Stereotypes Affecting Teenagers Body Image

The average number of teens watch almost three hours of television per day, which reveals them to thousands of images of violence, sexuality, from advertisements, according to the research done by scientists, by the time today's teens reach their old age, they would have watched between seven to 10 years worth of television during the trajectory of their lives. The content and the amount of television that teens watch substitutes other activities and could have a negative influence.Brands fascinating to teens take advantage of their particular vulnerabilities, the desire to fit in, to be apprehended as attractive. Teenagers have become the main target for advertisers. Teenagers are impulsive and invariably want the latest and greatest things. Advertisers see teenagers as great gateways to persuade themselves into buying their product. Teenagers come across over 40,000 advertisements per year whether on the Internet, TV or in their schools. Ads are constantly telling teenagers to buy this, look like that, or act a certain way. There are negative sides to advertisements harnessed towards teenagers. Teens are extremely accustomed to their place in the peer ranking, and advertising acts as a kind of "super peer" in leading them toward what's cool, what's satisfactory and what’s acceptable.Many teens are highly resistant to messages around body image, and marketers use this to their advantage with their

Women’s Body Image (www.wellesley.edu/Health/BodyImage) helped demonstrates the young influence of magazines. Those days when girls strive to be something they weren’t, were probably the most crucial days in body imaging. They succumbed into the pressure of looking how everyone else wants them to look. Such teeny bopper magazines sell to many young girls the idea of beauty. Teen Magazine is the princess of that royal court. In every young woman, or man’s mind, there is this longing to be desired. To be desired, you must be attractive. To be attractive, you have to look like that girl on page seventy-one in the latest Teen Magazine (Women’s Body Image).

The whole world has seen ads in magazines where the attractive blond-haired person is showing off a bathing suit and a beefy man is looking right at her. Ads like these are misleading due to the impact they put in teen minds. Young teenagers and boys are influenced everyday by these advertisements. Young woman wants to be slimmer and look attractive, the truth is modeling in teen magazine ads have harmful body images. The figures seen in magazine advertisements drive young woman and young boys to put their own body at risk and go beyond what is healthy to attain a certain image of perfection. Teen magazines should forbid advertisements with models with unhealthy body images, causing teens to doubt their own self-worth (Peterson, 1994).

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.

Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing

The media is one of the leading causes of self esteem and body image issues in not only women but men as well. This is due to the fact that thousands of advertisements contain messages about physical attractiveness and beauty. Examples include: commercials for clothes, cosmetics, weight loss, hair removal, laser surgery and physical fitness. The effects of advertising on body image have been studied by researchers, psychologists, marketing professionals and more. Researchers, Mary Martin and James Gentry found that teen directed advertising negatively impacts self-esteem. The advertising industry is setting unrealistic expectations for teens about their physical appearances by using models with "perfect bodies." The modeling industry today has put many pressures on models, causing them disorders of both mental and physical illness. These disorders then creating the look of the “perfect body” have now lead to unrealistic expectations of body image for society.

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

Throughout society many teens and young women have been scrutinized for their bodies and appearance. Media is one of the leading contributors. Media has led to the sexualization and body image issues in teens and women starting at young ages. As the media idealizes women as a miniature size 0 with long blonde hair and blue eyes, basically describing a classic Barbie doll. All of these ‘ideal’ body images lead to the loss in self esteem. Every girl wants to look like a runway model or now a days the Kardashians, with their great bodies and good facial structure, even though most of it could be due to plastic surgery. How does media affect body image today with women?

Engdahl’s article closely examines the physical self-assessments of young adults who are influenced by advertisements. The research conducted includes the way women are consistently exposed negatively to the ideal female physical appearance, which causes them to self-evaluate themselves. Unrealistic and impractical standards shown in fashion advertisements leads to feelings of discontent with their selves, especially weight related. Furthermore, Engdahl’s analysis on this topic shows a greater depth as it continues describe more in detail about how women are taught to conform at a young age about physical attractiveness in order to be accepted, treated well by others and valued as a person. In a study, advertisements with attractive models

The importance of the body image and what is considered to be the ‘ideal’ body are two of the primary factors that contribute to the negative affect of the media on the teenage society of today.

When teens are exposed to the media and advertisements showing the perfect body many will try to obtain that body to fit in socially. The Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, states, "young girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer, or losing their parents." While trying to lose more weight than is healthy teens can develop eating disorders to deal with their both emotional and physical issues. It is not just young girls who face problems with poor body image it is also boys. In the writing, Body Image, it goes on to say, “Teenage boys are also affected by body image concerns, although they primarily strive to build muscle mass and gain weight." The need to fit into what they feel is socially acceptable and grow into their every changing body can cause everlasting damage. In the text, Body Image, it says, “Teenagers learn what society considers an ideal physique primarily from the media.” It should be the advertisers’ responsibility to make sure positive images are in the media to help promote good health among

Every day teenagers spend 3 hours watching Tv, 6 hours online and 3.5 hours looking in a mirror. Body image is one of the issues that teenagers experience in their lives, it is how you see yourself physically and mentally. A healthy body image is when you can fully accept yourself. 80% teen girls are unhappy with their body image. Body products make us feel bad about ourselves and makes us want to buy their products. Media is one of the causes that make teenagers feel ‘ugly’ and not confident in themselves. Signs of body images are everywhere from food to cars, teenagers look at these bodies as a point of reference and try to look like them. Girls are being affected more than boys but it has been proven that very close to reaching the percentage

girls." How the Media Affects the Self-Esteem and Body Image of Young girls (August 22 2012).

The media is one of the biggest influences when it comes to teens altering their body. Society today has brain washed American teenagers into believing that the only way a person can be seen as beautiful is if they look like the images they see plastered on billboards, on television, in movies and on the cover of magazines. Everywhere teenagers look, they are presented with pictures of idealized, saturated, air brushed models. Viewing these images plants a strong desire in many teens to reach an utterly attainable physical perfection. Research shows that teens active in pop culture and the media are more likely to alter their bodies in a way that fits with societies outlook on “beauty” (Mann).

The bodies seen in the media recently tend to represent extremely prejudiced beauty. Many companies, especially in the fashion industry, value the appearance of the models, and appoint them as a representation of their products. In addition, the models walking the runway at the fashion show and posing in the magazines, are used as a display of “beauty” to represent the idealized or required “thinness” and “stylish”. These are familiar sights in daily life, and obviously, this dazzling world consists of “privileged” people, and there is no room for “marginalized” people. As a result, these stereotypical body images are implanted in people’s subconsciousnesses, and unknowingly, people try to follow this trend. Also, through these biased images, people define what is normal and what is the “gendered role” of women in this society. These unrealistic and symbolic body images cause many social problems, and establishes the “standard” from the view of privileged people, while ignoring the minority people out of the “normal” frame.