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eating disorders and the media discursive topics
The Influence of the Media on Women’s Beauty Standards
media role with anorexia
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Women have struggled with the ideal body since the 1800’s. Unlike today’s society, women in the 1800’s to 1900’s strived to be more voluptuous; women with extra weight were viewed as healthy and wealthy. Going into the late 1900’s, models and actresses had curves and averaged at sizes 12-16. In today’s society, the thinner the woman, the more attractive she is. Women have fought for centuries to meet the specific expectations of others. With this constant battle, many eating disorders including anorexia, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder rose up in women of all ages. Many women develop a lack of confidence due to the obsession with the perfect body. It becomes devastating to a woman’s self-esteem when she constantly is preoccupied on how others perceive her. There is no single answer for eating disorders and lack of confidence in women, but the use of research brings in the idea that thin, unrealistic models and actresses play a part in those disorders. Can body image be a struggle? What is body image? The way we look. The way we feel. The way we are perceived by others. According to Kasey Serdar, undergraduate at Westminster College, body imagine is a “complicated aspect of the self-concept that concerns an individual's perceptions and feelings about their body and physical appearance”. Serdar’s article is located on Myriad, which is an undergraduate academic journal for students to post current issues facing college students and adults. She also include multiple theories that have been tested to give more information on how females try to compare one’s body and self-image to another. This concept of the untouchable standard is not simply and idea that an overweight person conjured up to make excuses for themselves. Th... ... middle of paper ... ... impacted. Works Cited Braunstein, Glenn D. “The Realistic Skinny on Moms, Pregnancy and Weight Gain.” The Full. Huffpost, 5 Nov. 2012. Web 21 Apr. 2014. Grabe, Shelly and Monique Ward, Janet Hyde. “The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns among Women: A Meta-analysis of Experimental and Correlational Studies.” PsychNET. American Psychological Associations, 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. "Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders | National Eating Disorders Association." Media, Body Image,and Eating Disorders. NEDA: Feeding Hope, 2001. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. Serdar, Kasey L. "Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard." Westminster. Westminster College, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. Valeri, James. "Dissatisfaction with Our Bodies and Eating Disorders." University of Minnesota Duluth, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Mass media influence has expanded since its inception during the 19th century. Media has become a direct influence on people today by shaping social identity and giving people a false sense of contentment. Today mass media has become more influential to society because it sets the standards of what a person’s appearance should look like along with what is beautiful – especially in women. Women have become a focal point for the media to target; media have used a female insecurities to promote products and establish a false perception of beauty. Today, mass media have defined beauty for an ideal woman, and established this ideology across the globe. This essay will argue the following (1) false perception of advertisements, (2) shadism, and (3) how females react to advertisements.
Graydon, Shari. "How the Media Keeps Us Hung Up on Body Image." Herizons 22.1 (2008): n. pag. Web. 5 Mar 2010.
In recent years, sociologists, psychologists, and medical experts have gone to great lengths about the growing problem of body image. This literature review examines the sociological impact of media-induced body image on women, specifically women under the age of 18. Although most individuals make light of the ideal body image most will agree that today’s pop-culture is inherently hurting the youth by representing false images and unhealthy habits. The paper compares the media-induced ideal body image with significant role models of today’s youth and the surrounding historical icons of pop-culture while exploring various sociological perspectives surrounding this issue.
Media is all around us from television to billboards, making it difficult not to be influence by media in one way or another. Unfortunately, media has influence women to believe that in order for women to be considered beautiful, they must for fill the characteristics of what media considers beautiful. Hurting women both psychologically and physically.
Over the years the rise in body image dissatisfaction has grown as both male and female progress to adulthood. This factor can be contributed to societal standards that the media presents to the public daily. These standards continue to rise making the body image more difficult to attain. With these standards comes the push to seek the “perfect body”. This myth of true beauty commonly found in today’s society, is the price that adolescents buy into often sacrificing their health. The perfect body can often present a distorted view of one-self leading to unhealthy methods of weight reduction. The most common methods for weight reduction are the diseases Anorexia and Bulimia. The similarities and differences between Anorexia and Bulimia will be used to prove that the society’s pressure to fit a certain mold contribute to the onset of the disease.
Holmstrom, A. (2004). The effects of the media on the body image: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 48(2), 196-217.
Finally, we need to understand that the review might not be everything related to the relationships between mass media and females’ perceptions of body image. In particular, most studies that were featured in this literature review were conducted not from a local context but it will be able to aid us in the formulation of our survey questions for our specific sample group of a particular population.
Paragraph 1- Girls can become victims of eating disorders because of society's promotion of an ideal thin female body. Models and stars shown in the fashion industry, magazines, movies, and other forms of media often appear very thin. These models are not a true reflection of the average female. Many are unnaturally thin, unhealthy or airbrushed. One former Victoria Secret model was shocked by the waiflike models that were shown on the runway during designer shows. A study referenced in the the article “Do Thin Models Warp Girls Body Image” describes how studies of girls as young as first grade think the culture is telling them to model themselves after celebrities who are svelte and beautiful. The same studies showed girls exposed to fashion magazines were most likely to suffer from poor body images. Psychologist and eating disorder experts agree the fashion industry has gone too far in showing dangerously thin images that women and young girls may try to emulate. The use of super slim models and stars, is sending the wrong message to young impressionable girls. These harsh influences lead us to think that thin is ideal body size. Seeing super thin models in the media plays a role in anorexia. Society’s promotion of a thin female body contributes to eating disorders for females striving to achieve this ideal bod...
As seen in films like Killing Us Softly 4 and Miss Representation, we can see how much media and advertisements affect everyone consciously and subconsciously. Through images and advertisements, women’s bodies are hacked apart to sell products. This has a negative effect body image and self-confidence in young girls and women all over the world. It is extremely important to understand the extent to which circulating images of women in media affect standards and expectations of women in our society in order to hopefully cease to create such degrading images. Our society hurts itself by producing the types of images we see in media and advertisements today, yet it has done very little to try to reverse the messages put out. For the sake of our
Our body image is an important part of our self-identity and our self esteem. In Medilexicon’s medical dictionary, body image is the personal conception of one's own body as distinct from one's actual anatomic body or the conception other people have of it. In medicine and psychology terms, body image refers to a person’s emotional attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of their own body. Body consciousness is a growing phenomenon among women and this has started the debate on the positive and negative effects of having an unrealistic body image on women.
In the early 1990’s, it was reported that eleven million women in the United States suffer from various eating disorders. At the same time, at least ninety percent of people struggling with eating disorders are female (Stephens). Many researchers tried to figure out why so many women today were suffering from these terrible conditions that destroy people from the inside out. After thorough amounts of research were done, it was concluded that today’s society generates intense amounts of pressure on women to fit an “ideal image” of the models they see in various ways. Thanks to false advertising, false images of women, and the changing “desires” of society, the Beauty Myth gives women an image of themselves that is physically impossible to achieve.
In modern day society, many adolescent girls are self-conscious of their bodies, like Samantha Murray. In “Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard,” Kasey Serdar writes, the standards of the woman’s body are visibly set through forms of media; furthermore, the pressures are high to achieve these unrealistic looks (1). A plethora of self-esteem issues result from the media’s portrayal of unrealistically thin models. In addition, today’s society places a significant amount of importance on what the eyes perceive, rather than what is on the inside, as the article “Factors That May Contribute to Eating Disorders” states (1). As a result, eating disorders now begin at a younger age, since girls grow up viewing the “ideal body” as skinny; furthermore, images in the media affect the self-esteem of women so immensely that many develop eating disorders after spending time viewing these unrealistic images. Women should not feel the need to cha...
Vargas, L E. (2013) The Negative Effects of The Media on Body Image. Personal.psu.edu. Retrieved 30 Nov. 17 from:
This study hopes to gain a more in depth view of a demographic that is believed to put a great amount of focus on body image in the way the...
. Romo, Samantha. "As Body Image Issues Grow in Society Be Aware of Medias Influence." The Crimson White 7 Mar. 2012: n. pag. Print.