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The media's portrayal of body image
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Consequences of Photoshop in the Media
Why are people so worried about the way they look? Why do people sometimes hate their looks? The answer to these questions is photoshop. Photoshop should be illegal in magazines and social media, because it is destroying people by making them feel insecure and self conscious about their appearance. There are women out there who have depression, eating disorders, and are linked to the way women are displayed in the media. We don't need to chop off half of a woman's thigh to advertise a product. We don't need to bombard every single media outlet with digitally- enhanced images of idealized versions of beauty. The media is encouraging young girls to fear cellulite, curves, and stretch marks (Deschanel). Photoshop should be banned from social media and magazines, because it is destroying people by making them feel insecure and self conscious about their appearance. Photoshop should be banned because it tricks teen girls into thinking that the women they see in social media are what is considered beautiful. It exploits a negative message to teen girls. It causes teen girls to feel self conscious about themselves when they look at photoshopped women. It promotes perfection, that doesn't´ exist. Photoshop should be banned because it is getting way out of hand. It makes teen girls believe that
42% of girls from first to third grade want to be thinner. 78% of 17 year old girls are unhappy with their bodies. 81% of ten year old girls are afraid of being fat. 30% of high school girls have eating disorders, and 16% of high school boys have eating disorders. Reports have shown that teenage girls are more afraid of gaining weight than getting cancer, losing their parents, or nuclear war (Deschanel). In a recent survey conducted by AOL, 80% of teenage women compared their appearance to celebrities in magazines, and 40 % said they were dissatisfied with their looks
She further explained her opinion on the subject in her work what’s Photoshop Got to do with it? Another woman Elizabeth Perle believes that it's too late to consider taking a stand against Photoshop for fear of ruining the careers of actors, actresses, and models. That statement alone proves that society values physical perfection than the health and emotional well-being of people, specifically impressionable teenagers. There are girls everyday who are impacted by the media in one form or
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.
...ters of the covers of women’s magazines include at least one message about how to change a woman’s body image by cosmetic surgery. These articles about appearance are damaging because it leads to seriously unhealthy lifestyles that women and teenagers think they need to look beautiful. In addition to that, Teen Magazine published in 2003 an article saying that children from age 6-12 have been on a diet and are now considering plastic surgery. Cosmetic surgery sends the message that the prejudices some people have about appearance are valid, which is very wrong.
The photos seen in magazines of these models are also airbrushed and photo shopped before being printed. The body shapes of the models are unrealistic, unhealthy, and unobtainable for the average person. In addition to the models, magazines are also filled with advertisements. Most ads in magazines are directed towards beauty in some form. Again, these ads all show photographs of women with the unreachable “perfect body” that can cause multiple victims to feel insecure and unhappy about their body shape and weight.
By allowing younger girls and teens to be portrayed as grown woman in advertisements, our teens are losing their young innocence. With society’s increasing tolerance, this epidemic will continue to exploit our young daughters, sisters and friends. Young teens feel an enormous amount of pressure to obtain the ‘ideal’ perfect body. Trying to emulate the advertisements seen in the media and magazines. As a result, more girls and woman are developing eating disorders.
In modern society there is more and more digital editing without the knowledge of consumers. Currently there are various reasons for why women develop negative body image, low-self-esteem and eating disorders. According to Naomi Wolf in her novel “Beauty Myth”, one of the many reasons women obtain concerns with their bodies is due to the universal images of young female bodies presented through advertisements in fashion magazines. Advertisements in magazines are altering and shaping the desires of men and women. Magazines sell viewers images of beautiful, skinny, flawless confident young women. When people are constantly antagonized with the magazine industry’s ideal of “perfect beauty” the viewer’s then, subconsciously believe these images to be true and begin to form biases about what they themselves should look like and what other people must also look like. People who view magazines get mislead by advertisers because they are unaware that all the images displayed are digitally altered through Photoshop and airbrushing. Today’s magazines are formed completely on false ideals of flawless beauty and unattainable body images, to prevent women and men from falling victim to the magazine’s deceitful images we as a society need to become aware and educate ourselves.
The standard way of thinking while looking through magazines is to compare ourselves to the people we see in them. Innumerable teenage girls assume that the media’s ideal beauty is unrealistically thin women. Looking up to adults as role models, we are constantly influenced to be on a diet, to not eat as much, and to feel poorly about yourself if you aren't thin. Growing up with this expectation to be skinny, some women develop bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating. Americans today tend to believe that we can be as skinny as models if we just eat less, work out more, and get plastic surgery. Consequently, with technology growing, you can now alter a photo using an application called photoshop. Photoshop is a tool commonly used in magazines to enhance a photo to it more appealing to the consumers. The problem is, that many teenage girls don't notice the subtle changes the photo has gone through. Therefore unrealistic beauty standards women have been given are what makes us have negative body images.
People are more aware of how social media affects women on their physical features and how negative it can be. You will see on different advertisements, movies, and television shows of women being portrayed like a model, a beautiful, tan, toned, and tall girl with flawless skin complexion. This puts a lot of severe pressure on girls to become this image because most pre-teen and teenage girls do not meet these "expectations" since their body type may be from genetics or going through puberty, having baby fat, acne, or stretch marks, which is normal as it is natural for anyone. Girls compare themselves to these models and gain motivation to look exactly like the other girls that are being displayed. From this motivation the actions the girls will do can involve exercising, a healthy method to improve the body with muscle toning and having other health benefits, or eating healthy. But, a lot of girls choose to harm their bodies with three negative effects and put them under stress. These negative effects from girls trying to become skinnier include eating disorders, depression, and engaging in other negative activities, which was mentioned by the Do Something blog, (n.d.), and that 75% of girls with low self-esteem reported that the other listed negative activities were cutting, bullying, smoking, drinking, or disordered
Throughout the recent years, Photoshop has become a widespread phenomenon amongst the world. With the rapidly developing inventions of camera’s and devices with cameras on them; posting pictures on social media has become extremely popular. Along with that, the pressure to appear perfect in said pictures has increased dramatically. Society has become exceedingly focused on the idea of perfect, and what perfect looks like. Especially now, with growing photo sharing phone applications such as Instagram, photo editing is becoming even more popular. Photoshop has proven to have many beneficial uses; however, it also has very negative consequences such as false perceptions, and misleading people.
When using Photoshop on a person to “perfect” the image the editors get quite drastic; in a recent cover for Rolling Stone Katy Perry was shown sitting on a bed in just a bra and underwear, seems like the average cover right? Well yes it is like every other magazine except this one had its pre-photoshop cover leaked as well. In the above picture we can see that the editors of this photoshop slimmed Katy down, enhanced her breasts, removed moles, made her skin look glossy, and even removed the sock on her right leg. Its this nit picking that causes harm to our society and to our communities. It seems as though everyday we hear of another young girl committing suicide because she felt worthless.
In today 's society, people have a very skewed perception of beauty. People are exposed to so many advertisements and pictures that are photo-shopped each day that many do not even realize what they are looking at. They are seeing an image of something that is not real; something that is not even possible to obtain. Photoshop has an outrageously negative effect on men and women in society, creating an unattainable image of perfection.
It seems like every little girl dreams of becoming a model. They want to be thin and pretty like the models they see on television and in magazines. Often the desire becomes an obsession and young girls see "thinness" as being a needed characteristic. For many girls, the teenage years are spent trying to acquire this look. Females are trying diets and are exercising like it is a competition to see who can lose the most weight the quickest. The obsession of many young girls over their appearance or weight has led to a growing number of people who have developed an eating disorder to try to deal with their lack of self-esteem or other related problems.
Teenagers constantly worry about their body image. Magazines, newspapers, and television don’t exactly help to boost their confidence. The portrayal of stick thin woman and body building men forces teens to believe they need to achieve that “perfect” body and look. The biggest issue of these images being broadcasted to teens is the effects that the images have on them. Teenagers who obsess over their body image can experience stress due to trying to impress others, develop an eating disorder, and neglect, and even jeopardize, important aspects of their lives when they focus too much on their body image.
It has set our minds to believe in cosmetic enhancement are the way to go to make us feel better. Eating disorders have taken up the lives of people. We are surrounded by thin models, creams and weight loss drink. We are laughed and shamed for having any flaw and not being ultra-thin. Eating disorder should be talked about to know any signs of it and allow to get some help if need. Cosmetic surgery should not be taken lightly and know the risks. There are multiple other ways to boost self-esteem and cosmetic surgery isn’t the only way. The best result are with patience and having a healthy goal. Mass media is a technology advancement, but it has contributed a lot to poor body image. Keeping up with the media has become a job , we should try keeping up with our health and well-being
...ounds, having good hair, and covering themselves in makeup are what beauty should be perceived as. Every time someone flips through a magazine, sees a picture of a model and wish to look like them, they are contributing to an idea they are supposedly disgusted by. People might think that they have never done anything to support this, but everyone has. Everybody feels the pressure from society, because it is pressure from us. They only way to stop this is by not supporting “things” that advance this idea and by not feeding into it, so in the end it will eventually die.