one is orientated toward fast food consumption and the other it orientated toward an extremely thin ideal. Many researchers have hypothesized that the media may play a central role in creating and intensifying the phenomenon of body dissatisfaction and consequently,

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.,

Today’s culture has placed women across the globe in a position where they are constantly flooded with idealistic images that depict what the media perceives as the “perfect body.” Quite often, young university-attending females, those who are involved in social identity formation, are exposed to numerous forms of media that fabricate various experiences relative to body image. In the past, researchers have surveyed women who are exposed to body-related standards using multiple forms of mass media as a unified entity, which has caused for limitations since each means -such as magazine advertisements- differs in relation to how a thin idealistic image is portrayed. In light of prior research, Harper and Tiggman established that

Body image crisis is strong evidence which support the idea that media negatively affect the psychology and behavior of children and teenagers. There is an inherent interconnection between the modern media and body image. Today’s media creates stereotypes of perfect bodies which make children and teenagers who do not fit the image lose confidence in them and become depressed. Perfect women according to modern magazines and television should be thin and perfect men should be with large muscles. Children and teenager are not aware of the fact that images that are show in the media are often edited with Photoshop and that everyone is beautiful in his or her own way. These are the reason why they are influenced more by perfect images in the media

The media use subliminal messages to get the viewers’ attention by using ads, commercials, and other sources of media. For example, when siting in a hairdresser you’re flipping through a magazine all you may see is a young beautiful model who’s thin, perfect skin and just perfect in every way. “The idealization and pursuit of thinness are seen as the main drivers of body dissatisfaction, with the media primarily setting thin body ideals” (Hill 2006). The media doesn’t realize how they cause women, especially young girls to have low self-esteem. Stated in the

Basically, the media is doing nothing but using subliminal messages. The way they portray the models in magazines, it only confuses a human’s mind. This makes them believe that they must look like them to be considered beautiful. Often in magazines, when positive values, success, love, and happiness, a thin person is shown. This not only completely lowers a “healthy”, or a plus sized person’s self-esteem, but the media also tries to make it seem as if in order to be happy and successful, a person must be skinny (Piazza). Every day, companies come up with a new beauty product, or a new diet product to leer someone into buying it to make themselves beautiful. New products every day completely sets aside the idea that natural beauty is already beautiful enough. According to the media, though, people need these products to look more humane, or look younger and thinner. The media also using editing and