Teenage Girls To Have The Perfect Body Essay

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.

Furthermore, media surrounds teenage girls in today’s culture. It is impossible to escape the sight of media. The media’s constant idealistic beauty is ever present to a vast amount of self-conscious girls. This image of beauty causes girls to have low self-esteem (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar). Media defining this perfect body image causes many adolescent girls to feel dissatisfied with their bodies and become depressed. “Viewing ultra-thin or average-size models led to decreases in both body satisfaction and self-esteem in adolescent girls aged eleven to sixteen, with changes in self-esteem fully mediated by changes in body satisfaction” (Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar).

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

Being a woman of twenty, I know how much this can affect young girls. Body image influences are everywhere, social media, television, magazine and unfortunately for us, the current presidential election. Kim, Kim and Moon describe body image as “a plastic, constantly changing concept, continually modified by bodily growth, trauma, or decline, and significantly influenced by the ever-changing interaction with the social environment” (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). This is an extremely true statement for young girls in today’s society. With the shows on television today and social media such as Instagram and Facebook, everyone is forced to be at their peak physical fitness and look their best all the time. The only way someone can achieve a realistic body image is when their self perceived body weight is the same as their current body weight. An unrealistic body image is the result of their self perceived body weight being different than their current weight (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). What some people fail to realize is how deeply body image can affect a persons emotional being. Having an unrealistic body image can cause people to contract eating disorders, emotional issues, anxiety, low self esteem and finally, depression (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). These feelings can cause suicidal thoughts and behaviors especially in young adults. Multiple studies have presented evidence that adolescents who commit suicide are more likely to have different body attitudes than those who do not, though it is not always the case(Kim, Kim, Moon

The subject of this article are young girls, mainly who are in their teenage years, but also the parents of teenage girls. However, anyone can be impacted and learn from this article. This article questions why society drills the idea of thinness into the minds of people, and every reader can take a different stance and have a different opinion on the issue. Some people may take a stance and say that individuals, themselves, are the only influence on their body image. However, others may take the stance and say that society, as a whole, has a huge influence on an individual and their body image. The author of this article, Erica Goode, includes many quotes from parents of teenage girls, who feel as if they need to go to extreme measures to fit in with society. In this case, the author is creating the stance that society plays a role when it comes to influencing an individual. Goode also provides many

Real beauty is found in a person's heart, not in their appearance, but the media rarely portrays this though. Most magazines and television shows feature only excessively thin people. Unfortunately, this causes teenagers whose bodies don't match those same proportions to look at their selves with hatred. Every lump and bulge becomes despised, and soon, they have a full-blown eating disorder.

On the other hand, the images of flawless skin, athletic thin bodies , and with the possibility of Photoshop, teenagers are finding it impossible to achieve this standard of beauty. With these images portrayed everywhere, it has led to more than just low-esteem, it has led to distorted body image, jealousy, eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. The images of being thin portrayed by media can result in teenagers feeling depressed, anxious and incline in self-worth. These feelings can then lead to depression, low self-esteem and anxiety, causing teenagers to lose

In today’s society, many adolescent girls are dissatisfied with their body image due to comparing themselves to the media’s unrealistic ideal thin body. Since they grow up in a world filled with mass media such as television, films, magazines, movies, music, newspaper and the Internet, it is very easy to come across this ideal body image (Morris & Katzman, 2003). As teen girls associate with this ideal thinness they tend to be dissatisfied with their own body image, which can put them at risk for serious eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (Kerr 2010). Depression also plays a part in the dissatisfied body image of adolescent girls as well.

Teens who are in college have just as many problems with their body as people in high school. The media affecting people of all ages can consist of anything from people on social media, to celebrities on T.V., to the models who walk on runways. People who struggle with their body image are all over the world and are often closed off to other people. When girls look at magazines they see all of the models posing and then they compare themselves to them because the models are what society says is pretty, and they aren’t. Media is a great way for companies to get their products out there, but when adolescents compare themselves to models, they will start to have body image issues.

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

In the United States alone, 40-60% of girls in elementary and middle school are worried about gaining too much weight and not being accepted by anyone ("Prevalence vs. Funding" 1). Adolescents and women are surrounded with the idea of culture’s “perfect body type” where girls are stick thin and gorgeous. Culture is obsessed with outer beauty and being as flawless as you can be, and often leave out how important inner beauty is. This idea of outer beauty often results in women trying to warp their body image to please the people around them ("Prevalence vs. Funding" 4). Adolescent girls use the media to help figure out how they should look and act, which consequently mirrors how their eating patterns change and evolve. Adolescent girls are targeted by culture, pressured by their peers surrounding them, and taunted by their own self-consciousness, often leading up to acquiring an eating disorder. When the eating disorder is acquired, it often had many damaging physical effects on the person’s body.

Unrealistic female body image is a widely discussed subject. Our culture portrays women as thin and beautiful. Having these qualities supposedly allows her to be wealthy, as well as successful. Thin, beautiful women are portrayed in movies, on television and in magazines. These expectations only lead to a woman having a poor body image. (Ettarh, R. 2009) Glamorized images of young women can attribute to low self-esteem in teenage girls. They are exposed to peer pressure every day. They are rated by their peers according to how they are dressed and if they are stylish, as well as thin. Models are tall and thin. The majority of teenage girls do not fit that description. Their bodies are still developing and changing. Older women also

Today’s teens have it harder than teens back then because they are heavily influenced by the media. Teen girls today are often given an idea of the “perfect” body by the media. They see famous female celebrities online and they wonder if having a body like this would lead to their own popularity or fame. Due to many female celebrities having a certain figure, girls are willing starve themselves to get a sought after figure. The Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health found that only 22 percent of women within a normal healthy weight range

Teenagers negative body image can be caused by many factors and have many different outcomes. But, teenagers should be able to feel appreciative of themselves without being slammed by the fashion world. Would you like to feel like you have no control over the way you see yourself, because of the content you see on social media? There are many factors into why teenagers develop body dysmorphia. For examples, “These can include any of the following; family environment, ability or disability, and peer attitudes”. (Raising Children Association, 2006) This reasoning is a logical source that is medically proven by health professionals that work with Eating Disorders and Mentally Disabled patients. There are statistics to prove the accusations, “such as professional research that have be run by

Every day, teenagers are surrounded by different messages from different sources that impact the way they feel about the way they look. For some, poor body image is a sign of a serious problem: an eating disorder. Eating disorders are not just about food.The eating disorders contain anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder, and their variants, all feature serious disturbances in eating behavior and weight regulation. They are often a way to cope with difficult problems or regain a sense of control. They are complicated illnesses that affect a person’s sense of identity, worth, and self-esteem. The risks of eating disorders for teenagers are in physical health, mental health, substance abuse and negative self-esteem/self worth. ​