Unrealistic Body Image

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Growing up in our society, everywhere we turn we are surrounded by the media and images of beauty and representations of beauty. We grow up believing that this unattainable image is what beauty really is. In our society, a great deal of importance is placed on our looks and body image. We encounter various perspectives when it comes to the ongoing debate of the media being a positive or negative influence on girls and women everywhere and if the media is to blame for unrealistic body types. Adolescents especially are often concerned about their physical image, which is influenced by the media. This is portrayed through magazine pictures, television advertisements, and billboards. In this paper I will show how the media affects the behaviors, …show more content…

It shows their audience that appearance is everything and that sets the standards. Unfortunately, the media is an influence on young children. The Keep It Real campaign recently released statistics that said “80 percent of all 10-year-old girls have, at some point in their lives, gone on at least one diet in order to like similar to people in the media” (Helfand, 1). According to a Time article, many parents blame Barbie for dolls with unrealistic body types, however Mattel blames the mothers. Kim Culmone, VP of Design at Mattel says, “Barbie’s body was not designed to be realistic (Stampler, 1).” Culmone believes young girls view the world different than adults. When a child plays with a Barbie, they use their imagination; they are not looking in depth of body image. Culmone believes the influence for girls with body image issues are peers and family. However, it deals with what Barbie advertises in the media. Dr. Deborah Tolman, professor of psychology and social welfare at City University of New York says that there is a large and growing body of literature that shows the negative impact toys and the media have on developing children (Stampler, 1). According to the Park Nicollet Melrose Center, there are “three sociocultural channels that affect body image. It is the media, family, and peers. However, the media is the …show more content…

There have been numerous studies that have shown us how the media can lead to a negative perception of a person's body image (Ashikali & Dittmar, 2012; Ata, Thompson & Small, 2013; Hausenblas et al., 2013). The movie and music industries, as well as advertisements constantly portray an ideal and beautiful body for women as one that is thin. When people see these images and then look at their own bodies, which are often times different from what is portrayed as ideal in the media, they begin to think that they aren't beautiful, are too fat, too pale, too whatever. This dissatisfaction with one's body image can lead to low self-esteem, and even depression (Hausenblas et al., 2013). I have first hand experience with this. When I was in middle school and high school, I constantly saw these beautiful girls on the covers of magazines that had the perfect body type and I did not look like these models. At the time, I did not know magazines were photoshopped, I thought this is how these girls looked naturally. When I was in seventh grade, my eating disorder began. I started by starving myself, which eventually led to bulimia. This was a disorder I had for four years and it all began because the image the media depicts. They constantly advertise ways to look more beautiful and skinnier and never

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