The Negative Effects of the Media on Body Image in Women

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Some may say that the media does not have much of a substantial influence on young adults, but some at risk teens have cited that their reasoning behind their development of eating disorders are in response to the many adverts and images that are represented in social media culture. The media in today’s society continuously advocates images of falsely induced perfection women all around the world. The industry that controls what people see on television and in advertisements knows that only a small percentage of average individuals possess these attributes or fit their set high standard of beauty. The idea that one can never be “too rich”, or “too thin” is prevalent in the media as well as in most media oriented images. Social media’s use of unrealistic models send an implicit message, that in order for a woman to be considered up to an acceptable standard, they must be in some sense of the word unhealthy, most people who are being portrayed in advertisements are well below the range of being considered healthy. To understand the reasoning behind why women and even men take this idea of body image to extremes, the term body image needs to be examined. Body image is how an individual feels when they look in the mirror or when they picture themselves in their own mind. It encompasses it what some one believes about their own appearance (including memories, assumptions, and generalizations). Never showing goals or putting emphasize on education or academic achievements. Objectifying the body and making it seem as though appearance is the only achievement to be set in one’s life place little room is placed on young men and women to have more focus on more educational goals.
From a young age the importance of the outward appearance i...

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...es. Almost all forms of the media contain unrealistic images, and the negative effects of such idealistic portrayals (Thompson).” Almost all media outlets project a standard of beauty that is unobtainable to most women who are of average body mass. While the weight of Americans’ and people in general rises, the mass and slenderness of models and projections of what is considered acceptable is quickly making a decline not allowing any room in between for women who are of larger body mass or even average size to fit into the mold.
While there are many media outlets that project the idea that everyone is acceptable, the numbers of social media that give off the idea that longer skinner woman are more beautiful and desirable still out weigh the good that people are trying to conduct. There is an overabundance of media that constantly tell woman that they are not worth

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