Media Portrayal Of Perfect Beauty

1556 Words4 Pages

Women and adolescent girls are exposed, daily, to the media's portrayal of perfect beauty. Being bombarded with images of beautiful women with perfect figures and porcelain skin has had an effect on the way women and young girls portray their own bodies. This, in return, causes a drive for thinness which, ultimately, can ignite feelings of dissatisfaction which can cause eating disorders and poor health decisions. This epidemic has captivated many women and adolescents as they go to tremendous lengths to achieve what the media has defined as beautiful. Consequently, the media, and the distorted images they parade, is causing women and adolescents to become dissatisfied with their bodies. Women and adolescents girls are spending endless time and money, desperately, to get this look that the media has portrayed to be perfect. However, not only is the media using advanced technology to distort the images we see, they are also distorting our minds which is causing bodily dissatisfaction. The extent that women and adolescent girls place on themselves and their bodies to attain perfection can cause massive stress and can be a risk to health. Some studies show that eating disorders arise from characteristics such as neurobiology, genetics, personality traits, and personal environment. As well as the thought that without the media and their portrayal of perfection, there would still be eating disorders. Though these characteristics may have a hand at eating disorders, media is the cause for extreme bodily dissatisfaction. Images of pin-thin models evoke certain feelings of envy, causing dissatisfaction in ones own figure. The extremes that women and young girls place on themselves and their bodies to attain perfection can cause massive s... ... middle of paper ... ...y women and adolescents as they go to tremendous lengths to achieve what the media has defined as beautiful. Though neurobiology, genetics, personality traits, and personal environment may play a role on bodily dissatisfaction and eating disorders, the influence of the media's depiction of perfection has only intensified this growing epidemic. The media, and the distorted images they parade, is causing women and adolescents to become dissatisfied with their bodies, but by educating ourselves and others, we can eliminate bodily dissatisfaction caused by the media. As well as educating ourselves, we should demand the ideals of perfection in mass media to be attainable and naturally beautiful; not digitally altered. We should be able to communicate, effectively, the false conceptions of beauty that the media portrays, thereby igniting feelings of bodily satisfaction.

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