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How the media effects body image
Body image and self - esteem problems
How the media effects body image
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I can be this shy little girl sometimes. Not talking to anyone in a room filled with people, because I don’t know anyone. I follow the people I know around, because I am so insecure about everything, especially my body. I wear baggy clothes because I don’t want people to see how fat I am, or to judge my weight. I don’t like the way I look, and I’m trying to change that. I have never felt like I belong. Society is making people feel like shit, because of their weight or because their not the ideal size this world looks for. Society has everyone feeling so insecure that they don’t like to go out and have fun anymore. People look at me and give me these looks of disgust and it proves that I’m not society’s ideal girl. I can’t go out without …show more content…
People watch what they say, because they think if they bring up food it will make the person overweight hungry. That's not the case, though, because some of those overweight people have an eating disorder. No matter how much they work out, or take weight loss pills, it doesn’t help. I’m one of these people who can’t lose weight weight, no matter how hard I try. I don’t take the pills, I do the workouts and run, but it doesn’t help. I can work out and lose the weight, but when I eat dinner, no matter how small of a portion I have, I gain some weight back. Not everyone has a high metabolism. There are people who wish they had it. I know I wish I did, I would be able to work out and keep the weight off. Not have to worry about what I eat, because I wouldn’t gain any weight. People need to stop worrying about society and their standards, because they’re not real. They just want people to think they are, so they go around feeling bad about themselves and want to lose the weight. This is why people are so insecure about themselves. Even skinny people are becoming insecure, because they think they're getting fat. Society needs to stop being a bully and grow
“Fat Acceptance”: An Argument Lacking Validity Cynara Geisslers’ essay “Fat Acceptance: A Basic Primer,” was published in Geez Magazine in 2010. The focus of the essay is to refute the pressure of society to be thin and promote self-acceptance regardless of size. While this essay touches on many agreeable points, it tends to blow many ideas out of context in an attempt to create a stronger argument. The article takes on a one-sided argument without any appropriate acknowledgement of the opposition, overlooks the risks of ignoring personal health, and has a strong feminist ideology associated towards the essay which tends to make the validity of her argument questionable.
“What's slightly more disturbing in the nation but not only do fat people need to be monitored, controlled, and saved from their gluttonous impulsive, ... that certain forms of social control might be required to help the overweight resist temptation.” (Prose 181) As a weight conscious person myself, every time I do see an overweight person on TV or in
Moreover, no matter how much fat people try to lose weight, media and judgmental people will always be there to make obese people look worthless. On top of that, their strict exercise regimen does not seem to pay off because everything would match but weight. At one point, obese people give up and just accept the reality that they are obese and are allowed to be mocked.
People complain about losing weight, trying to stay fit for everyone because they’re fishing for compliments. Some just want attention so they get it surgically removed or lose it the hard way other people rather do it the easy way.
The issue, as mentioned above, is largely due to the fact that the media, and its air brushed models, urge women to change their appearance to become more attractive or healthy while gaining popularity and confidence with their new looks. As absurd as it may seem Celia Milne, the author of Pressures to Conform, upholds this idea and states “90 percent of Canadian women are dissatisfied with some aspect of their body” and that “they will go to frightening lengths to achieve their body ideal” (Milne 4, 9). Where does this dissatisfaction arise, and why should people who already have a normal body mass index (BMI) be intent on loosing weight? The answer lays in the media as it presents young women with idealistic body images that, although they may appear achievable, are entirely unrealistic. Despite this glitch, most women will continue striving towards perfectionism due to peer pressure, or media influx, thus becoming trapped with a goal that they can never reach. Dieting, excessive exercising, and weight loss programs are several of the healthy options that thi...
Discriminating against a person because of one's weight can be a seriously hurtful and demeaning thing. Many people assume that the causes for being overweight are eating all day and rarely exercising. Some people call overweight people slobs or lazy, when in most instances this isn't the case. Some have health problems that lead to being overweight, like a kidney disease or malfunction, or the person may even be suffering from a birth defect.
Our society today is heavily influenced by the media and the imagery it shows. Though it may be indirect, the media provides unhealthy messages about ideal body sizes, gender attractiveness, and weight control that make women view themselves in a negative way. Magazines, television, and movies influence teenage girls on what they believe their body image should be. The images they show set the standard of what is considered physically attractive in our society. With the use of photoshop, media depicts falsified images of models and actresses to create a perfected look that is unattainable by the average woman. This creates a desire among teenage girls to look like these stars that are often shown. When teenage girls look at these images, they compare themselves to those images, and then judge themselves based on these comparisons. These judgements can potentially lead to eating disorders. In order to prevent the risk of eating disorders among teenage girls, the media should depict a typical image of people, rather than idolizing a specific standard of beauty.
Many citizens in the United States and other parts of the world fight with weight and body image issues. Most exercise and eat healthy to help their problems. Some take a more unhealthy and sometimes deadly route. An estimated five million people are affected by eating disorders each year (Alters & Schiff, 2003, p.36). Eating disorders are more common among females. At least three percent of women have some type of an eating disorder (Alters & Schiff, 2003, p.36). Eating disorders are classified as persistent, abnormal eating patterns that can threaten a person?s health and well being. There are three major types of eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and compulsive overeating.
...l will always be presented before our eyes within the media. Our job as Americans is to ignore these images and be the person that God has created us to be. We should no longer let America choose what we are to be like or look like, we should stand against our media world and tell America that we are fine the way we are. We no longer need any teenagers giving their life away to be thin so another guy can have an interest in her. Ladies you are beautiful in your own special way, you don’t have to change yourself for anyone. As a society if we continue to always look at ourselves and are unhappy, when will we ever be happy, when we are depressed or even in our grave site dead from not eating, we need to love ourselves and be healthy not the next thinnest super model. Living a life without worrying about your weight problem is a life of freedom and a life without stress.
Eating disorders are one of society’s most debilitating physical and psychological problems faced today. In the 1950s Marilyn Monroe was society’s role model, but would now be considered a plus-sized model and somewhat unattractive in society’s eyes (Steinem 5). Now in 2013, Demi Lovato, a pop singer, plays a huge role as a role model for young people, but has recently told the media that she suffers from anorexia nervosa and embraces it, ultimately showing adolescents that eating disorders are socially acceptable and even often encouraged (Cotliar 80). The psychological effects that eating disorders have on a patient can be very detrimental to themselves and often push the patient farther into the disorder than she could ever have imagined ("Prevalence vs. Funding" 3). The physical effects that an eating disorder can have on the body could be as minor as feeling faint to something as major as an organ shut down, or even resulting in death (“Physical Dangers” 2). Eating disorders affect a wide variety of people, particularly adolescent girls, and may ultimately lead to many destructive physical and psychological results.
"Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder on an overwhelming dread of becoming fat. The result of this unfounded fear is self-starvation and major weight loss. In addition, the undernourishment may cause hormonal disturbances, anemia, heart problems, brittle bones and many other problems, some of which are life-threatening ("Anorexia Nervosa," 1). Bulimia is an eating disorder that is psychological in origin and can have dire physical consequences. While anorexics starve themselves, bulimics binge on food and then purge by self-induced vomiting. Bulimics also frequently use diet pills, laxatives, and diuretics to reduce their weight.
Food. It is essential for survival. Without it, people die. However, oddly enough, many struggle to live without it to accomplish the standards that our culture has created for us. We are taught that being thin is perfection and will lead to a happier life. However, lurking are the health risks that one pays for obtaining the “perfect body”. Still, along with a distorted body image, others struggle with keeping weight down and fall into the diet fads that the world parades. From movies, magazines, and television, the media also sends us messages that being fat is bad and unhealthy while being thin and beautiful is acceptable. The impact of such influences has increased eating disorders in America. These disorders do not discriminate. Anyone regardless of age, sex, race, or background can develop one and without help it can lead to death.
In conclusion, women should be comfortable in their own skin and shouldn’t feel compelled to be as thin as a model. Women need to feel appropriate and content in their own skin, and to not feel inferior to the model on TV or pasted in a magazine advertisement. We are all different and no woman is exactly the same and even the ones that seem to be picture perfect have flaws and love handles, and women need to realize that is the truth. So, by accepting one’s self for who they truly are and what they have accomplished in life is what is going to boost our self-esteem. Once the world understands this, then the media won’t have such a monumental affect on society.
Physical beauty is constructed by the society that we live in. We are socialized from a very young age to aspire to become what our culture deems ideal. Living in the United States, as in many other Western cultures, we are expected to be well-educated, maintain middle-class or upper-class status, be employed as well as maintain a physical standard of beauty. Although beauty is relative to each culture, it is obvious that we as Americans, especially women, are expected to be maintain a youthful appearance, wear cosmetics and fashionable clothes, but most importantly: not to be overweight. Our society is socially constructed to expect certain physical features to be the norm, anything outside this is considered deviant. Obesity is defined as outside the norms of our culture's aesthetic norms (Gros). “People who do not match idealized or normative expectations of the body are subjected to stigmatization” (Heckert 32). Obesity is a physical deviance; it is one that is an overwhelming problem in our society as we are always judged daily, by our appearance. Those who do not conform to the standards of beauty, especially when it comes to weight, are stigmatized and suffer at the hands of a society that labels them as deviants.
Have you ever felt uncomfortable with the way you looked? 8 in every 10 people do. I think the reason for that is because society is creating unrealistic beauty standard. People try starving themselves, covering up blemishes, and trying to reach the beauty standards society has created, every single day, and some even give up. Today, I will be talking to you about how children media, models/celebrities, and magazines have created these unrealistic beauty standards.