Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Female Body Image
The idea of being a size zero has evolved itself over the past years, growing from a fad into an obsession. The perfect image was originally obtained by Hollywood stars and luckier women, but eventually, other girls began to obsess about molding themselves to look like others. The obsession to be thin and “perfect” is a new wave that has taken the world by storm. Today, it feels as if the pressure to have the perfect body to be a size zero is everywhere. The pressure of society’s view of the perfect girl is all around us. Books, magazines, television, and other types of advertisement and media all seem to be placing the image of perfection in the mind of teenagers everywhere. Even schools and other places that are supposed to help promote self-confidence can take the idea to extremes, sometimes crossing the line between demonstrating healthy living and promoting the fad of being stick thin. Even music has had an effect on the teenage girls’ psyche. Lyrics to songs which describe the perfect girl promote the idea of maintaining the perfect body even more. One of the main influence...
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
The constant pursuit of being perfect, including covering oneself with innumerable coats of makeup and going on extreme diets, is an enormous problematic that is attributable to deep feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem among girls. Given that nobody is capable of being entirely perfect, the aspiration to be that is unrealistic, and hence infeasible. This is exceedingly damaging because the incapability to attain this objective can give rise to feelings of major unhappiness or even depression. Consequently, it is crucial to call a halt to such a destructive goal. One of the most ground-breaking individuals who has made the attempt is the famous singer, songwriter, and actress, Alicia Keys. With her essay
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.
In today society, women are obsess with having a specific body type to make others find them attractive. They want to feed the society’s body type expectations. But 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.
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.
Although thin people seem to dominate society, the average size for a woman today is a size twelve. That puts the number of models on a smaller scale, and boosts the number of ordinary girls that make up most of society today. It’s not just about ordinary girls outnumbering models; it’s about the way that the media portrays these models. Slowly, the image of the “thin and beautiful” being the best is going down the drain. Larger models and actresses are taking the places of the “thin.” Hopefully, this will decrease the increasing numbers of anorexics in the United States as well as all over the world.
“To all the girls that think you're fat because you’re not a size zero. You’re the beautiful one. It's the Society, whose ugly.”-Marilyn Monroe
If one does not fit this ideal, then they are considered unappealing. Unfortunately, there is nothing one can do to truly change their body image other than think happier thoughts, obtain plastic surgery, or go to the gym to make themselves feel and potentially look better. Popular media is making it extremely difficult for one to maintain a positive body image. They have created the perfect human image that is almost unattainable to reach. The idea of a teenager’s body image is being destroyed by the standards of magazines, television shows, and society as a whole, making it to where it will never recover again. To better understand the effect popular media has on one’s body image, viewing psychology, medicine and health sciences, and cultural and ethnic studies will give a better understanding on the
What is the perfect body type? Throughout our adolescence ages into the adult hood stage many of young women struggle to answer this question. Our idea of what the perfect body type is ever changing however it is always influenced by the Medias perception of what the perfect body image should look like. We all idolize these images we see on television and in magazines and some of us would do anything to look just like them. This image forces us to have self esteem issues.These advertisements are damaging both our mental and physical state of being Many young girls who take extreme measures to live up to the Medias perception of the perfect body type are more likely to develop one of the many body image disorders. The average age a girl starts to diet is eight ("Media and Eating Disorders" 1). When a girl becomes obsessed with dieting and looking better, they can easily become anorexic or bulimic. 79% of teenage girls who vomit are dedicated readers of woman's magazines ("Media and Eating Disorders" 2). The Medias standard of perfection puts stress and pressure on young girls to become skinner. Eating disorders, excessive exercise, and depression are a result of the Medias influence on their self image. The media have negatively influenced the self image of young girls by forcing their unrealistic perception of what women should look like onto them .
Recent studies have shown that approximately 75 percent of adolescent females wish to be thinner and over 35 percent of them resort to drastic extremes to achieve the new “thin ideal.” (Body Dissatisfaction in Early Adolescent Girls) Today in our culture, this ideal of body image is portrayed in every aspect of our lives. We see a representation of attractive, extremely thin women in magazines, television shows, movies, commercials, etc. The new body image, which today is described as being perfect, is a new, unrealistic standard of skinny. This type of representation presented by the media compels female adolescents to view themselves in negative ways which results in eating disorders, body dissatisfaction, or even depression. The new standard of the “thin ideal,” according to society, is simply unattainable and irrational. So the question still remains: How has the media altered female adolescence’s perspectives on the “perfect” body image, and how has this changed our female society?
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.
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...
The media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or style. In this essay, the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing unrealistic bodies and women, women whose bodies are desirable by a mass number of people, and lastly not allowing all body types to be equally shown as “attractive.” The pattern is similar for the portrayal of women on television, magazines, and other parts of the media. The way media represents women is for them to be thin-like models and other women on television to be the high standard of “attractiveness” to others.
In American culture today, society's view of beauty is controlled by Hollywood, where celebrities are constantly in the lime-light. The media watches Hollywood's every move, and is quick to ridicule “A-listers” whenever they dare to gain a few pounds or to let an uncontrollable pimple show. The media has created a grossly distorted mental image of what should be considered beautiful, and with almost every junior high and high school-age girl reading and viewing this message, the idea has been instilled in them as well. This view of beauty is causing many teenage girls to become obsessed with a highly problematic and unattainable goal of perfection.
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”.