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The fashion industry and media promote unrealistic beauty standards, eating disorders and low self esteem instead of stimulating body positivity and encouraging girls and boys to embrace their flaws and imperfections. Teenagers in this generation are given false impressions through media of what the “ perfect body” looks like and is putting a tremendous strain on today’s society. Causing eating disorders including Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Purging disorders etc. also usually these images in the media cause a decline in self acceptance and low self esteem: “Although this has always been the case, the modern media is relentless in advertising ideal figures, represented by male and female supermodels and action heroes. The barrage of …show more content…
( Bennett 1 ) “What they see in the media can, in some cases, have a pivotal impact. “ Genes load the gun, environment pulls the trigger—and right now the fashion industry has their finger on the trigger,” says Bulik. ( Bennett 3 ) “ Particularly disturbing are indications that the quest for perfection is reaching into younger age groups. ” ( Bennett 3 ) More and more kids are afraid of getting fat and thinking negatively about their body. The environment has a big influence on today’s youth creating a pressure to be thin which then lead to these unhealthy habits. ( Bennett
In every magazine and on every page there is another source of depression, another reason to skip a meal or two or a reason to be self-conscious. In present society people are overly focused and determined on the perfect body that both the fashion and advertising industry portray and promote. Through diction, pictures and celebrities presented they are trying to convey a message to their viewers that is “suppose” to be used as a source of motivation and determination. The message they are truly conveying is self-conscious thoughts, depression, and the promotion of eating disorders. It is estimated that millions of people struggle with depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem; concentrated on dissatisfaction with their body image (Ballaro). The advertisement and fashion industry are conveying a message that creates an internal battle for their viewers, though they should be creating a fire in their viewers that provides motivation to be healthier, take better care of themselves and a source of inspiration for style.
People are always complaining about how they aren’t as pretty as models on billboards, or how they aren’t as thin as that other girl. Why do we do this to ourselves? It’s benefitting absolutely nobody and it just makes us feel bad about ourselves. The answer is because society has engraved in our minds that we need to be someone we’re not in order to look beautiful. Throughout time, society has shaped our attitudes about appearances, making it perfectly normal and even encouraged, to be five feet ten inches and 95 pounds. People have felt trapped by this ideal. Society has made these beauty standards unattainable, therefore making it self defeating. This is evident in A Doll’s House, where the main character, Nora, feels trapped by Torvald and society’s standard of beauty. The ideal appearance that is prevalent in society is also apparent in the novel, The Samurai’s Garden, where Sachi is embarrassed of the condition of her skin due to leprosy and the stigmas associated with the disease. The burden of having to live up to society’s standard of beauty can affect one psychologically and emotionally, as portrayed in A Doll’s House and The Samurai’s Garden.
The media uses means such as social media, magazines, and television to influence people, specifically teenagers. Adolescence can be a confusing time for everyone, but teenage girls are more vulnerable to their influence due to their emotional maturity. Although girls currently believe that this impossible body image is expected of them, they develop eating disorders because of it. For example, the Victoria's secret fashion show and underwear commercials help set up the impossible beauty standard all girls and women are trying to achieve. Those models live by a strict diet and exercise routine plus their photos are manipulated in order to look the way they do. If models don't look thin enough, they will “frequently have collarbones, ribs, and even hips erased to make them look thinner (Body Image-Photo Manipulation).” Magazines are also a huge part of media's influence. It is common to find teenage girls reading fashion magazines. One issue of the popular magazine, Vogue, “was found to contain 144 manipulated images, including the cover (Body Image-Photo Manipulation).” It is normal to be conce...
Research shows “that regular readers of fashion and beauty magazines in early adolescence are more likely to suffer from a distorted body image during their teenage years” (“Children, Adolescents and the Media”), when they read beauty magazines they read articles and tips of how to look better and they try to them all to look and feel better about themselves. Research shows that “more than three-quarters of girls repot that television influenced their body image” (Mascarelli). Social media influences how we act and what we do Amanda Swartz once stated “Social media and mass media influence the way we react and interact with our world and potentially influence the perception of our own body image” (Mulliniks). In today’s worlds there are more ways to access websites to promote body image as a positive thing, “On the internet, there are now more than 100 pro anorexia websites that not only encourage disordered eating but offer specific advice on purging, severely restricting calories intake, and exercising excessively” (“Children, Adolescents and the Media”). It’s not a bad thing to eat healthy and work out to be fit and healthy but it’s another thing to eat less and work out excessively. Teens always compare themselves to others, either their peers, models and celebrities, “People are on Facebook or Instagram and they’re constantly comparing themselves to other people” (Mulliniks). Also reality television shows, show only the glamorous about what is happening, like “when teen moms become celebrities, the message to avoid teen pregnancy is lost” (Kroll). When teens watch shows like Teen Mom they don’t see the entire negative about becoming pregnant as a teen they see that the teen mom got famous and is on the show. Social media, media, magazines, and TV give teen’s unrealistical facts about body image, pregnancy and
The media can impact people’s lives in many ways, whether it’s fashion, movies, literature, or hobbies. One of the impacts is how women view their bodies. Movie stars and models feel pressured to catch attention and to look good in order to have a good career in their respective field. People tend to judge how someone looks based on their body composition. The result of this “judgment” is that Hollywood is getting skinny. Since models and actresses serve as role models for people, people tend to want to look like them. The result of this seemingly harmless model of behavior is in an increase in eating disorders.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In our society today, people would rather see what celebrities are up to than what is going on with our health plan. Watching the news makes us aware of the latest trend, new gadget, who’s in rehab, or who has an eating disorder. In the eyes of society, women like Eva Longoria, Kim Kardashian, and Megan Fox are the epitome of perfection. What girl wouldn’t want to look like them? Unfortunately, this includes most of the girls in the US. Through TV shows, commercials, magazines or any form of advertising, the media enforces a certain body type which women emulate. The media has created a puissant social system where everyone must obtain a thin waist and large breasts. As a society, we are so image obsessed with the approval of being thin and disapproval of being overweight, that it is affecting the health of most women. Women much rather try to fit the social acceptance of being thin by focusing on unrealistic body images which causes them to have lower self esteem and are more likely to fall prey to eating disorders, The media has a dangerous influence on the women’s health in the United States.
“According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, about 70 percent of girls grades five through 12 said magazine images influence their ideals of a perfect body, a fact that’s plain to see in the online world of teenage ‘thinspiration’” (Krupnick 1). This quote explains that girls in grades five to 12 are more likely to have a lower self esteem because of the idea of a perfect body beinging spread through social media. Models enjoy sharing their work with their fans their instagram and twitter accounts, which isn’t wrong. However, sometimes the pictures they post are exposed subtly, this causes for the pictures to get under someone's skin before they notice. These models, like Kylie and Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, are idealized but billions of people and have millions of followers on social media but all they do is post pictures of them living the luxury life that everyone watches. These posts could either help influence teens to work harder or cause them to try to achieve what they want in a harmful way. Having weight and height limits will lower the self esteem of others because they put out an image that most people think they must look
Three ways how our beauty ideals are unrealistic Today our ideals are different than they were in the past. We value a tall, skinny, toned body shape, small waist, tanned skin, small nose, almond shaped blue eyes, long eyelashes, perfect eye brows, full lips, flawless skin. But is it possible for everyone to possess all these traits? Is everyone naturally perfect? The answer is obviously no.
A tall, glamorous runway model is every girl’s dream. Long beautiful legs, lean body, and beautiful shiny hair is what an average young woman views as an ideal image for a female. If you don’t resemble the images of those stunning Victoria Secret models and Fashion Week models, you suddenly become ashamed of your own body. It is a great life to have with the high pay, fame, drinking champagne on a yacht with famous celebrities and even being on the Vogue cover page. Fashion Modeling Industry has been the most influential source in our young women’s lives. Young girls and young women are seen eating as little as they can, even starving themselves at times to resemble those models. What they don’t realize is that they are contributing to the 2.7 percentage of 13- 18 year olds suffering from anorexia and bulimia. Susan Albers, a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic said exposure to thin models is a great trigger in maintaining an eating disorder. When watching America’s Next Top Model or flipping through a Fashion magazine, these young women don’t apprehend that those models are either naturally slim or they are suffering from an eating disorder themselves, in other words, hostages in the dark hell hid behind those runway curtains. The growing number of young anorexia and bulimia patients, and the number of websites such as thinspiration, where girls put up pictures of their thin bodies clearly suggest that the fashion modeling industry do not at all bear any responsibility in providing healthy, realistic physical role models for young women.
Are you confident enough to share the “real” you online? A survey conducted with 1710 participants, has revealed that 50% of the participants confessed to using a face enhancing application, before posting the picture on social media ("Afraid To Be Your Selfie? Survey Reveals Most People Photoshop”, 2014). Statistics revealed that men edit their pictures as frequently as women, this could be fixing blemishes or completely transforming the picture ("PicMonkey Survey Reveals Photo Editing Habits of Men and Women", 2014). Standards of beauty are greatly influenced by social media with the rise of feature enhancing applications, enforcement of unrealistic standards, and through the increase of societal conformity.
In addition, the startling deaths of the “three very underweight models” (Rosemary 2007) has become the last straw that makes us impossible to accept the eating disorders anymore. These have added to the controversy over the use of extremely thin models in fashion industry because not only does it reduce the self-esteem of those who do not have ideal bodies but it also naturally forces them to become anorexic to look exactly like catwalk models which has been proved to cause “drastic weight loss and premature ageing” (Cooke 2000, pp. 3) severely. No matter how serious the impacts of eating disorders are, the fashion industry still continues giving out the products called “doll clothes” (The Sunday Telegraph, 2009) for young women. People in our society do not want to see teenagers with “jutting bones and no breasts of hips” (The Sunday Telegraph, 2009), we really want to see girls with their healthy body image.
Have you ever felt you needed to lose weight because of pressure put on you by the ideals created by the fashion industry? People often feel inferior to models because of the contrast between their bodies and the models and pressures on society make them feel they must look like models. Currently the standard set by the fashion industry is to be thin; for some people thinness to this extent isn’t easily attainable causing people to adapt unhealthy dietary habits. Pressures from the fashion industry promote eating disorders. This is because the fashion industry largely influence what is beautiful in society.
There are over seven billion people on earth and every single one looks different. No matter how much people say that being different is unique, they are wrong. Society has set a beauty standard, with the help of the media and celebrities, that makes people question their looks. This standard is just a definition of what society considers being “beautiful.” This idea is one that mostly everyone knows about and can relate to. No one on this planet is exactly the same, but people still feel the need to meet this standard. Everyone has two sides to them; there is the one that says “you are perfect just the way you are”, while the other side puts you down and you tell yourself “I have to change, I have to fit in.” There is always going to be that side that cares and the one that doesn’t.
Teenagers constantly worry about their body image. Magazines, newspapers, and television don’t exactly help to boost their confidence. The portrayal of stick thin woman and body building men forces teens to believe they need to achieve that “perfect” body and look. The biggest issue of these images being broadcasted to teens is the effects that the images have on them. Teenagers who obsess over their body image can experience stress due to trying to impress others, develop an eating disorder, and neglect, and even jeopardize, important aspects of their lives when they focus too much on their body image.
One implication of too much concern for appearance with young people is that there are many health issues that can come from chasing after a certain idea of how a person should look. Every day in the media, young people receive ideas about how they should look from advertisements, television, movies and celebrities. (Skinny celebs a health hazard, 2010). Most people agree that the image shown in these places is actually unrealistic and does not show real people in a natural way. This means that when young people set goals about how they wish to look, they might need to do things that are not good to be able to achieve them. (Brown University, 2014) The most common things are extreme diet and exercise—more and more young people are crash dieting, fad dieting and exercising too much to try and lose weight or get muscles, even those who are already healthy, normal weight. Such behavior can easily turn into an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa. Some even start smoking or using drugs to control their weight. Because the ideal that they are trying to reach is often hard (Kate Moss) or even impossible for humans (for example a Barbie doll...