Social Media has Unhealthy Effect on Young Women

Media has become a significant component within society. While media provides many pros, it supplies various cons as well. One very prominent fault that the significance of media has is its visual depiction of women. There is an abundance of media portraying women to have ideal bodies, and this undoubtedly has a negative effect on adolescent girls. Two of the many effects of media on females are depression and self esteem issues, as well as eating disorders. Unfortunately, body dissatisfaction caused by media is becoming more and more common.

Every day, millions of Americans view the front covers of magazines like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and more. They see them while at grocery stores, on the television, and even in the waiting room at a doctor's office. The media offer advertisements with models that are seemingly slim with perfect skin, hair, and teeth. American propaganda leaves most young, adolescent girls between the ages of 5-18 to consider that the complexity of beauty is strict to be thin and perfect, though it is targeted to young adolescents, it does aim towards older female and male age ranges as well. An article states, “While the media attempt to target every person, the level of exposure is dictated by gender, and the majority of harmful messages is focused more toward women. For instance, in media such as magazines where a person relies on an image to relate a feeling, girls are often made to look inferior” (Chapman). When it comes to the media, specifically in the American culture, the popularity has massively increased over the years, turning to new weekly issues, becoming common to the society and civilization. This causes issues associated with eating disorders, depression and suicide, and self-esteem/confidence young girls.

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%

Flawless images used throughout the media saturate young girl’s minds, highlighting superlative women. For teenage girls this is hard to ignore with the line between fantasy and reality skewed my mass media and stress placed on obtaining an idealistic body portrait. In modern, Western society children are constantly bombarded with images of a false nature: many of which are photo-shopped to remove ‘imperfections’. But one of the most outraging/staggering facts is that children are not unaware of the demeaning and derogatory methods used by the media with ‘81% of 10 year olds scared of becoming fat’ (World Health Organisation) showing that the prominence of the media is becoming ever more apparent.

Images in the media are extremely powerful and affect the way women think about themselves and about their body. Hilary Rowland, author of “Media Images Are Unrealistic” states how the images shown everyday cause women to “feel insecure about their own bodies” even if they don't have anything to be ashamed of. It is evident that the media displays unrealistic images of beauty causing girls to feel insecure about their bodies and creates a false perception of how they should look. Due to this, women obsess so much over looking just like the “idealized” woman in the media that they create an obsession of losing weight because of lack of confidence. In the article, “The Media Drives Young Girls to Diet” by Jessica Hendrick, we see how women “diet obsessively” trying to “emulate the popular notion of beauty” that is being shown in the media.

By age six, girls start to think about their weight and become self-conscious. Forty to sixty percent of girls, ages six to twelve, are concerned about being too fat. This idea, caused by society is carried throughout their life, causing self-esteem issues, which can lead to depression. Sixty nine percent of girls who read magazines said that the pictures influenced their idea of an “ideal body”. Forty seven percent said the pictures made them want to lose weight. This idea, that you have to be skinny to the point of starvation, in order to be beautiful, is affecting girls. In fact, only five percent of American women naturally have the body type that is portrayed on advertisements. The average American women according to the NEDA is five foot four weighing 165 pounds, whereas the average Miss America winner is five foot seven weighing 121

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

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

As young women go through puberty, they begin to mature both physically and emotionally. Particularly, women begin to gain weight when they undergo puberty. Throughout their adolescence, women are exposed to harsh opinions others have on their bodies and how they should carry themselves. Most importantly, women are exposed to society’s values through the use of media. Women begin to value their body image and force themselves to conform to society’s idea of the “perfect body”. Personally, I think of body image as a trouble of mine because I struggle to come to terms with not having a flawless figure. Each day, I see women on social media with unrealistically perfect bodies. After being so exposed to the media’s opinion of a good physique,

The sexualization and beauty standards of women in media gives girls and women unrealistic body expectations. “The 2000s brought us the reign of the Victoria’s Secret Angel - tall, thin, and leggy models with big breasts, flowing hair, and toned bodies” (Huffingtonpost). Girls grow up seeing these flawless and beautiful women on T.v., commercials, and magazines.

Some young girls are already experiencing body dissatisfaction. By the age of 5-8, numerous young girls were familiar with the idea of dieting and weight loss. Due to media exposure, such as reading magazines, watching television, or listening to peers often cause girls of age 6 to desire a thin woman’s figure opposed to a thicker one. Girls at this young of age should not be worried about their physical appearance, they should play outside and enjoy being young while it lasts. Not only does media affect women, it affects very young women as well.

The findings found in the article Influence of Mass Media on Body Image and Eating Disordered Attitudes and Behaviors in Females: A Review of Effects and Processes by Lopez Guimera was the following, the cross-sectional studies found "that greater use of the mass media specifically fashion magazines and television music video shows is significantly correlated...with higher levels of body dissatisfaction and with higher scores on eating disorder" (Lopez-Guimera, 2010, p. 392). It was also found in the longitudinal prospective studies that the "greater exposure to the messages conveyed by media, particularly those that transmit messages in relation to thin ideal and how to achieve it from magazines, television, and radio, the more likely females are to develop disordered eating behaviors and concerns about weight" (Lopez-Guimera, 2010, p. 401). In which the article The effect of the media on body satisfaction in adolescent girls by Helen Champion and Adrian Furnham found that adolescent girls were unsatisfied with their body image, in which they felt a societally, or self imposed or both to be thinner/become thinner (Champion, H., & Furnham, A.,

Even though these issues are known, maintaining a good confidence level has become a difficult challenge in today’s society because everyday women face the challenge to keep their heads held high while being surrounded by images of “perfect” models and actresses. Research indicates a correlation between women’s exposure to media and self-esteem levels. Kevin Thompson and Leslie Heinberg’s research article “The Media’s Influence on Body Image Disturbance and Eating Disorders: We’ve Reviled Then, Now can we Rehabilitate them?” plainly identifies media’s negative effects on women, “It has been clearly demonstrated that print media and television affect how individuals feel about their bodies. Exposure to magazines and television may lead to body image dissatisfaction and eating disordered symptomatology among girls and women” (344). This scientific study establishes that both magazines and the television cause low self-esteem and eating disorders for women and girls. Therefore the study supports the claim that the constant exposure of media in the world has negative effects on both women and girls. In the study “Searching Out the Ideal: Awareness of Ideal Body Standards Predicts Lower Global Self-esteem in Women” by Emily Balcetis and

Is there too much pressure on girls to have perfect bodies? People are worried about their body image,which is putting them in a dangerous position for anorexia,or using laxatives to lose weight.Media puts intense pressure on girls today to look like the “ideal” image.The medias harmful effect on self body image and self esteem has brought three damaging effects:eating disorders,mental depression,and physical depression.The media is always putting a new form of pills to lose weight.Many girls have been choosing the easy way to lose weight by starving themselves.Girls may try fasting or purging,because media-portrayed thin body ideal is related to eating pathology.Association between risk for disordered eating and subsequent thinnes expected

Magazines, commercials, social media, TV shows, movies, and runways, among other outlets, all contribute to constructing the ideal image of what a “perfect girl” is supposed to look like. But what exactly is perfection? How can someone possibly define such a dynamic characteristic? These portrayed images of “perfection” set out by media affect the self- esteem of teenage girls, crate cases of eating disorders, and often create cases of bullying. The media should eliminate the idea of “perfection”, and allow their audiences to witness the truth behind beauty.