Body Image Research Paper

When I look at my reflection in the mirror I begin to think to myself, “I wish I had a curvy body, I wish I was thicker, I wish I had long legs, I wish I had flawless skin, I wish... I was beautiful." Body image has always been a recurring issue in history. Through the different eras starting with the 1950’s the ideal body image for women was a curvy hourglass figure like

Marilyn Monroe. During the 1960’s was the Twiggy era in which women wanted to be thin and androgynous. And in the 1970’s thin was in, models in the media would influence adolescents to take diet pills to achieve being super skinny. The media plays a significant role on body image and the development in adolescents. Commercials and magazines show models advertising

Although society and the media have set standards on what beauty is, it is important for adolescents to know the truth behind what models in magazines, television, and people on social media have to do to make themselves look perfect. The average woman will spend 15,000 dollars in their lifetime on makeup. Anderburg

Kristen states how the emphasis on looks, causes adolescents to dislike or even to the extreme hate their own bodies. She claims that billions of dollars are spent on the weight loss industries and beauty industries yearly. She says, “Likewise, the "beauty industry" has convinced millions of women that chemical crap on their faces, and plucked eyebrows that are drawn back on, is

"beauty" (Kristen, 2010). Kristen believes many women and adolescents are following this image of unrealistic beauty, which can only be achieved by buying the essentials or necessary items from beauty or weight loss industries to reach the goal of ‘beauty.’ Society has brain washed many young women and men into shaming their own bodies, these companies are making money off of our own self-hatred. Many young women and men have low

4 three-quarters (70%) of Gen Y/Millennial women edit their pictures before posting them to their social networks, but so do more than half of men surveyed in the same age group"( Adolescents also go to the extent of developing eating disorders to accomplish the ideal body image. Not only does photo shopped images play a factor in increasing concerns for body image for adolescents but so does the likes that those images receive. By photo shopped body images on social media receiving likes it can give adolescents a sense of feeling that society only accepts those body types.

All throughout history up to today adolescences have been bombarded with these ideal body images through magazines, television, and now even more through social media. With the media portraying these unrealistic ideal body images it creates these negative effects of having adolescents feeling dissatisfied with their body image, depression, low self esteem, lack of confidence etc. This then lead adolescents to turn to beauty make up cosmetics, excessive exercising, and eating disorders and so on and so forth all to try to achieve this ideal body