The Emotional Discomfort Women Experience Is Explained By Higgins 's Self Discrepancy Theory

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.,

The culture of media has now taken a large affect on young girls and their body images. Young girls are feeling dissatisfied with their bodies because of the way society views women. The media tells us what to look like, what clothes to wear, make-up, what cars to drive, and sometimes what to eat. Media is changing people constantly through advertising and by showing us the looks and fashions of celebrities. Advertising has negative effects on the formation of oneself as seen through the nature of the promotion of its’ products. This effect is particularly prevalent among young adolescent girls. Young girls feel the need to join dietary plans or result to eating disorders Advertising in society results in negative effects on girls through self-image that leads to harmful consequences. The media is the biggest factor contributing to girls’ dissatisfaction with their bodies, causing eating disorders.

Television images have the capability and unique aptitude to mould children’s attitudes and these are established at a very early age. Children look at TV characters as what society sees and expects of them and begin to stereotype. If a thin actor/ actress is playing the lead or key role children automatically assume they play an important factor in society and by being thin they are therefore of a higher status. This false imagery plays a vital role in a child’s upbringing, leading to a submissive pressure to constantly diet and strive for the ‘perfect body image’ and my research has

From the multicultural body image norms, which suggests women overall are much more concerned with body idealism and are earlier adopters of slim ideals, women are expected to also express a great fat stigma. Females exposed to media images reflect on current societally standards of slenderness and fell a greater mood and have a better body image. Females who viewed a neutral, or not so slender image for the adverse outcomes of such media exposures.

(12) "We observed that the frequency of reading fashion magazines was positively associated with the prevalence of having dieted to lose weight, having gone on a diet because of a magazine article, exercising to lose weight or improve body shape, and deciding to exercise because of a magazine article "(Field, 1999). Despite the fact, young girls exposure to these women have had some beneficial factors to weight concerns. Some girls took these images and made it into positive goals for themselves. (14) "the print media was effective at promoting physical activity as a healthy means of weight control. In fact, more girls reported exercising than dieting to lose weight" (Field 1999). The increase in weight concerns have led to some girls eating healthier, as well as working out to reach their set body goals. (13) "However, aspiring to look like underweight models may have deleterious psycho-logical consequences. The results suggest that the print media aimed at young girls could serve a public health role by refraining from relying on models who are severely underweight and printing more articles on the benefits of physical activity." (Field, 1999) If the media had displayed women in a healthier light, it could have potentially had less negative effects to young girls and their perception. However, it is this concept of

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

Television has been around since 1927, that is only one hundred and ten years, so relatively recent, yet it has had a strong influence on body image in society. Women are oversexualized and men are very masculine as far as having a six-pack and large biceps. TV is worse in the sense that now those “perfect bodies” are in action. For example, the Bachelor in Paradise comes on every season and it creates an up roar of women wishing they had that type of body, as those bachelorettes go prancing in the sand in a tiny bikini. No overweight or someone perceived as ugly has been in a reality TV show or broadcasted. Nine out of ten women’s bodies were at least minimally exposed, and close to one-third were partially or fully undressed and almost half of the men appeared on screen either partially or fully nude, which would create the illusion that women should have perfectly molded bodies and show them off all the time (Flynn). Something like that could be a serious problem if say a thirteen-year-old was watching those shows, influencing how that girl or boy might see his or her own body, creating a conflict within one’s self. Viewers share the misperception that these body types are common and normal, which is exactly why teens frequently judge themselves based on the body types of their peers and the body types of those seen in media is a negative

In “The Culture of Thin Bites Fiji” by Ellen Goodman the article list many logos. Ellen persuades the readers by mentioning statistics (the growing number of eating disorders), facts and she also included the specialist opinions. In the second article “ Television, Disordered Eating, and Young Women in Fiji: Negotiating Body Image and Identity during Rapid Social Change” by Anne E. Becker mentions almost the same thing as what Ellen’s article stated which comes down to that entertainment (television) has affected Fijian girls. In bothe of the articles the authors state how television changed the culture and the values of the Fijian people.In both of the articles state how television has affected the mind of young Fijian girl’s, television has

Ann Morris and Debra Katzman have done extensive research on the topic, an experiment was completed on young Fijian girls who had not been exposed to Western television. Eating disorders already existed in their community, but were not very common. When television was introduced to the girls, more girls presented with eating disorders after several months of watching the shows than before the experiment. (Morris and Katzman.) This helps to prove that media does have an affect on the

Social media, advertisements and movies have an impact on body image among teenagers. The increased use of social media specifically within teenagers allows teens to compare themselves not only to popular public figures but to their peers. A Region in Fiji having no television and no eating disorder cases got television “Within three years of television being introduced to the region, the amount of girls who induced vomiting to control their weight increased by 11 percent and the amount of girls scoring highly on a test for eating disorder risks increased by 16 percent”(Mulliniks). There was a substantial growth in the amount of cases of eating disorders. Researcher saw a direct correlation with television and eating disorders. Prior to the

The female body image is highly influenced by the mass media and the media’s portrayal of women, ‘70% of college women say they feel worse about their own looks after reading women’s magazines’ (University of Massachusetts & Stanford University, 2006), the portrayal of women in the media has an unrealistic approach and brings out body dissatisfactions and this results in eating problems and disorders.

Similarly, Posavac et al. (1998) studied media image exposure to adolescent and young adult women and how this exposure impacted body weight concerns and attractiveness levels. They found that the exposure caused overall increased weight concern among young women. The results also showed that young women compared themselves to the images in the media and therefore intensified their attractiveness standards. Since the images of females were thin and attractive, the female participants began showing feelings of dissatisfaction with their own bodies. Therefore, these studies show that the more women internalize the images of the thin ideal the greater chance of body dissatisfaction. These studies explain that internalization of the thin ideal may be a contributing factor to body dissatisfaction. The above meta- analytic research included experimental and correlational studies that supported the idea of the negative role of medias portrayal of the thin ideal on body

It is believed social pressures and influence place emphasis on the thin body image. This is also thought to be the indirect the cause of increased anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Studies have shown the role of the mass media in the social construction of reality and how television advertising affect young women’s perception of her own body.

Another study looked at the effects of media images on television and the effects it has on female’s perception of their body image. In this study, the participants were asked how many hours of television they watched a day, then how many of these programmes were ones with characters in that have ‘perfect’ physiques, such as 90210 etc. then the bmi of each participant was taken and was compared with how much television they watched and how much of this television contained media of body images. The results in this study suggested that the media did have an impact on body dissatisfaction. Adolescent girls based their ideal body images on characters on the television that have the ‘perfect skinny’ body image. When the participants questioned their body image after the exposure, it made them feel worse about themselves and strive to have the ‘perfect’ body image. [4]

Media usage is heaviest among the youth according to, “The Effects of Gender and Family, Friend, and Media Influences on Eating Behaviors and Body Image During Adolescence”. During the time of adolescence girls are experiencing changes in their bodies and identities. Media is a source that teens can use to gain information about improving their physical appearance. “According to a survey of adolescent girls (Field et al., 2001), 69% reported that images of females displayed in magazines influence their perceptions of the ideal body figure, and 47% reported that the images evoked in them a desire to diet and lose weight” (Ata). This data from “The Effects of Gender and Family, Friend, and Media Influences on Eating Behaviors and Body Image During Adolescence” shows how many females actually desire to change their physical appearance after viewing media. During a time of development body image can be a difficult subject which is why it is important to address the issues media can create.