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“I’m fat.” “I’m too ugly.” “Why don’t I look like her?” These are the statements that women and girls of today tell themselves on a daily basis. We live in the century where media and advertisement is the number one action we see and hear about. Women are confronted with unrealistic images, and with the assumption that the public should look like that. Even though advertisement and media encourages girls to have a good body, they accentuate body images that are unrealistic.
The advertisement has evolved throughout the course of life, and now with the rise of the use of technology, it has become even more important. It’s what most of the 21st century is based on. It 's how marketing works, and how businesses stay open. Advertisement
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Its leading women to have hateful thoughts on their bodies, and with an estimate of “80 percent of adult American women dissatisfied with their body”, it 's not simply leading to insecurity but as well as depression. These “unrealistic, photoshopped and stereotypes images used by the media, advertising, and fashion industries influence young people body images and impact on their felling of body satisfaction, self- esteem and confident” (refusing the stereotype). Ever heard of BDD? Body Dysmorphic Disorder, it is a disorder where people suffer from their appearance, and according to studies, 17-24% of people with BDD will attempt …show more content…
It is irrational seeing what women are willing to encounter in order to get themselves looking like the model on the front page of a magazine. “Many argue that there is a national obsession with thinness and weight loss that has become unhealthy.” It 's gotten out of hand, and researchers by academics say that with reinforced images on ads and movies, eating disorder problems have gotten worse, as well as an increase in anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia, “compels people to starve themselves in order to become thinner and Bulimia is were people force themselves to vomit after eating large amounts of food.” Published in the journal Biological Psychiatry in February 2009, the study found that 0.9% of women in the US reported to have been anorexic or bulimia at some point in their life. Today they are close to “10 million Americans with an eating disorder.” We have to take into consideration what these images are placing in the heads of not just women but young
We hear sayings everyday such as “Looks don’t matter; beauty is only skin-deep”, yet we live in a decade that contradicts this very notion. If looks don’t matter, then why are so many women harming themselves because they are not satisfied with how they look? If looks don’t matter, then why is the media using airbrushing to hide any flaws that one has? This is because with the media establishing unattainable standards for body perfection, American Women have taken drastic measures to live up to these impractical societal expectations. “The ‘body image’ construct tends to comprise a mixture of self-perceptions, ideas and feelings about one’s physical attributes. It is linked to self-esteem and to the individual’s emotional stability” (Wykes 2). As portrayed throughout all aspects of our media, whether it is through the television, Internet, or social media, we are exploited to a look that we wish we could have; a toned body, long legs, and nicely delineated six-pack abs. Our society promotes a body image that is “beautiful” and a far cry from the average woman’s size 12, not 2. The effects are overwhelming and we need to make more suitable changes as a way to help women not feel the need to live up to these unrealistic standards that have been self-imposed throughout our society.
Advertising is as old as civilization itself. They are forever interconnected. If one changes then so does the other. So as our society evolved dramatically by the influence of technology and social media, so did the way we advertised. With the power of technology, advertising gained the ability to be everywhere at once. These locations ranged from billboards, to projector screens that hang from skyscrapers, to even in your homes in the form of commercials. The evolution of advertising in the modern world is both somewhat disturbing and innovative at the same time.
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.
Times have changed throughout the generations and the portrayal of women in the media has definitely changed over the years. Unfortunately, there is still a stereotypical appearance and social role in the media that women need to achieve in order to be socially desired. Even though it has improved, there is such a stigma towards being too fat, too skinny, too tall, or too short and the list of imperfections go on and on. Aside from body image, social roles are a big issue in the media today. When you look at any advertisement in the media, you can notice the appearance, gender, and race of the model. The media’s idea of the “perfect” body is having the unflawed and women are typically skewed for this by society.
Society thinks if women do not fit within the unrealistic image, something is wrong with them. The highly glorified concept of beauty marketed by the media contributes to the concern over body image that causes many women, including myself, to have eating disorders and poor self-image. I could really relate to the article, like Susie Orbach wrote about, most women in our society occupy themselves with making themselves fit into an image that society, men and the media find attractive and beautiful. “The women’s body is not as satisfactory as it is. It must be thin, free of “unwanted hair”, deodorized, perfumed and clothed”
It is difficult to pinpoint what exactly shapes a person’s view on body image because bodies are everywhere. In certain time periods, one’s body image was influenced by different factors. In the Victorian Age, status pressured women to be skinny, while current advertisements influence people to achieve the “ideal” body. The professional world today, unfortunately also also makes judgements in regard to an employee’s character based on their weight. However, nothing is more influential than what a person goes through during their everyday life. Even though status, advertisements, and the professional world help shape a person’s view of their own body image, the strongest pressure comes from our own personal experiences with our family and rejection.
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.
Everywhere one looks today, one will notice that our culture places a very high value on women being thin. Many will argue that today’s fashion models have “filled out” compared to the times past; however the evidence of this is really hard to see. Our society admires men for what they accomplish and what they achieve. Women are usually evaluated by and accepted for how they look, regardless of what they do. A woman can be incredibly successful and still find that her beauty or lack of it will have more to do with her acceptance than what she is able to accomplish. “From the time they are tiny children, most females are taught that beauty is the supreme objective in life” (Claude-Pierre, p18). The peer pressure for girls in school to be skinny is often far greater than for boys to make a team. When it is spring, young girls begin thinking “How am I going to look in my bathing suit? I better take off a few more pounds.”
Mass media has evolved over the years and is heard to have many effects on body image. Does mass media have an effect on body image? To answer this question, I have explored academic articles for different social science disciplines. This particular discipline is Psychology. The discipline of psychology will show how body images affect people and what causes them to be affected. The articles being reviewed are Barlett, Christopher P., Christopher L. Vowels and Donald A. Saucier. “Meta-Analyses of the Effects of Media Images on Men’s Body Image Concerns.” Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology. 27.3 (2008) : 279-310., Hayes, Sharon and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn. “Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children’s media on
...th the modern era defining beautiful as having less weight. (WiseGeek, n.d.) Another argument is that thin is a feminist issue and they just use this as a headline grabber because 39.4 million of Americans suffer from obesity and the British NHS survey of Disordered Eating noted 620 hospital treatments for anorexia or bulimia (with some patients registered twice or more) for 2005 to 2006 as opposed to 17,458 for the same period for obesity. They also argue that more material is being saved when models are thinner and clothes look more elegant and drapes effortlessly on skinnier models. Most models and designers argue that models are not supposed to eat and they are meant to be skinny to sell more clothes or make them look more appealing.
In this age, media is more pervasive than ever, with people constantly processing some form of entertainment, advertisement or information. In each of these outlets there exists an idealized standard of beauty, statistically shown to effect the consumer’s reflection of themselves. The common portrayal of women’s bodies in the media has shown to have a negative impact on women and girls. As the audience sees these images, an expectation is made of what is normal. This norm does not correspond to the realistic average of the audience. Failing to achieve this isolates the individual, and is particularly psychologically harmful to women. Though men are also shown to also be effected negatively by low self-esteem from the media, there remains a gap as the value of appearance is seen of greater significance to women, with a booming cosmetic industry, majority of the fashion world, and the marketing of diet products and programs specifically targeting women.
Advertising is always about appearance. It is also about information and what really satisfies people. Undoubtedly that advertisement of woman has been increased dramatically and obviously in such a way that turn out to be an important part of people’s lives. Recently, with advertising developments, there are more and more prospective is shown to the public. It cannot be denied that advertisement consist of negative scenes that shape females identity. Nevertheless, majority of individuals in modern societies deem that, such advertisements can caused so many harmful effects to women gender identity, such as low self-esteem. Also, it can cause depression to the women advertising due to the lack of confidence. Whereas, minority of people believes that, it is all about the women own decision whether to be exposed in such kinds of images or not. As well, it may benefit both parties, women who advertise and the advertising companies organizing them. It can be assumed that, this issue so-called advertising shapes female gender identity, has both benefits and damages, and damages can occurred more than advantages. This essay will attempt briefly to argue the damages and benefits of how advertising shapes women gender identity.
The advertising involved targets young teenage women and features models that portray desirable items, and the “norm” is for these women to be slender and beautiful (Vonderen & Kinnally, 2012). Research has been done to prove that the media’s pressure on being thin causes women to be depressive and have negative feelings about themselves. Women’s views are skewed and perceived incorrectly of what the typical female body should be (Haas, Pawlow, Pettibone & Segrist, 2012). Body image for women has always been stressed for them to look a certain way and to try to obtain “physical perfection.” But due to the pressure on women to be this certain way, it is common for the mass media to be destructive to the young, impressionable girl.
However, it is evident that the media usually presents and sexualizes women who are “young, fit and beautiful” hence probably creating self esteem issues more than confidence especially in younger women who are religious towards the media’s expectations. This stereotype of being a desired body shape only forces women to meet unattainable perfect physical standards (Gill 2015). The media bombards the youth with gender representations and the types of bodies that are deemed to be attractive. Many teenagers all around the world are desperate to lose weight to be “beautiful”.
Beauty Myth In order to ensure that the technique of sexualization in the advertising industry is truly functioning and working on the consumers is by making use of the “beauty myth”. The beauty myth sets a rather absurd beauty standard for women out there. In sexualized advertisements, beauty myth is often shown in two ways: beauty pornography and beauty sadomasochism. Two of which are commonly mistaken for the other.