Topic: How social media has effect on body images, socially and personally.
General Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to inform about the effects social media has.
Specific Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to bring light to the relationship that social media influence and body image have with one another by informing with 3 effects.
Thesis Statement: Having an ideal body and a person’s idea of it can be pulled from social media, positive regard how it can be influenced by self esteem, and mass media as a whole.
Introduction: Entertainment and fashion media sustain what is considered a body norm in today’s day and age, and in my speech I’ll not only describe, but support with proof how these media outlets are continuously presenting
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First Main Point: Social media and its role with body image.
A. #Fitspo, #Fitspiration, two hashtags that have become a movement of healthier living online on several social media platforms that have raised concerns amongst doctors. We know that a week juice cleanse or cleansing every vegetable in site won’t shed every wrong eating decision we made after 10 pm on a stressful night … Or do we?
B. Allison Fox published an article on Huffington post stating, “Maria Kang is the entrepreneur and “fit mom” who made headlines in 2013 with her offensive “What’s Your Excuse?” Facebook photo suggesting busy moms who didn’t exercise are lazy. Today, she has a different message.” (Fox, 2016) While Maria was once on board with the #fitspo trends, she now is an advocate of being yourself, Maria stated, “It doesn’t matter if you are skinny, fit, overweight, or obese, if you don’t live in gratitude, you will never see what you truly have and who you truly have.”
Transition: Maria has a social following of thousands of people, and while her headlines bought her great attention, her posts about self-advocation resulted in a better response from the public. Now that I’ve talked about social media and its role with body image, I’m going to talk about positive regard and how it can be influenced by
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Now that I’ve talked about positive regard and how it can be influenced by self-esteem, I’m going to talk about mass media.
III. Third Main Point: Mass media and its role in negative body image.
A. While questioning why our bodies is one thing, comparing our bodies and comparing them to what’s being advertised on the internet, television, and the internet is another realm. It’s become normal to show both men and women in the spotlight who are dramatically skinnier than every day people – especially with the help of photo shop.
B. In the text Eating Behaviors an analysis that was done stated, “adult females exposed to the thin-ideal body through the media were more likely to report higher body dissatisfaction and increased use of disordered eating behaviors.” (2016) It’s hard to be content when comparing ourselves to material that morphed into being aesthetically pleasing.
Transition: Now that I’ve talked about mass media and its role in negative body image, I’d like
A day hardly ever goes by without hearing something about body image in our society. It seems to be all around us today and there is little we can do to avoid it being around us. I don’t like seeing this affecting our society, because I see it changing us in a bad way. In gathering information on just how and why people worry about their body image, ideas on how to prevent this obsess on were also
Social media has a big influence on this generation when it comes to “body image.” Many women, or “models,” will post pictures of themselves showing off their body with thousands of likes and many comments saying “body goals” or “I wish I looked like that.” This
Throughout history, body image has been determined by various factors, one of them being the media. In the article “How Social Media Is a Toxic Mirror,” written by Rachel Simmons, she shares the story of a woman who admits to being afraid of leaving her apartment without putting on makeup. “I don’t get to choose how I’m going to leave my apartment today,” one young woman told me, “If I could, my body would look different. But I cant choose which picture makes my arms look thinner” (Simmons). One word: Fear. The woman fears the opinion of others. She second guesses herself before she steps foot outside her apartment building. It displays the lack of confidence she has towards herself as an individual and the control the media has over her. The author goes on to discuss how teenagers look up to social media by obsessing over how many likes
Kover, A. (2009, April 30). Effects of the Media on Body Image. Retrieved March 21, 2017, from
Today in modern society, we are driven by social forces. Not only do we strive for human approval and companionship, we also thrive on social media. The media plays such a pivotal role in what we buy, eat, wear, etc. that we are conditioning ourselves to fit the mold for the “perfect” or “ideal” body type. This social construct has been a pressing issue for many years regarding the female physique, but not as much has been said on behalf of men. When confronted with appearance based advertisements, men are more likely to experience muscle dissatisfaction, weight disparities, and anger and/or anxiety toward showing their body in public. This paper will address these facets of the media’s effect on male body image as well as presenting what has been done to address this quietly debilitating issue.
“We are constantly surrounded by all sorts of media and we construct our identities in part through media images we see.” Social media plays a huge role in constructing our idea of the perfect body. But it hasn’t always been the same idea. Over the years, the perfect body image has changes. The ideal body image has changed so much over time because media never stays the same, fashion trends are always changing, there’s such a diversity of bodies in this world to choose from, and different cultures consider different bodies beautiful.
The results of this study indicated a low effect size for all studies. The participants who were shown pictures in the media of thin models tended to think there was something wrong with their body weight. Other participants who viewed models who were overweight tended to have a positive outlook on their body image. Another study that was conducted by Han, 2003 looked at female Korean college students and the way in which media exposure affected the way they perceive body image. This experiment was conducted by using 42 college female college students who were exposed to images of thin models in magazine ads. After viewing the images for about 5 minutes the women were then asked to fill out a questionnaire. This questionnaire was built to see their indication on body dissatisfaction and eating disturbance based upon the pictures that were shown. Then an upward comparison was used to see whether they agreed or disagreed with the images of the models shown. As these results stated the females that were exposed to the pictures of the thin models showed a higher level of upward comparison then those who were not shown the models. Participants in the experimental group also perceived the thin models to be more practical than those who were participants of the control group. A second part of this experiment used 75 female college
The media is our source of constant information, and is presented in many forms such as, daily newscasts, social media like Facebook, and the magazines strategically placed in our doctor’s office. There is no surprise that it is also the dominant influence when it comes to society’s beauty standard either. Unfortunately media isn’t a positive influence all the time, and is the main force behind negative body image epidemic that plagues women, especially the 18-25 age group. In order to fully understand the severity of what some call a “Vanity” issue we must look into the facts of how exactly the media damages women’s perception of their own bodies, and then observe the extent of the damage done to the physical and mental states of these women
In today’s society, many people in this world come across either a body image or even some may even become obsessed. Obesity and body image has been a world problem all across the nation. Commonly in our society, people are contradicting the “ideal image” often times people are told that looks don’t matter- it’s only skin deep, but in our media to say something else otherwise our society promotes a certain body image as being seen as the only way to look and feel beautiful.
Modern-day society has now been dominated by the media. Almost all of us are affected by media in one way or another. In today’s world, it is undeniable of the huge role that media plays in our everyday life, both positively and negatively. Our perception of body image, our physical appearance and our identity, have been shaped and sculpted by what is presented in the media.
It seems that the media’s portrayal of women has negatively affected the body image of The Wykeham Collegiate senior school girls. The media has a negative effect on the youth of today, primarily amongst the female population when it comes to how young girls and women regard
Preview of Main Points: I will begin by explaining how the perfect body image shown in the media is unrealistic, then, I will talk about how the unrealistic images lead to both men and women to have a low self-esteem and eating disorders that develop due to people wanting to look like the images shown in the media. Lastly, I’ll talk about a solution we can do to stop the portrayal of an unrealistic body image.
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
Social media plays an immense role in the way that stereotypes about attractiveness is conveyed in regards to body image. As Gerbner and Gross wrote in 1976, the cultivation theory states that high frequency viewers of television are more susceptible to media messages and the belief that they are real and valid. The subjection to social media can cause an idealistic view amongst young girls and women alike. Among the mechanisms of human agency none is more central or pervasive than beliefs of personal efficacy (Bandura, 1997). This belief that these body types are achievable can lead to females being dissatisfied within their own skin. The result of the discontent can potentially lead to eating disorders. Body dissatisfaction occurs when views of the body are negative and involves a perceived discrepancy between a person 's assessment of their actual and ideal body (Cash and Szymanski, 1995 and Grogan, 2008). It is estimated that approximately 50% of adolescent girls report being unhappy with their bodies (Bearman, Presnell, & Martinez, 2006). Surveys have revealed that the exposure to social media can cause body dissatisfaction, eating disorder symptoms’ and the concept that thin is “beautiful” amongst young girls and women (Botta 1999; Harrison and Hefner 2006; and Stice et al. 1994). With media influence, the question is the strength of the effect, studies indicate the effects are small in scale; they are likely to operate in accordance with particular differences in
In today’s world, people spend more and more time behind a screen on a device that is constantly streaming media. Though it seems like it may have no effect, Social media, social interactions and environment can play a huge role in peoples’ self-esteem and body-image. Peoples’ self-image is negatively affected by social and environmental factors because they create unrealistic body images that are widely advertised by social media, they shape our schemas, and these social interactions therefore push people to do things to fix their bodies.