Unrealistic Beauty Standards Research Paper

On top of this, 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures and runway models influenced their idea of a perfect body shape (only 5% of the female population naturally has the body type portrayed as ideal in advertisement). This is obviously a problem because, growing up, girls everywhere are told that they’re pretty and that being pretty is the most important thing about them and they start basing their worth on their looks. But then, every single woman they see on TV, in movies, in magazines, any woman considered “hot” and “beautiful” doesn’t look like them anymore, which brings on deadly disorders like anorexia and bulumia that wreck the lives of young girls. Since 90% of people with eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25, we should be asking ourselves “what is causing my child to develop destructive habits at such a young age?” The answer is that they’ve been told that the type of body

According to recent study at Harvard, young girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer, or losing their parents(Photoshop). In recent years it has seemed that the media, and society in general are praising unrealistic beauty standards and claiming them to be ideal. Any person can take a quick look in a magazine, on the internet, or on television and see any number of pictures of people with extreme features that society claims make them superior. This has made an impact on today’s generation in such an extreme manner that “80% of 10-year-old girls have dieted and 90% of high school junior and senior women diet regularly.” (Photoshop). Girls and boys both, across the globe are striving have what they see as

Anorexia is an eating disorder and a mental health condition which can be life-threatening. Anorexia is an irrational fear of gaining weight, it typically involves excessive weight loss and usually occurs more in females than in males.

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

Beauty standards are portrayed everywhere: on magazines, social media, ads, commercials, and even flaunted among peers. While the ideals are supposed to promote health awareness, fitness motivation, and self love, it unfortunately results in many unfavorable consequences. Women are constantly “penalized for not being beautiful and at the same time are stigmatized, even pathologized, for not feeling beautiful, for having low self-esteem, for engaging in behaviors like dieting and excessive exercising, or for having eating disorders” (Johnston and Taylor 954). Beauty standards are unrealistic and unhealthy to pursue, and misinforms the public on what true beauty is. While not all beauty image ideals promote negative feelings and dissatisfaction, many believe that the negative effects far outweighs any positive effects.

Society has set certain stereotypes to girls and women about what it is considered to be beautiful that girl’s focus more in their appearances than in their internal selves. Every girl deserves to feel beautiful because they all are, but how can girls think that they are beautiful if there is always that constant reminder of what being considered beautiful is. It is often seen on TV various shows where little girls are being judged by the way they walk, turn, how their makeup and hair is done and what they are wearing, and obviously their beauty. Society has set such high standards of what is considered beautiful and girls are being the victims of those standards. Girls now feel that they are not beautiful enough because they do not meet

Anorexia Nervosa is a type of eating disorder where people torment themselves by constantly being worried about their weight and what they eat. People with this disease have a distorted view of themselves. They think that they are fat and have a great fear of gaining weight. With that being said, they restrict their intake of food and eat extremely small amounts of food if any at all. Starving themselves and eating small amounts of food can do more harm than good. Each person has different types of issues with Anorexia. There are some that will eat food but very little. Then there are those who withhold food in almost all its entirety. The ideal image of the female body has drastically changed over time. Around the 1950’s,

Beauty standards have been a major issue for many years now and women have been willing to change their bodies over and over to please themselves and others. Beauty standards are often defined in terms of hairstyles, skin color, and body size. The measures involved in having to live up to these standards are often risky in nature. For decades, what is seen as beautiful is centered around a women’s weight and size. Today, that standard is often defined as being thin. Women often resort to drastic means to attain that ideal image. However, achieving these standards can be expensive, can lower self-esteem and can be a threat to a woman’s health and life.

The types of media that are out there today are advancing and becoming more readily available for kids to see, specifically adolescence girls. Today, kids have access to social media, TV programs, movies, and magazines, with a touch of a button. Girls, especially, are using these outlets the most and are being subjected to the judgment that comes along with it. With social media, girls are seeing models, movie stars, and even people they might even know, uploading pictures of themselves in all sorts of ways. This is making them compare own bodies to these models and stars, which get paid to look this way on social media. They are looking at their own bodies and questioning maybe why they don’t look like that or even if we don’t eventually

Beauty isn’t about having a pretty face. It’s about having a pretty mind, a pretty heart and a pretty soul. We hear these sayings every day, and yet we live in a world that seems to deny this very idea. If looks don’t matter, why does the media use airbrushing to hide any flaws a person has? If looks don’t matter, why are so many young people harming themselves because they’re unhappy with the way they look?

I’ve observed it in my sisters and friends too many times to count—double and triple checks in the mirror, glances at every reflective surface, and guarded smiles for photographs. We live in a society that preaches the importance of self-worth, while simultaneously giving us endless, unattainable examples of perfection in the form of TV shows, celebrity Instagram accounts, and photoshopped advertisements. Beauty standards are set far too high by the media, and this results in plummeting levels of self-confidence in girls of all ages. Due to this skewed view on the importance of looks, it has become impossible for girls to differentiate between their God-given beauty and the reflection that they strive to see in the mirror.

In this day and age, the epidemic of these so called ‘beauty’ standards is only getting worse and worse. Because of photo modification, low self esteem in regular everyday people is starting to become something that is nearly considered normal. Today, 42% of girls from age 5-8 want to be skinnier, 52% of girls aged 9 to 13 feel better when they are dieting and by the age of 17, 78% of girls are unhappy with their own bodies. Think about

The term anorexia nervosa means lack of appetite. Anorexia is a serious eating disorder, where people starve themselves because they think they are fat. People with anorexia look into the mirror but do not see themselves to same as we may see them. They see themselves as fat or overweight but that does not mean they are overweight. Not all people with anorexia are underweight, but they may still feel as if they are fat and need to lose weight. Anorexia is not the only eating disorder there is also bulimia. When people eat and then puke. Another eating disorder is binge eating disorder. When people overeat but do not puke. Anorexia though, is caused by serous limit is someone's diet and restrictions on what they chose to eat

As a little girl I had much confidence about myself and felt I looked the best from my school as well as many other girls from my school. Nowadays, many girls are pressured into being perfect in a way they feel they will never accomplish. Little girls such as ten year olds have started to show low self-esteem and hate to their body image because of the models that are being constantly promoted. As 10TV stated, “When you were 10 or 11, you probably didn’t give much thought to body image. Today, kids that age are worried more about looking like Barbie than playing Barbie.” Girls are punishing themselves with cutting, going on extreme diets, and often kill themselves because they hate themselves. Girls are also seen wearing makeup at a young age to improve their facial features and think they will now finally be accepted in society as being perfect. A recent Mintel survey showed that six out of ten seven-year-olds wear lipstick, and two in five use eyeshadows. (“Pretty-Pressure: Girls-it pays to be pretty, but not too pretty.”) So even though social media is showing off beautiful women to give good advertisement, girls are being affected by constantly feeling down and wanting to fit into society and be accepted and seen as perfect, they hate themselves for not being pretty enough as celebrities that have gone through many surgeries to get that "perfect" image, and some cases have led to issues such as depression, cutting, eating problem, and

Beauty /ˈbyo͞odē/ noun- a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight. Everyone is born in different shapes and sizes; some are small, tall, fat, or thin; some are brown-skinned, white-skinned, or black-skinned; some have frizzy, curly, or straight hair. But it doesn’t make them any less beautiful. Yet, most of us spend time looking at ourselves in a mirror, pointing out our insecurities, and comparing ourselves to other people. Our society has created an unrealistic beauty standard that caused many problems.