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Negative impact of media on food habits
Persuasve essay on body image and mental health
Persuasve essay on body image and mental health
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The ideal body image: We see it everyday. It is portrayed in advertising and magazines, but how many really thinks about how this image effects most young women's lives? not many because this image have become the norm for our society. It have become what the majority of young women strives to attain. This body image have become an increasing problem for our society. It makes women feel that they are not good enough. It have put the world’s young women on a diet, and for what reason? Only to attain an ideal created by the beauty industry. I have been researching this issue and realized that it is causing an increase of eating disorders and low self-esteem in young woman. The unattainable ideal body image created by advertisements, should be changed in order for young women to be content with their appearance.
Everyday all over the world young women is skipping a meal, maybe two or even starving themselves the whole day, because of the unattainable ideal body image the beauty industry have created.This is an issue to the world because the because is sending a negative message to women all over the world. This message makes women feel guilty about themselves. “Woman are deemed below the beauty standard and then made to feel guilty so that they purchase beauty products.” (Nicolosi and Sarvani) If this issue is not solved it will increase, and the ideal body image will keep on getting less attainable for the average woman. “It is commonly known that the average model during the 1950s wore a size 8 and the average woman a size 10: today the average model wears a size 2 and in contrast the average woman now wears a size 12” (Childress) These facts show that the beauty industry is sending a wrong message to women about what being healthy...
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...al body image is such a big issue in our world and its solution is to easy to not do anything about it. This is an issue that affects most of the worlds young woman in some way or another and the effects is mostly negative. We all need to do something about this. Go contact the media and the beauty industry and tell them what we want. Models who like the average healthy woman. Together we can change young women's lives, we can live in a world where they will not have to endanger their personal health if they want to feel beautiful. Together we can save womens lives.
Works Cited
Childress, Cynthia. "psychological explanations of eating disorders." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.
Nicolosi, Lisa, and Sarvani Prasad. "beauty industry." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2014.
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.
In conclusion it is possible to see how the media promotes a physical and psychological disease among women through the usage of unrealistic body images as it urges them to change their bodies, buy “enhancing” products, and redefine their opinions. Such statements may appear to be ridiculous, but for young women who are seeking to perfect their body according to how the media portrays “good looks” it is the basis for corruption. Confidence, contentment and healthy living are the keys to a perfect and unique body image and no amount of money can advertise or sell as genuine a treatment as this.
In every magazine and on every page there is another source of depression, another reason to skip a meal or two or a reason to be self-conscious. In present society people are overly focused and determined on the perfect body that both the fashion and advertising industry portray and promote. Through diction, pictures and celebrities presented they are trying to convey a message to their viewers that is “suppose” to be used as a source of motivation and determination. The message they are truly conveying is self-conscious thoughts, depression, and the promotion of eating disorders. It is estimated that millions of people struggle with depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem; concentrated on dissatisfaction with their body image (Ballaro). The advertisement and fashion industry are conveying a message that creates an internal battle for their viewers, though they should be creating a fire in their viewers that provides motivation to be healthier, take better care of themselves and a source of inspiration for style.
Some may say that the media does not have much of a substantial influence on young adults, but some at risk teens have cited that their reasoning behind their development of eating disorders are in response to the many adverts and images that are represented in social media culture. The media in today’s society continuously advocates images of falsely induced perfection women all around the world. The industry that controls what people see on television and in advertisements knows that only a small percentage of average individuals possess these attributes or fit their set high standard of beauty. The idea that one can never be “too rich”, or “too thin” is prevalent in the media as well as in most media oriented images. Social media’s use of unrealistic models send an implicit message, that in order for a woman to be considered up to an acceptable standard, they must be in some sense of the word unhealthy, most people who are being portrayed in advertisements are well below the range of being considered healthy. To understand the reasoning behind why women and even men take this idea of body image to extremes, the term body image needs to be examined. Body image is how an individual feels when they look in the mirror or when they picture themselves in their own mind. It encompasses it what some one believes about their own appearance (including memories, assumptions, and generalizations). Never showing goals or putting emphasize on education or academic achievements. Objectifying the body and making it seem as though appearance is the only achievement to be set in one’s life place little room is placed on young men and women to have more focus on more educational goals.
Every culture has a “perfect body image” that everyone compares their own bodies to. Girls especially have the mental thinking that they have to live up to the models on TV and magazines. In the United States the skinnier the girls, the more perfect their image is perceived. The “perfect body image” has an intriguing background, health and psychological problems, and currently few solutions.
Media has a negative impact on females’ body image by promoting artificial beauty. Women often become dissatisfied with their bodies, which cause them to develop eating disorders. Body image affects a woman’s perceptions and feelings about their physical appearance when looking in the mirror. The media portrays unrealistic beauty of women who are thin with perfect hair and make-up. Many women who expose themselves to the unrealistic standards of the media often idealize, covet, and become very insecure. The many women who do not expose themselves would influence others to perceive their physical appearances as beautiful. “Many popular magazines for females tell women to focus on their physical, outer attributes (i.e. body shape, muscle tone, bone structure, hair, makeup, clothing, etc.) and rarely mention the importance of being smart, sophisticated, funny and/or possessing many other positive attributes that have nothing to do with physical attributes” (Sparhawk 1). Obviously, the media’s representation of the thin ideal connects to the majority of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. In other words, the media’s use of unrealistic women sends a hidden message that in order for women to be beautiful they must be unhealthy. The importance of physical appearance is encouraged at an early development for most girls. For these reasons, the connection between media and body image is very important because low body image will lead to eating disorders and potentially death.
From the discussion above, it is very clear that there are different opinions on the issue of having an unrealistic ideal body image. Just as there are benefits of having an unrealistic ideal body image on women, there are also drawbacks that can be harmful to women. To decide which impact has a greater consequence, more detailed research and analysis of the arguments of both sides are needed.
The media’s depiction of female bodies has a detrimental influence on women’s perception of themselves and has come under fire in recent years. Girls growing up in our media soaked culture internalize society’s ever-thinning standard of beauty, believing that they can never be slender enough. The negative effect of the media has been linked to the spread of eating disorders (“Never Just Pictures”, Thompson). This has led to a public outcry against impossibly thin, airbrushed models and a demand for more honest advertising.
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.”
The alternative cause of having an idealized body is women want to increase their attractiveness. Women seem very critic about their own beauty. In a commercial, “ Dove Real Beauty Sketches,” there is a lack of self-esteem on how the women describe themselves from behind the curtain. Dove published survey data asserting, “Only 4% of women globally consider themselves beautiful and 54% agree that when it comes to how they look, they are their own worst beauty critic.” The body images of women in which how women see themselves in the minor or in their mind have become so dramatic. Women are
Likewise, at a point in life we have felt unhappy with the way we look. “Regardless, negative body image of women and men is not pleasant and it seems unethical that marketing firms should constantly place an unrealistic ideal in the faces of young people” (Parks). There are several things that can lead to negative body image. For the fact that we live in a world that being thin and beautiful is a great value in a woman’s life. “If a woman feels so bad about how she looks that she doesn’t leave her house or hang out with friends, or doesn’t put herself in a community where she might develop a romantic attachment, then it’s affecting her life” (Anderson).
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.
“Body Image of Women” explores what different ways of infuses there are in the world. For instance, fashion models wear a size two in pants and or a dress. For a plus size girl that would put a oneself down and would think that you would have to look like that to be happy. Also, Beauty sells is a problem because when media shows a pretty girl; she most likely has an eating disorder. Not
Today, it is impossible to go online or turn on the television without witnessing an advertisement promoting a young, slim model. As businesses continue to to get their name recognized on media platforms, beautiful, skinny women seem to be the only ones given the spotlight. Every angle of their face and body is flawless. It’s normal to look at these models and think, “Wow, I wish I could look like that.” Females as young as those in elementary school may struggle with their body image and self-esteem because of these advertisements.
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”.