As a child I struggled being comfortable in my own skin. I had a desire to look like the women on the big screen; tall, blonde, and slim, however, with my body type I would never achieve that. I begged my mom to dye my hair blonde at ten years old and stretch everyday in hope of growing taller. I had days where I wouldn't eat because I would see what the “pretty girls” on TV ate and it was practically nothing. At ten years old I had already tried to change the way I looked, and at twelve years old I hated the way I looked. It took many years for me to realize that I would never look like the models or actresses; after a long battle I finally came to love myself for everything I am. A twelve year old young girl barley going through puberty shouldn't hate a body that is not even done developing. Young women and men around the world should love the body they were born with, and they should not feel shamed or ugly because their body image does not match that of an entertainer praised for having the perfect “look.”
The youth today in the United States of America must deal with figuring
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Through a survey conducted by the Oprah Winfrey website asking women in their 60’s and teens how they feel about the way they look they found, “Women in their 60s: Grateful: 52.2%, Satisfied: 46.1%, Self-conscious: 32.6%, Dissatisfied: 28.7%, Happy: 27.4% & Teens: Self-conscious: 50%, Satisfied: 42.9%, Grateful: 40.5%, Happy: 36.9%, Dissatisfied: 26.2%” (Body Image Statistics 2). Notice that there is an 11.7% gap between women in their 60’s and teens who feel grateful about the way they look. I wonder if the percentage would change for teens if they could get a view of how they would look in their 60’s, then realize that their prime is now. Instead of criticizing themselves, they would be grateful for the youth they are
Societal constructs of bodily perfection have a massive influence on both genders and on all ages. If you look at any magazine, you will see women constantly being compared to each other, whether it is in the “who wore it better” section or in the “do’s and don’ts” part of the magazine, comparing body images and overall appearances. All parts of the media that encompasses our daily lives are especially dangerous for young and impressionable teens because they see people being torn down for trying to express themselves, and are thus taught to not only don’t look like “don’ts”, but also look like the “do’s”. This is dangerous in that women in the magazine set very high standards that teens want to emulate, no matter the cost to themselves or their health. Celebrities have the benefit of media to make them appear perfect: Photoshop and makeup artists conceal the imperfections that are often too apparent to the naked eye. Viewing celebrities as exhibiting the ideal look or as idols will, in most cases, only damage the confidence of both young teens, and adults, and warp the reality of what true “beauty” really is. It makes teens never feel truly content with themselves because they will be aiming for an ideal that is physically impossible to attain and one that doesn’t exist in the real
Many teens today are faced with unrealistic body standards. Social media has an huge influence on how teens see their body. They may see a model or their favorite celebrity and ask themselves why don't they look like that, or how can they look like that. These body standards can cause some to body shame others. As social media continues to deem what is attractive and what is not, the number of women dissatisfied with their body will increase.
“The mass audience doesn't want to see you if you aren't perfect. If you don't look a certain way, if you don't have big pecs and great skin and the perfect eyes. And it's unfortunate, because kids are growing up with body image dysmorphia because not everyone is represented on the screen” (Chris Pine). The media brings us many good things like news and the latest trends in fashion, but it also can have negative effects on us. Such as how it makes us view ourselves. How can the pressure of body image from the media be eliminated?
Before understanding the effects of body image on contemporary women, one must first comprehend the term that is body image. According to Psychology Today’s definition, “body image is the mental representation one has for themselves. It is the way one sees their physical body. However, this mental representation may or may not always be accurate.
If one does not fit this ideal, then they are considered unappealing. Unfortunately, there is nothing one can do to truly change their body image other than think happier thoughts, obtain plastic surgery, or go to the gym to make themselves feel and potentially look better. Popular media is making it extremely difficult for one to maintain a positive body image. They have created the perfect human image that is almost unattainable to reach. The idea of a teenager’s body image is being destroyed by the standards of magazines, television shows, and society as a whole, making it to where it will never recover again. To better understand the effect popular media has on one’s body image, viewing psychology, medicine and health sciences, and cultural and ethnic studies will give a better understanding on the
Body image, according to Webster’s dictionary is a subjective picture of one’s own physical appearance established both by self-observation and by noting the reactions of others. Body image refers to people’s judgment about their own bodies and it is molded as people compare themselves to others. Since people are exposed to numerous media images, these media images become the foundation for some of these comparisons. When people’s judgment tell them that their bodies are subpar, they can suffer from low self-esteem, can become depressed or develop mental or eating disorders.
Many young girls read magazines and watch TV and look up to the models that they see. They then get the idea that their bodies should look that way and if it does not, they are unattractive. It is said that models promote you to be “comfortable with the skin you’re in” and to be yourself but how can that be when the size of models are getting smaller and smaller. As these negative thoughts sit in their heads, their self esteem begins to plummets to an all time low, ultimately doing the opposite of what was intended. Frederique van der Wal, a former Victoria secret model went to the New York Fashion Week show back in 2006 and said “I was shocked by the models that seemed to be skinner than in previous years” (Hellmich1). If a former model can see the damage in extremely skinny models, society and agencies definitely should. Models make girls, especially from the ages of 13-25 feel extremely bad about themselves. Above all, society makes model’s body images seem like the right or “perfect” image and for the sake of girls’ self esteem it needs to stop.
The feeling of being “overweight or underweight” because of the little voice inside their head whispering, “you're ugly because you don’t have the perfect image, perfect body, perfect whatever to fit in society,” they being to take matters into their own hands to resolve what they begun to believe is a problem. Girls acquire negative habits of avoiding daily meals to have the body society has told them they should have. It becomes a constant routine, day after day, until they fall into the trap of anorexia or bulimia — eating disorders. “It’s, like, really sad that they think whatever they look like, it’s not good enough for them,” (Hatch Kids). This has become a dangerous and growing issue, just in the U.S., there is an estimate of 1.3 M adolescent girls diagnosed with anorexia (Hatch Kids). Another study suggested that young girls, ages 9-14, started initiating at least monthly because of the desire to look like celebrities or be model thin. As more studies are being conducted, this shows that media can trigger body image disturbances for girls (Remuda Ranch). Impossible beauty standards has became a major issue to our world and should really be
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.
Nowadays, girls grow up viewing stick-thin celebrities on their televisions and believe that their bodies are abnormal if they do not look the same. Eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and plastic surgery are at an all time high. Generations of women are burdened with depression,
“Anorexic's don't necessarily have to look skinny, in the same way that you don't have to be in bandages to be genuinely ill.” It's not a secret, it is not uncommon. This is reality, men do have eating disorders. Why are we as a society acting like we have never heard of this before? Why are we still categorizing people based on how they look?
No matter how serious the impacts of eating disorders are, the fashion industry still continues to give out the products called “doll clothes” (The Sunday Telegraph, 2009) to young women. People in our society do not want to see teenagers with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” (The Sunday Telegraph, 2009). We really want to see girls with healthy body image. Clearly, there is a need to curtail the cases of teenagers suffering from body image pressures immediately (Kennedy, 2010).
In American culture today, society's view of beauty is controlled by Hollywood, where celebrities are constantly in the lime-light. The media watches Hollywood's every move, and is quick to ridicule “A-listers” whenever they dare to gain a few pounds or to let an uncontrollable pimple show. The media has created a grossly distorted mental image of what should be considered beautiful, and with almost every junior high and high school-age girl reading and viewing this message, the idea has been instilled in them as well. This view of beauty is causing many teenage girls to become obsessed with a highly problematic and unattainable goal of perfection.
More than half of children use social media before the age of ten (Christakis), exposing them to these dangerously unrealistic standards of beauty. It is well worth a mother or father watching TV with their kids and discussing the unrealistic bodies that are shown. It is very important children understand at a young age that behind the digital curtain, the bodies in magazines and social media are not always natural and are more often than not touched up in some way. This gives the child a more realistic view and expectations for their own body. Parents might add how confident the models look, and demonstrate to their kids they should be just as confident in their own body.
Society’s norms for decades girls have been put under the pressure and expectation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin- but curvy, beautified by make up- but not resembling a clown. Where do these unreachable standards come from? So, when a young girl hears the photoshopped model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life replica of the photoshop. Society spits out magazine covers plastered with girls’ idols daily.