Health of the Female Population Endangered by Media

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Today’s media is playing a huge role in the lives of everyday women and the way that they think about themselves and how they should look. This portrayal of unattainable beauty has effect women and young adolescent girls the most. The number one wish for girls ages 11 to 17 is to be thinner, and girls as young as five have expressed fears of getting fat (Tiggemann, 1996). The medias usage of ultra thin and beautiful models are leading to eating disorders and depression and other mental disorders in women. Robin Gerber who is a motivational speaker and author says “We don’t need Afghan style burquas to disappear as women. We disappear in reverse-by revamping and revealing our bodies to meet externally imposed visions of female beauty”. The media is endangering the health of the female population without even realizing it.

Women and adolescent females look in the mirror everyday and see something that they are unhappy with. According to a journal excerpt titled, “Body Image and Body Shape Ideals in Magazines: Exposure, Awareness, and Internalization” by Dale L. Cusumano and J. Kevin Thompson, they agree that exposure to ideal images highly cause eating disorders, due to the fact that young women strive to achieve the perfect body shape (Cusumano, Thompson). In fact, today’s fashion models, opposed to the eight percent difference 20 years ago, weigh 23% less than the average female, and a young woman between the ages of 18-34 has a seven percent chance of being as slim as a catwalk model and a one percent chance of being as thin as a supermodel (Tiggemann, 2000). The advertisement industry is ecstatic when they even think about a female saying those words. Advertisers often emphasize sexuality and the importance of physical at...

... middle of paper ...

...vertisements from our point of view and not just be in it for the money. The medias portrayal of the underfed, airbrushed, stretched out of proportion models as the norm, needs to change. These airbrushed models are not real, so the image is unattainable.

Works Cited

Body Image and Advertising. "Eating Disorders: Body Image and Advertising - HealthyPlace." HealthyPlace.com - Trusted Mental Health Information and Support - HealthyPlace. Web. 12 Feb. 2010. .

Fox, Roy F. Harvesting Minds: How TV Commercials Control Kids. Westport: Praeger, CT. Print.

Schneider, Karen S. "Mission Impossible." People Magazine 03 June 1996: 65-66. Print.

Susumano, Dale L., and J. Kevin Thompson. Sex Roles. 9-10 ed. Vol. 37. Springer Netherlands, 1997. Print.

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