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An essay on the influence of peer pressure on teenagers
An essay on the influence of peer pressure on teenagers
Body image and the effect on women
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The article “Is There Too Much Pressure on Girls To Have Perfect Bodies?” by Madi Jones illustrates that girls nowadays faced many pressure and expectation from society regarding to have perfect body image through media exposure, potrays through models on TV and peer influences in high school. The author using satiric tones to show that she disapproves about the high expectations from society that gives pressure to the teenage girls.
Firstly, the pressure to have a perfect bodies comes from media exposure. Renee Hobbs, EdD, associate professor of communications from Temple university said that “the average teen girl gets about 180 minutes of media exposure daily and only about 10 minutes of parental interaction a day.” This quote shows how
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much the media have influences the girls in one day and proven that media gives big impact to the young teenage girls to have a perfect body image. Moreover, pressure may arise from the appearance of models through television.
Sophomore Shannon Taylor shares her point of view about expectations from society concerning that women should have a clear skin and being skinny same as a model. She feels that society expects girls to look a certain way that they have placed upon for girls and their body image. This makes young women feel insecure when they watch tv, magazines or people that is prettier than them.
The author further highlights that peer influences in high school also effected girl’s pressure towards their body. According to Emma Runge comment, this happen when people judge ones weight and appearance unintentionally and somehow effect ones confident. Runge point up that people should concern more about health rather than appeareance.
We fully agreed with the author, Madi Jones, that girls nowadays do feels pressure about their body image because of the pressure from so many places such as media, advertising and people expectations to reach an unrealistic standard of beauty that can lead to disappointment. Too many girls are obsessed with finding the perfect body, as a result become frustrated when it does not turn out well. In addition, we also believe that pressures to have a perfect body image also comes from our own expectations of people and circumstances. How we see others impacts how we see ourselves. We first need to learn how to take responsibility for our expectations to others before we expect others to do the
same. In summary, we reaffirm our stand that girls nowadays do feels pressure about their body image because of the pressure from so many places and also from our own expectations of people, as there are many others contributing factors. Therefore, there is too much pressure on girls to have perfect bodies.
Societal constructs of bodily perfection have a massive influence on both genders and on all ages. If you look at any magazine, you will see women constantly being compared to each other, whether it is in the “who wore it better” section or in the “do’s and don’ts” part of the magazine, comparing body images and overall appearances. All parts of the media that encompasses our daily lives are especially dangerous for young and impressionable teens because they see people being torn down for trying to express themselves, and are thus taught to not only don’t look like “don’ts”, but also look like the “do’s”. This is dangerous in that women in the magazine set very high standards that teens want to emulate, no matter the cost to themselves or their health. Celebrities have the benefit of media to make them appear perfect: Photoshop and makeup artists conceal the imperfections that are often too apparent to the naked eye. Viewing celebrities as exhibiting the ideal look or as idols will, in most cases, only damage the confidence of both young teens, and adults, and warp the reality of what true “beauty” really is. It makes teens never feel truly content with themselves because they will be aiming for an ideal that is physically impossible to attain and one that doesn’t exist in the real
Every teenage girl goes through a time in her life when she just does not feel good enough. That time when the perception of what a girl should look like is just not realistic. Body image is a big part of a girl's life, no matter if it is a positive or negative one. It helps decides whether or not she will grow up to be confident and strong or scared and nervous. Having a good perception of yourself is important to having a positive body image. However all around us society is shoving “the perfect body” in our face and shaming those of us who don’t fit the cookie cutter image they’ve created. From lingerie store Victoria's Secret, to popular teen magazine Seventeen, all of the women that we up to seem to have that perfect body. How are we letting something like pretty underwear, promote a perfect body for teenage girls? Dove steps in eventually to explain that nobody on this Earth is perfect.
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.
The overwhelming idea of thinness is probably the most predominant and pressuring standard. Tiggeman, Marika writes, “This is not surprising when current societal standards for beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, an ideal accepted by most women but impossible for many to achieve.” (1) In another study it is noted that unhealthy attitudes are the norm in term of female body image, “Widespread body dissatisfaction among women and girls, particularly with body shape and weight has been well documented in many studies, so much so that weight has been aptly described as ‘a normative discontent’”. (79) Particularly in adolescent and prepubescent girls are the effects of poor self-image jarring, as the increased level of dis...
People feel increasingly pressured by the media about their bodies. Each day we are bombarded by the media with all sorts of image related messages about the “perfect
In her interview, she expressed that she and her classmates see in the media is focused on physical appearance, and has nothing to do with the intellectual capacity. According to “Miss Representation”, the image offered by the media stimulates insecurity and anxiety in relation to appearance (Dines and Humez 15). More specifically, up to sixty-five percent of women suffer from eating disorders as a direct result of comparing their own physical appearance, including weight and body shape, to airbrushed models. This negative impression in the symbolic realm, of media, ensures that teenage girls have a skewed perception of their body image as it relates to what “beautiful” is, and a difficult time envisioning themselves in top leadership positions.
A recent study shows that women’s body dissatisfaction is influenced by peer competition with others rather than depictions of women in the media. Muoz and Ferguson (2012) developed a study in order to further understand the influence of inter-peer pressure on body dissatisfaction. Body dissatisfaction refers to any "negative self-evaluation of one’s own appearance and the desire to be more physically attractive. " The problem of body image has long been shown to be a concern for the American Psychiatric Association or APA, (Muoz & Ferguson, 2012, p. 383). It raises so much concern because an unsatisfying body image has been known to cause problems such as eating disorders, depression and self-esteem.
I use the word “beautiful” carefully because beautiful is not what is on the outside, but the inside is where it counts. Yes, some girls are naturally pretty and smart, but what some people don’t realize is that some of those girls are not eating and not exercising to get the body that they would like. This paper will focus on the young girls that are coming unhealthy to supposedly get the body they would like to have.
Is it not strange, how everyone is born to be different, and yet so much precedence is placed on having the ‘perfect’ body? Body image is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2016) as “the subjective picture of one’s own physical appearance established both by self-observation and by noting the reactions of others.” An individual has a distorted body image when they perceive their body in a negative and unrealistic way (Nordqvist, 2014). The value that society places on what is perceived to be the perfect body has taken its toll, especially on adolescent girls. A study in Malaysia found that 87.3% of adolescent girls from 15 to 17 years old experienced body size dissatisfaction (Soo et al., 2008), whereas 50-88% of adolescent girls in
The mass media plays a large role in shaping a teenage and adolescent girl’s body image. By pushing an ideal body type that is uncommon and untrue to life, girls strive, and struggle to obtain this image. When the mass media only shows one type of body as desirable, they are alienating every girl who does not fit into that category. Pushing these ideal bodies onto teenage girls at an important developmental time in their lives can be detrimental to their bodies and their self worth. By showing what a girl should look like, the mass media is damaging the body images of young girls, and unless awareness is raised, could become more and more adverse on young women today and tomorrow.
Clearly, there is a necessity to curtail the cases of teenagers suffering from body image pressures immediately (Kennedy, 2010). If there are no pressures, there will be surely no obsession with their appearance and there will be certainly no more risks of young women’s health and rise in serious eating disorders.
Low self esteem and an unhealthy body image will only grow stronger for a teenage girl if she views underweight and unhealthy advertisements of models looking happy with themselves. At these young ages, they do not understand how unrealistic the standards media have created, as most adult women do not fully grasp it. It is not only media that is forming these problems, but society is to blame as well. In the article The Beauty Myth and Female Consumers: The Controversial Role of Advertising, the authors state “advertising has been vilified for upholding-perhaps even creating-the emaciated standard of beauty by which girls are taught from childhood to judge the worth of their own bodies”(Stephens & Hill, 1994). Children have more access to media now than ever before, which is furthering their exposure to these ideals of looking slim and beautiful for girls, and strong and muscular for boys. From a young age, girls are being told “ you're not pretty enough” or “ you’re too fat”. These phrases only heighten their already low self esteem. It is essential that girls at a young age learn to love their bodies, that no matter how tall or how thin, they are perfect the way they
It seems that the media’s portrayal of women has negatively affected the body image of The Wykeham Collegiate senior school girls. The media has a negative effect on the youth of today, primarily amongst the female population when it comes to how young girls and women regard their bodies.
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”.
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.