Previous research has shown, that women, in particular young girls, are highly likely to compare themselves and their body image with their peers. There is, however, yet to be studies shown that prove the correlation between peer interactions that influence body dissatisfaction. Body dissatisfaction can lead to dangerous eating habits, such as anorexia, bulimia and extreme dieting. Relationships between family, friends and fellow classmates are pertinent throughout adolescence as it is those surrounding the young female that have a great influence over her. Research compelling to the topic has focused on these particular factors, such as peer and parental influence but has not yet received the amount of exposure and attention.
Numerous studies have identified a desire for thinness in young girls, in ages as young as 6. Young adolescent females are surrounded in an environment (particularly in western culture) where dieting, desire for thinness and so called “fat talk” is often brought up in everyday conversation. Not only are these popular topics of discussion between a young girl and her peers, but family and the media also have a somewhat greater influence. For example, a mother’s behavior regarding weight loss diets and fat talk could influence her daughter, and provoke her to follow in her footsteps. A mother’s input in her daughter’s body image is shown to be more effective than her fathers input. The dieting behavior by the mother and/or peers is what is also known as “modeling”. Modeling is something that occurs when the adolescent copies actions of those around her, for instance dieting and binge/purge behavior. Female adolescents may also experience what is known as physique anxiety. Physique anxiety is related to compa...
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...ry few also include male adolescents. Which raises the question of whether if a study were to be conducted of a higher number of boys and very few girls, or only boys, would the results differentiate? Would we see a dramatic increase or decrease? A women’s perspective is that the thin ideal is considered beauty and is prevalent in todays society, which motivates their desire to become thinner as they feel they may be seen as more beautiful. This is shown to pressure young girls to take on the risky beahviour’s such as extreme dieting or exercising, as well as purging as a way to get rid of the food consumed. The women’s thin ideal is equivalent to the male ideal, which is muscle gain. These oppose as males less frequently take part in behavior such as purging or starving, but are similarly more prone to over exercising or over eating, which is also a health concern.
Media is infamous for having a tremendous effect on teenage girls. The mass media have long been criticized for presenting unrealistic appearance ideals that contribute to the development of negative body image for many women and girls (Harrison & Hefner, 2006). Whether it’s the influence on their choice of friends, school, or their self image, media has played an important role in affecting those decisions. A growing number of experimental studies have demonstrated a causal link between acute exposure to "thin-ideal" images (i.e., images of impossibly thin and attractive female beauty) and increased body dissatisfaction (Hargreaves & Tiggemann, 2003). It has recently been brought up that media influences girls in preadolescence, which is highly likely since most young girls idolize Barbie (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). “Were Barbie a flesh-and-blood woman, her waist would be 39% smaller than that of anorexic patients, and her body weight would be so low that she would not be able to menstruate” (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). Most young girls wish that they could look like Barbie when they grew up, but if they knew the reality of having her measurements their perceptions would probably change. Children frequently fantasize about who they will be, what they will do, and how they will look when they grow into adulthood.
The article "Body Image in Boys: A Review of the Literature" by Geoffrey H. Cohane and Harrison G. Pope is an important starting piece to the problem of muscle dysmorphia. Cohane goes through a survey and questionnaire study of boys under the age of 18 and tests them to see the king of attitude and choice they will have toward body images. These results were compared to different boy groups as well as to the girl groups that were asked about body image. Different kinds of assessments were done, including body dissatisfaction scale, imagery and questionnaires evaluating attitudes toward body types. In most studies girls were always dissatisfied with their body weight wanting to be thinner, but according to Pope's reports on fourth grade boys "45% of the boys wanted to change their weight"(p.2). Coupled with other st...
Over the years the rise in body image dissatisfaction has grown as both male and female progress to adulthood. This factor can be contributed to societal standards that the media presents to the public daily. These standards continue to rise making the body image more difficult to attain. With these standards comes the push to seek the “perfect body”. This myth of true beauty commonly found in today’s society, is the price that adolescents buy into often sacrificing their health. The perfect body can often present a distorted view of one-self leading to unhealthy methods of weight reduction. The most common methods for weight reduction are the diseases Anorexia and Bulimia. The similarities and differences between Anorexia and Bulimia will be used to prove that the society’s pressure to fit a certain mold contribute to the onset of the disease.
The sociocultural approach to the issue of body image among women states that women receive harmful and negative cultural messages about their bodies. These messages can come from the media as well as from family and peer influences (Swami, 2015). By promoting the thin ideal for attractiveness, the media contributes to women rating their bodies more negatively and thus increases their likelihood of developing eating disorder symptoms (Spitzer, Henderson & Zivian, 1999). In a meta-analysis studying the effects of media images on female body image, Groesz and Levine (2002) found that women’s body image was significantly more negative after viewing thin media images than after viewing average or plus size models. Harmful body messages from family can be direct, such as verbal criticism or teasing, or in...
...man Ideal and Other Risk Factors for Eating Disturbances in Adolescent Girls." ERIC – World’s Largest Digital Library of Education Literature. Apr. 1997. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. .
The stage of adolescence contains major changes which can bring stress, confusion, and anxiety. Feelings of self-consciousness, low self esteem and comparison with peers start occurring during this time. Along with the physical changes there is also hormonal and brain changes that affect the adolescent physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically. During this time a person can feel tremendous pressure to find their place in the world among a great deal of confusion (“Eating Disorders and Adolescence,” 2013). Body image concerns and peer pressure are heightened during the period of adolescence, and are potential risk factors in the development of an eating disorder. While eating disorders can affects males and females of all ages, the average age of onset for Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and disordered eating takes place during adolescence. These disorders are often a coping mechanism for people to attempt to gain control of their situation when they feel helpless among other aspects of life (“Eating Disorders and Adolescence,” 2013). Eating disorders in children and teens can lead to a number of serious physical problems and even death (Kam, n.d.).
Women in our culture today have developed an obsession with body image and weight that has contributed to the development of eating disorders. The media portrays super-thin models and women take that as the ideal of what they “should” look like. This can have a tremendous impact on their self esteem, and on both the low and high end of the BMI scale, a measure of body fat calculated using your height and weight; whether it be a woman with anorexia, or a woman with obesity. Men also experience this pressure to be muscular and tall, yet it is small compared to what women face. Statistics of college men show that 25% binge eat, 24% diet and 3% purge (Cain, Epler, Steinley, and Sher, 2012). Studies show that people with higher BMI’s experience more body dissatisfaction and and negative body image than people with lower BMI’s (Duncan, al-Nakeeb, and Nevill, 2013). When people feel bad about their body they can experience low self esteem: when a person feels inadequate and lacks respect for the self (Mäkinen, Puukko-Viertomies, Lindberg, Siimes, & Aalberg, 2012). Someone with low self esteem is more at risk for experiencing body dissatisfaction, which can lead to abnormal eating habits (Mäkinen, Puukko-Viertomies, Lindberg, Siimes, & Aalberg, 2012). This can take two forms, dietary restraint and binge eating. High and low BMI has a negative impact on self esteem and body image of women due to the pressure to be perfect in today’s society. The presentation of the following studies of children and adults will seek to understand the differences in men and women and their relationship with BMI, self esteem, and body image through its effect on eating disorders, body dissatisfaction, and the thin-ideal portrayed by the media.
The overwhelming idea of thinness is probably the most predominant and pressuring standard. Tiggeman, Marika writes, “This is not surprising when current societal standards for beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, an ideal accepted by most women but impossible for many to achieve.” (1) In another study it is noted that unhealthy attitudes are the norm in term of female body image, “Widespread body dissatisfaction among women and girls, particularly with body shape and weight has been well documented in many studies, so much so that weight has been aptly described as ‘a normative discontent’”. (79) Particularly in adolescent and prepubescent girls are the effects of poor self-image jarring, as the increased level of dis...
A recent study shows that women’s body dissatisfaction is influenced by peer competition with others rather than depictions of women in the media. Muoz and Ferguson (2012) developed a study in order to further understand the influence of inter-peer pressure on body dissatisfaction. Body dissatisfaction refers to any "negative self-evaluation of one’s own appearance and the desire to be more physically attractive. " The problem of body image has long been shown to be a concern for the American Psychiatric Association or APA, (Muoz & Ferguson, 2012, p. 383). It raises so much concern because an unsatisfying body image has been known to cause problems such as eating disorders, depression and self-esteem.
Research in psychology today seems to be drawn towards particular fields of interest especially when it comes to understanding human behavior. One of the most common research topics for social psychology is body image and the perceptions that are related to age groups, genders, and ethnicities. Young people today are pressured by society to make physical appearance a dominant factor in their everyday lives, and the pressure is found not only through media influence but friends and family as well (Pavica, 2010). These pressures can affect many different aspects of a person’s life and significantly influence their actions. The aspects affected by body image can include popularity among peers, social comfort, and the attitudes an individual comes to commit to behavior (Lewis & Rosenblum, 1999).
Clearly, there is a necessity to curtail the cases of teenagers suffering from body image pressures immediately (Kennedy, 2010). If there are no pressures, there will be surely no obsession with their appearance and there will be certainly no more risks of young women’s health and rise in serious eating disorders.
A struggle among many Americans today is body image, particularly with weight, and no group faces this at quite the rate of teenage girls. The percent of teenage girls who are or think that they should be on a diet is at 53%, and the percent of girls from ages 15-17 who have acknowledged having an eating disorder is at a frightening 13%. The percent of 10 year old girls who are afraid of being
The pressure to measure up to society’s expectations is overwhelming causing these girls to feel insecure. An alarming 90% of girls aged 15-17 want to change something about themselves, weight being the biggest one. It’s absolutely horrifying to think that girls that young already want to change themselves. A study shows that by the age of 17, 78% of girls say that they are unhappy with their bodies. A huge factor in this is the way the female body is portrayed in the media. The average model is 5’10” and 107 lbs and the
There are certain factors influencing body image dissatisfaction, such as, sociocultural influences, role of gender, perceptual factors, familial factors, and the role of media are important to be taken into account while making interventions such as healthy eating and weight management. The psychological factors suggest dissatisfaction with body leads to decrease in self worth (Parks, 1997). Body image dissatisfaction will determine our motivation to exercise or avoid it, for example, ‘feeling fat’ can prevent from going to gym due to the sports culture that promotes an ideal body while motivate us (Grogan et al., 2004). Body image can be changed through influences by peers, family and media (Thompson et al., 1999).
Body Image Trying to reach unrealistic standards is a force that drives many people right over the edge. “Body image is a complex concept that affects how people feel about themselves and how they behave”. Anyone can develop an eating disorder and many people do not notice them. During the early teen years girls start to lose self confidence, and start to gain a negative body image (“Body Image And Disordered Eating”). Even though most teenagers want to be skinny, body image negatively affects the lives of them because teens become suicidal, depressed, and pick up on eating disorders.