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Media's influence on body image and behavior
Articles about the impact of media on the body image of women
Influence of TV commercials on body image dissatisfaction
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Is the media helping or hurting the way women view their bodies? The media has a powerful influence in women's everyday lives. The media constantly sends messages of what women should spend their time and money on; Putting a picture in women's minds daily of what they should look like. False images of young beautiful women are airbrushed and altered to perfection to hide every flaw. It is impossible for young women to live up to the standards the media has created. Young women have been negatively influenced by these advertisements every day; something has to be done. Young women are striving for a perfection that does not exist; this then affects their self-confidence and causes them to see their own bodies in a negative way. Researchers have found that in the United Sates, 94% of female characters in television programs are thinner than the average American woman (Gonzalez-Lavin & Smolak). Therefore, Average women watching these extremely thin actresses compare themselves to a body that is not the minority standard. Seeing these special case bodies does not make women feel good in their own skin. The pressure from the media on women is giving women a complex about their bodies. Women are going to extreme measures to obtain the perfect look that they see on the magazine covers. These daily influences are affecting women's thoughts on the way that they look. These influences should be positive not negative. The ideal body showcased by the media should be realistic, attainable, and real; not made on a computer.
FBI-trained forensics artist Gil Zamora knows first-hand about how negatively women view their bodies. He did a campaign with dove where he interviewed and drew seven different women- two sketches of each. He had the wome...
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... what they have. Healthy lifestyles and confidence are key to a happy life, and the media needs to start showing women those are things to strive for, not trying to achieve the perfect body the media has implanted into their minds.
Works Cited
Bealing, Jacqui. "News." RSS. University of Sussex, 10 Nov. 2009. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
Cullers, Rebecca. "Dove Hires Criminal Sketch Artist to Draw Women as They See Themselves and as Others See Them, Ad week, 16 Apr. 2013. Web. 26 Nov. 2013.
Gonzalez-Lavin & Smolak, Relationships between television and eating problems in middle school girls. Paper presented at the meeting of the society for research in child development.(1995, March).
Hardy, Leah. "A Big Fat (and Very Dangerous) Lie: A Former Cosmo Editor Lifts the Lid on Airbrushing Skinny Models to Look Healthy." Mail Online. Daily Mail, 20 May 2010. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
Wykes, Maggie, and Barrie Gunter. The Media and Body Image: If Looks Could Kill. London: SAGE, 2005. Print.
Harrison, K., & Hefner, V. (2006). Media exposure, current and future body ideals, and disordered eating among preadolescent girls: A longitudinal panel study. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35(2), 146-156.
In recent years, sociologists, psychologists, and medical experts have gone to great lengths about the growing problem of body image. This literature review examines the sociological impact of media-induced body image on women, specifically women under the age of 18. Although most individuals make light of the ideal body image most will agree that today’s pop-culture is inherently hurting the youth by representing false images and unhealthy habits. The paper compares the media-induced ideal body image with significant role models of today’s youth and the surrounding historical icons of pop-culture while exploring various sociological perspectives surrounding this issue.
Yamamiya, Y., Cash, T. F., Melnyk, S. E., Posavac, H. D., & Posavac, S. S. (2005). Women's exposure to thin-and-beautiful media images: Body image effects of media-ideal internalization and impact-reduction interventions. Body image, 2(1), 74-80.
Beauty is often described as being in the eye of the beholder. However in modern western culture, the old adage really should be beauty is in the eye of the white makeup artist, hair stylist, photographer, photo shop editor, and advertiser. Beauty and body ideals are packaged and sold to the average American so that we can achieve vocational, financial, social, and recreational successes. Mass media and advertising has affected the way that women perceive and treat their own bodies as well as their self-concept. Women are constantly bombarded with unrealistic images and hold themselves to the impossible beauty standards. First, we will explore the role of media in the lives of women and then the biggest body image issue from a diversity stand point, media whitewashing.
The media is a fascinating tool; it can deliver entertainment, self-help, intellectual knowledge, information, and a variety of other positive influences; however, despite its advances for the good of our society is has a particular blemish in its physique that targets young women. This blemish is seen in the unrealistic body images that it presents, and the inconsiderate method of delivery that forces its audience into interest and attendance. Women are bombarded with messages from every media source to change their bodies, buy specific products and redefine their opinion of beauty to the point where it becomes not only a psychological disease, but a physical one as well.
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.
Researchers have used various abstract foundations for examining the relationship between media and body image ( Holmstrom, 2004). Here I review the theory that has been used by researcher in the area. Bandura’s Social cognitive theory (1994) assumed that “people learn and model the behaviors of attractive others”. The supporters of this theory suggest that young women find slim models in the media attractive and try to imitate them through dieting which leads them to eating disorders.
The media has had an increasingly destructive effect on young people who are becoming worryingly obsessed with their body image. The media is saturated in sexual imagery in which young people have to face every day. The sheer volume of sexual imagery in the media today has resulted in the vast majority of young people to become hooked on looking as near to perfection everyday by using the latest products and buying the latest fashions. This used to be enough but lately the next step to achieving perfection is cosmetic surgery. Everyone wants to look attractive, especially teenagers who are not only put under massive strain to succeed but to look beautiful and climb the ranks of the social ladder, and it seems that the only way to achieve the much desired beauty is to turn to drastic measures.
The frequent use of media also contributes to the fact that people become influenced by what they see in the media. 8 out of 10 Americans watch television on a daily basis. Younger people are more prone to developing eating disorders and becoming influenced by media; they are the ones who use media more often. Young children from the ages of 8-18 are engaged with some type of media for approximately 7.5 hours a day. Of those 7.5 hours, most of it is watching television that is filled with influential commercials. Children even are influenced from the cartoons they watch. The cartoons and videos they watch often stress the importance of being attractive. One of the most common forms of influential advertisements and pictures are in teen magazines which are directed towards young, adolescent girls. The increasing use of media has a correlation with the increasing number of victims dealing with an eating disorder. Media has become easier to access and is needed for more things. For example, smart phones make accessing media like social media easier and since they are portable, you can use them where ever you go. Media provided influential content in which young kids can learn th...
...to them to love themselves as they as are is the first step in taking back control from the media. The media would like for them to conform to unrealistic standards of beauty for their own selfish benefit to solicit their industry. However if we don’t give in to medias perception of perfection the media will have to change.Certain companies like Dove have realized the medias negative effect on adolescent girls and has taking matters into their own hands by publishing a new ad with healthier looking model. This ad is one step in the right direction to building back up young girls self esteem and making them comfortable with their bodies. Women will never stop wanting to improve themselves however by embracing all different beautiful attributes women have they will refrain from practicing unhealthy methods and will work towards realistic goals that will make them happy.
In her novel “Beauty Myth”, Naomi Wolf argues that the beauty and fashion industry are to blame for using false images to portray what beautiful woman is. She believes the magazines are to blame for women hating their bodies. Wolf states, “When they discuss [their bodies], women lean forward, their voices lower. They tell their terrible secret. It’s my breast, they say. My hips. It’s my thighs. I hate my stomach.” (Wolf, 451) She is focusing on how w...
The media have been criticized for portraying the thin women as “ideal” .This research plans to look at the effects of media on the body image of women. This cumulates the findings of empirical studies that observe the effects of media on body image. This study will also look at the different social comparison theories that relate media and body image. It will also investigate the different sources of media that have an impact on the body image of women. It also scopes to find out which sources have a greater consequence than the others. Furthermore it also researches about how the women could be prevented from comparing their body image from that of the models and actresses portrayed in the media.
The pattern is similar for the portrayal of women on television, magazines, and other parts of the media. The way media represents women are for them to be thin-like models and other women on television to be the high standard of “attractiveness” to others. The advertising involved targets young teenage women and feature these models that are portraying desirable items, and the “norm” is for these women to be slender and beautiful (Vonderen & Kinnally, 2012). Research has been done to prove that media’s pressure on being thin causes women to be depressive and negative feelings about themselves . Women’s view are skewed and perceived incorrectly of what the typical female body should be (Haas, Pawlow, Pettibone & Segrist, 2012).
Women and girls seem to be more affected by the mass media than do men and boys. Females frequently compare themselves to others, finding the negative rather than looking at the positive aspects of their own body. The media’s portrayal of the ideal body type impacts the female population far more than males, however, it is not only the mass media that affects women, but also influence of male population has on the female silhouette too.