The Impact Of Media On Society 's Actions, Personalities, And Beliefs Essay

A very prominent and controversial issue related to media-idealized images is that of eating disorders and eating problems. Eating problems include binge eating, purging, and unhealthy eating problems. These disorders are seen in young adolescents who are at a very fragile stage of life. Teenagers experience bodily changes as well as peer pressure and new experiences of going into high school. According to Dakanalis et al. the media portrays individuals with an extremely thin build for females and a slim-muscular build (i.e., muscles along with minimal body fat) for males is considered to be the cause of body displeasure and eating pathology. There is no solid evidence to prove that the media is to blame for the degree of eating disorder symptoms and negative body-image feelings that many feel, hence the reason it continues to be a highly debated topic. There has although, been continuous research and theories comprised over objectification. This occurs when men and women are sexually objectified. A person is treated as a body, where beauty and attractiveness of a person are important and valued. This theory can be found nearly anywhere because of the amount and variety of social interaction. It is common because of the way media represents body images. The media has ideals of men and women’s body images and individuals are compared to how well

In fact, media is contributing to many false advertisements and unrealistic images that cause eating disorders. Media gives us these false beauty standards by making teens think they have to be thin and tall. Meanwhile, many teens want to be like the models and they try to be thin but instead of doing it the healthy way. The way they do it is to skip meals and that develops eating disorders. For instance, Arnett says, “Marketing and advertisement agencies focus on models such as tall, thin women or a muscular man with a chiseled jawbone when casting for photo shoots and television commercial” (265.) Therefore, we experience and seen is that the media do give us a false beauty standard which makes teens want to do everything that is possible to become like models. This has contributed

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.

Imagine waking up every morning, struggling to get out of bed and hating to look at yourself in the mirror. Girl’s will look into the mirror for hours and criticize every last inch of their body with the words “fat, ugly, worthless” echo in their head. They think their body isn’t good enough and want to look skinner like the other woman in magazines or people they see on TV. The media has a big part in self-image toward young woman. The message being sent to these women on the media is that they are not pretty enough or thin enough. Which results in people having an eating disorder.

Due to how media portrays the aesthetics of women, girls will go through extreme measures to obtain such standards of beauty. Such measures include fad dieting, vomiting, fasting, skipping meals, intake of laxatives, etc., to meet the weight criteria of models and celebrities. Such exposure to image of beautiful skinny women affect body image and visual distortion in young girls causing body dissatisfaction, resulting in eating disorders. Research has found that exposure to media, especially magazines, result in women undergoing anorexia, bulimia, body dissatisfaction, etc., (Harrison & Cantor, 1997). They even found that magazines that promote “body improvements” such as exercising and dieting, have much more of an effect on women than fashion magazines, and can relate to eating disorder symptomatology. This proves how much of an affect media has on women with body dissatisfaction, even if the source believes to be promoting a healthy lifestyle. As media plaster ways and incentives to look beautiful and skinny, such exposure to can cause life-threatening disorders among

Media gives girls an ideal body type and this causes eating disorders. Media often shows girls the perfect body type which leads to them dieting, the first step for people who have anorexia (Graves,2000) making the anorexia rate go up.

It has always been known that the media can have impacts on several aspects of our lives. Both the young and the old are both affected by whatever the media puts out, positive or negative. However, women in particular are the ones that are most affected by the media. Magazines, television commercials, and even fast food ads all subject women. Women in those ads are usually seen to be thin, busty, or are known to have certain features that “supposedly” make them more attractive than those of their other female counterparts. Women often compare themselves to what they see in the media and may feel that they are not good enough when they do not match up to society’s “required” standard of beauty. They often develop eating disorders and do other harmful things to their body in order to achieve the “ideal” body type. Should the media take all the blame for bad body images or are there other factors involved?

“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.” -Sophia Loren, a beauty icon born in 1938. The beautiful, extremely thin models in advertisements, on social media, and in the beauty industry are causing many girls to develop eating disorders in the United States such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and the most abundant disorder, negative body image. Most girls that have these disorders are the audiences of the magazines, movies, videos, and social media posts of undernourished women who have “perfect” bodies. Thin-ideal media is the proposal that being terribly thin is a healthy and acceptable idea, even if the idea is to a level that can cause death or tremendous

American writer Allen Ginsberg once said: "Whoever controls the media-the images-controls the culture." Nothing could be truer, the media has always influenced fashion and body shape. But what's remarkable now is how much the media affects body image, and how willing and eager people are to mess with Mother Nature. (Underwood, par.2) Although there are other factors that contribute to eating disorders the media can partially be blamed for the millions of people with eating disorders because it promotes and glamorizes being thin to the public.

With eating disorders on the rise today, the media plays an important role in affecting self-esteem, leading a large amount of young adults to develop eating disorders. Many adolescents see the overbearing thin celebrities and try to reach media's level of thinness and ideal body weight. "Sixty-nine of the girls reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of the perfect body shape" (Field). Not only is being thin associated with other positive characteristics such as, lovable, popular, beautiful, and sexy, but being overweight is connected with negative characteristics like fat, ugly, unpopular, and lazy. Therefore media is the distinct social pressure of operating to influence people to be thin and causing eating disorders.

This article also shows that the average model is five-foot-eleven-inches while weighing 117 pounds, and the average American woman is five-foot-four-inches and weighs 140 pounds (“The International Model Supply Chain”). These statistics demonstrate that the media’s ideals are unobtainable and should a young girl attempt to obtain the exclusive body of a model, she would be placing her body in terrible jeopardy. The endangerment that most girls face are two of the most common eating disorders associated with the media and negative body image: anorexia and bulimia nervosa ( ). Anorexia nervosa includes starving oneself and denying food to their body, bulimia nervosa includes bingeing and purging ( ). Both eating disorders are directly associated with the media’s portrayal of a woman’s body and the victim’s desire to be thinner and therefore more

We all want to have a skinny, toned, tanned, perfect body. A ‘perfect body’ being created by the media and fashion industry. Frederique van der Wa, a former Victoria's Secret model, even says that the runway models today have an “unnatural thinness” and that it is not a good message to sent to “young, impressionable women.” Each year a new image of a perfect body is released and the models keep getting skinnier. This makes young women develop eating disorders. Seeing the unnaturally skinny models gives them the idea that ‘this is what we are supposed to look like.’ The media and fashion industry does contribute to eating disorders in youth and the thought of a perfect body image.

Today’s generation has been greatly impacted by the media through celebrities set as constant reminders of how everyone must follow in their footsteps. Many teens actually feel shame to these flawless celebrities which often leads to depression, self-esteem issues, and eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia (“AboutKidsHealth”). Even teen magazines pressure girls, young and old, to diet constantly. Many teens use runway twig-thick models as “thinspirations” (Hendrick). “60% of girls that diet, one in five develop and eating disorder” which means dieting, a result of negative body image, is convincing people to choose harm over health and fall into anorexia, bulimia, etc. (Hendrick). Even men are developing eating disorders although it is less than women (Derenne). Not only are people dieting and developing eating

There are a few causes to eating disorders, but one of the biggest ones is how the media portrays body images. With photo shopped pictures and thinspirations, young girls see these and think they are realistic. “The effect of media on women’s body dissatisfaction, thin-ideal internalization, and disordered eating appears to be stronger among young adults than children and adolescents. This may suggest that long-term exposure during childhood and adolescence lays the foundation for the negative effects of media during early adulthood,” (National Eating Disorder Association). Everywhere they look, there are images of skinny woman on the internet, magazines covers, and in advertisements on TV. Unfortunately, women are given this image to aspire to and an idea of what is visually perfect. In reality,

“The attention-grabbing pictures of various high-flying supermodels and actors on different magazine covers and advertisements go a long way in influencing our choices” (Bagley). The media is highly affective to everyone, although they promote an improper image of living. Research proved says those with low self-esteem are most influenced by media. Media is not the only culprit behind eating disorders. However, that does not mean that they have no part in eating disorders. Media is omnipresent and challenging it can halt the constant pressure on people to be perfect (Bagley). Socio-cultural influences, like the false images of thin women have been researched to distort eating and cause un-satisfaction of an individual’s body. However, it