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The impact of media on body image
Body image portrayed in the media
The impact of media on body image
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The ways that society and social media has instilled into many teenage girls and boys that the ideal body is one that is skinny or muscular, has a flat stomach, thigh gaps, long skinny legs, big butts, and big boobs. People that are built this way are considered beautiful and are looked highly upon while those who are thick, fat, and have chunkier thighs and stomach is looked at by everyone as being a disgusting piece of trash that’s worthless and shouldn’t have a part in everyday life unless they change the way they look. Many young adolescent then proceed to take extreme precautions to try and lose all of the unwanted weight to achieve their ideal body. The steps they take to lose weight quickly leads to the development of eating disorders …show more content…
The media is a prime suspect as to why many females become anorexic and bulimic. They showcase to the world models and celebrities that have these perfect bodies that everyone adores and loves. Their bodies have to be slender, have thigh gaps, decent size boobs and big butts, and if they have a body with anything more than this then they are looked at as a disgrace and society starts to judge and look at them differently. Women like this are the ones that most girls look up too, and most young females want their ideal body to be just like the models they see. If not that, then they want it to be better, but that’s not healthy for them, or anyone for that matter. They think that having just a little fat on them then they are the biggest person in the world. Having a mindset on wanting a body like this leads them to becoming obsessed with everything that goes in to their bodies, and wanting to get out everything that goes in out no matter how small of an amount it is. When it gets to this point that’s when they are labeled to be anorexic or bulimic. Anorexia and bulimia can be defined as eating disorders to where the person is obsessed with losing weight and would go to the extremes of purging and exercising vigorously to burn the little bit of fat they the gain from the small bits of food they
Marya Hornbacher was only nine when she developed bulimia and fifteen years old when she developed anorexia. During the time period her autobiography Wasted was written, magazines were one of the most popular forms of media and entertainment for a teenager. In these magazines, there would be pages of ultra-skinny models in glamorous outfits strutting down runways seemingly happy. This inspired young girls to want to be exactly like those models since that is what society and the media portrayed as beauty to them. Hornbacher addressed the fact that she had no idea at the time that the behaviors she had developed were unhealthy, she saw it as normal because it was mainstream but now questions why these disorders were so prevalent and rhetorically
The complications that accompany body image have long been an issue in society. Body image is the sense of how an individual views his or her own body as compared to others in society, or what is considered to be the ideal body image. There are many different factors that effect ones body image, but a major influence is the media. The media has long been associated with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder where an individual participates in self-starvation, and bulimia is an eating disorder where an individual will eat as much as he or she wishes and then purges the previously eaten food. These are two destructive eating disorders that are associated with a negative body image. This comes to question, does media have an influence on creating a negative body image, which may inherently lead to eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia? Anorexia nervosa and bulimia affect various age groups but is extremely common in adolescence and emerging adulthood. During this stage in an individual’s lifespan there is a lot going on with ones psychological development as well as body. How an adolescent views his or her body image be highly impacted by how the media portrays what the ideal body image is. According to Berger (2015), “as might be expected from a developmental perspective, healthy eating begins with childhood habits and family routines” (p.415). If proper eating habits are not implemented negative body image and eating disorders that are associated with media becomes further predominant in adolescence and emerging adulthood.
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.
Many teens today are faced with unrealistic body standards. Social media has an huge influence on how teens see their body. They may see a model or their favorite celebrity and ask themselves why don't they look like that, or how can they look like that. These body standards can cause some to body shame others. As social media continues to deem what is attractive and what is not, the number of women dissatisfied with their body will increase.
The Perfect Body In today's society, women are obsessed with having a specific body type to make others find them attractive. They want to feed the society’s body type expectations. What is a perfect body? Does it even exist? However, advertising, boyfriends, and family members often make women feel that skinny bodies are perfect bodies.
Eating disorders are described as an illness involving eating habits that are irregular and an extreme concern with body image or weight. Eating disorders tend to appear during teenage years, but can develop at any age. Although more common in women, eating disorders can affect any age, gender or race. In the United States, over 20 million women and 10 million men are personally affected by eating disorders. There are many different causes of eating disorders such as low self esteem, societal pressures, sexual abuse and the victims perception of food. Eating disorders are unique to the sufferer and often, their perception of themselves is so skewed, they may not be aware they have an eating disorder. Media, for quite some time now, has played a significant part in eating disorders. Magazines with headlines ‘Summer Body’, or ‘Drop LB’s Fast!’ attract the attention of girls who may be insecure with themselves. Television productions such as the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show or American’s Next Top Model, show airbrushed and photoshopped women who have body types that may be unachievable. Those who are suffering from eating disorders can suffer dangerous consequences, and it is important to seek help.
While this was a shorter article compared to others available, this one was found to be the most informative and intriguing read unlike others which strived to prove their points through statistics and not actual cases of students with eating disorders. As previously mentioned, eating disorders will continue to consume the minds of those who do not have the confidence to believe that they are beautiful and just fine the way they are. Both articles had two very different approaches to their styles of writing. One focused on analyzing and experimenting on a young girl who only binged at home, while the other focused on students who were starving themselves in a competition to lose weight at school.
Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate than any other mental illness, with anorexia being 12 times higher than any other causes of death in women between the ages of 15 and 24, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Teenagers and adolescents are growing up in a world full of mass media production: television, magazine, internet, movies, advertisement, etc. My best friend and I: both healthy girls-fell for societies ridiculous and awful standards of beauty. My friend (whom shall remain nameless) was a chubby girl-who was always made fun off about her weight; me, on the other hand slim, athletic never had any issues with my weight, but never thought I was pretty or beautiful. Being best friends: it was not out of the ordinary to experiment with eating disorders. Mind you, we were two naïve 12 and 13 year old girls. She wanted to stop getting made fun of I was obliged to help. This is when I say: advertising and magazine know how to target girls with low self-esteem. According to CQ researcher, about 35 million Americans have or will experience an eating disorders.
There are many reasons why so many people are developing eating disorders. The media plays a large role in exposing young children
Overall, eating disorders are considered the third common illness for adolescent girls (Weber, Davis & McPhie, 2006). Anorexia Nervosa, anorexia, is an eating disorder that affects the way a person sees themselves and results in a person having a powerful fear of gaining weight (Scott, Hanstock & Patterson-Kane, Individuals that typically suffer from anorexia limits the amount of food that they eat and view themselves as overweight. Anorexia is characterized by emaciation, distorted body image and no menses. Despite their constant thoughts about food, an individual with anorexia has a small body weight for their height. People with anorexia have a tendency to believe that they are fat and develop bad eating habits. For example, some people with anorexia skip meals, do not eat in front of others or abuse laxatives to lose weight. Significant weight loss over a short period of time causes horrendous health conditions. Damage to vital organs can lead to death. According to Womenshealth.gov, the average length of someone with anorexia nervosa is five to seven years (2009). In a world that is obsessed to be thin, toxic environments and thoughts must be examined and challenged.
The stereotypes of the perfect body cause immense stress on many females in today’s society. Women feel that they should look like the ideal lady and not be overweight. However, the perfect body may not always be a healthy obsession with many females. It can cause serious health concerns that in some cases can lead to death. Women sometimes also feel as if they must make themselves attractive through ways of plastic surgery. Due to pressure created by the media, modeling agencies, clothing stores, and peers, females experience emotional distress and feel compelled to have the perfect body.
For some girls, they only feel a little bit of body shame when they look in the mirror. For others, they diet and exercise religiously just to keep up with society’s ideals. Sadly though, this is not the most extreme that it can be. From the pressures of wanting to be skinny, eating disorders have become more common, especially in teens and young adults. The two most common are anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is when a person starves themselves, while bulimia is when a person eats then forces themselves to throw it right back up, all done to stay skinny and lose weight. As these mental illnesses have become more common, so has awareness and the ways to help people recover from them. Many affected by these eating disorders go through rehab and come out on the other side even stronger. In high school, I had a friend who suffered from anorexia. She went to a rehab facility, and is now doing better than ever before. People like her continue to prove that even though a person may struggle with something like this, they can recover from it. They are starting to defy the norm and change the stereotypes that women face every
We have all heard the typical stereotypes of the “perfect body.” Who really has a perfect body anyways, and what does it look like? Are all girls supposed to be tiny and twig like, and are all guys supposed to be macho muscle men? No, and if this were true then that’s how we would have been created, but were not, so be proud of who you are. Thanks to media and today’s culture people are destroying their bodies. We cannot put all the blame on the media though, psychological and mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, guilt, the loss of control, and the need for attention, are among some of the factors that can lead to eating disorders. The three disorders commonly referred to are obesity, anorexia, and bulimia. Each disorder is dangerous to the body, and in many cases can lead to death. Eating disorders affect 70 million people worldwide, and in a single persons life approximately 50,000 people will die because of this terrifying disease.
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.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about eating disorders. It’s easy to make this assumption. The media is terribly persuasive in how we view beauty, our bodies and really ourselves. Does the media contribute to disordered eating? Body dissatisfaction is defined as a negative evaluation of our weight and body size. Body dissatisfaction leads to results in eating disorders. In many ways, the media is to blame for the state of our body image. For we desire to diet. For the view, that thinness leads to happiness. For the idea that we must wait until we lose weight to do anything. The National Eating Disorder Association (2006) reports that in the past 70 years national rates of incidences of all eating disorders have dramatically increased across the board. The number of incidences of bulimia in women between the ages of 10 and 39 has more than tripled from 1988 to 1993. The cause of these staggering statistics has yet to be determined, but research has shown that body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem put women at high risk for developing eating