Modeling Agencies are Influencing an Unhealthy Image to Young Women

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Across America today, modeling agencies are influencing an unhealthy image to young women. Girls now believe that they are not good enough because of their size or how they look. Self-esteem is being diminished, and eating disorders are the result of the dream to look like the girls walking down the runway. Sizes that were considered for overweight people have changed dramatically in just ten years. The editing done to these pictures, create a false sense of hope to the average person aspiring to look like they’re “idol” on billboards, magazines, and television. The unachievable “look” is increasingly hurting the pride of adolescent females that the modeling industry should be supporting. Girls are now led to believe they are not as good as what the “ideal” women based on looks. Even though, “on average the model weighs 23% less of what the average women living in the United States really weighs” (.) Young women are striving for an outcome that can be unobtainable based on body structure, and are left insecure when their goal is not reached. Eating disorders such as, “anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating are the result and the top three eating disorders among the teen community today” (.) The idea of perfectionism takes over their mind to knit pick themselves until girls, unfortunately, fall for things like anxiety disorders, depression, and turn to substances that hurt the body, not help it. In a People Magazine survey, it showed that “80% of female respondents feel that women in movies and television programs made them feel insecure about their bodies” (.) The “look” they are creating is not only unhealthy, but it is spreading an unhealthy image to girls just maturing and is damaging their ego in the developing years of t... ... middle of paper ... ...ody." Glamour 5 June 2012: n. pag. Web. 04 Apr. 2014. 2. "Media Influence on Youth." Media Influence on Youth. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. 3. "Media Is Fuelling Eating Disorders, Say Psychiatrists." BBC News. BBC, 22 Feb. 2010. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. 4. Pearson, Catherine. "Fashion And Eating Disorders: How Much Responsibility Does Industry Have?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 Sept. 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2014. 5. Ross, Susan Dente., and Paul Martin. Lester. "Media." Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011. N. pag. Print. 6. Trottier, Kathryn Belle. "Stereotypes." Social Comparisons of Body Weight and Attractiveness with Fashion Models and Peers: To Whom Do Young Women Compare? Toronto: n.p., 2006. N. pag. Print. 7. Watkins, Heidi. "5." Body Image. Farmington Hill, MI: Greenhaven, 2009. N. pag. Print.

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