What does it mean to be physically fit? Does it mean you can throw a football like John Elway, or hit a baseball like Sammy Sosa? Does it mean you can run a mile in one hundred degree weather under twelve minutes, or swim fifteen laps across a pool in one minute? Is physical fitness being anorexic or being on steroids. That’s what the media makes it look like. The average female super model is up to fifty pounds underweight. Sixty-two percent of football players take some form of muscle enhancing product. Many girls worry about their physical appearance. They want to look like the model in this add for Calvin Klein and other advertisements. They think that’s how everyone wants them to look. Many will go to any length to get that way. That often leads to serious eating disorders like anorexia. It’s crazy because even the models don’t look like the adds. Almost ninety-six percent of magazine and t.v adds are touched up by computer to look “perfect.” The effect advertising has on some people’s personal appearance is bad. Even people that don’t develop eating disorders still feel bad about themselves at one point or another because they don’t look like the advertisements, like society wants them to look. The “standard” that the media shows has other negative effects besides eating disorders. It can also lead to shame, guilt, stress, depression, and a lack of confidence. It’s not just girls that are shown in these ads. Guys are shown that they should be muscular, and well built. They sometimes turn to steroids to get like that. Some even develop eating disorders. Guys also get a lack of confidence, they just won’t admit it. Most advertising discourages acceptance of people that are different than you. They show you people that look almost perfect, and a lot of people judge you on how you look compared to the models on t.v and in magazines. Advertisers shouldn’t focus so much on what a person looks like.
Many great minds believe that education is a powerful tool. Investing in your education is the most valuable and most rewarding thing a person can do to secure their future. Influential people who have brought positive changes to the world have said: “The investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. (Franklin). “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. (Nelson Mandela). “A brighter future starts with an education”. (Montgomery).
And that’s probably because this was something that was very emotional to talk about. He talked about the way Indian kids were treated and how they never really learned how to write. And writing was something that he loved to do. When Alexie was older he became a writer. And he talked about how he would go back and teach the kids how to write. And he said that they would pay close attention to him and they would read his books. In the text it states, “They are trying to save their lives.” And to me that means that they were just trying to basically prove that they were smarter than everyone had put them out to be. And that if they didn’t read they’d probably just be regular. But that’s not what Alexie wanted them to be, so he helped
89). Alexie described how his mother, father and four siblings were able to survive from “a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus food” (pg. 89).Even during these hard times Alexie’s father managed to fill their home with books “in crazy piles in the bathroom, bedrooms, and living room” (Alexie pg. 89). Needless to say his father loved books and wanted to feed himself with knowledge to be able to feed his family. Alexie loved “his father with an aching devotion” (Alexie pg. 89) so he decided to follow his father’s footsteps at a young age of three to love reading and learning despite that Indians “were expected to be stupid” (pg.
At the beginning of this essay Alexie gives some background information on his story which informs the reader that he may not have had the education that he would have liked, but he got by by reading. He says that he loves his father and he wanted to be able to read like his father. So, that’s what he did. By reading it gave him the confidence to not act like all the other young Indian boys on the reserve. He wasn’t afraid to let people know that he was smart. He cared about reading and wasn’t going to give that up. By having this strong confidence in his reading it inspired people in generations today to succeed in school even if they are in an Indian reserve and may not have the most stable
...odels in magazines usually achieve their body shape in unnatural ways. They either undergo plastic surgery or have an eating disorder like anorexia and bulimia. Most models have the BMI of a person with anorexia. Their weight is 15-20% below what is considered normal for their age ad height. The photos seen in magazines of these models are also airbrushed and photo shopped before being printed. The body shapes of the models are unrealistic, unhealthy, and unobtainable for the average person. In addition to the models, magazines are also filled with advertisements. Most ads in magazines are directed towards beauty in some form. Again, these ads all show photographs of women with the unreachable “perfect body” that can cause multiple victims to feel insecure and unhappy about their body shape and weight. In some cases it will result in developing an eating disorder.
It is no wonder that many girls are anorexic: it is from the media. The media’s promotion of super-skinny models has lead many young girls to believe that they are nothing. This is not true, and yet the media promotes it. The image of being “thin and beautiful” pushes young women to diet, which, in their attempt to fit into the “mold” of the model, may lead to anorexia. Approximately one to three percent of women in the United States are anorexic (Cha 1). Clothing companies, such as Calvin Klein, are to blame for this growing epidemic.
The media’s depiction of female bodies has a detrimental influence on women’s perception of themselves and has come under fire in recent years. Girls growing up in our media soaked culture internalize society’s ever-thinning standard of beauty, believing that they can never be slender enough. The negative effect of the media has been linked to the spread of eating disorders (“Never Just Pictures”, Thompson). This has led to a public outcry against impossibly thin, airbrushed models and a demand for more honest advertising.
In regard to Susan Bordo’s, “Never Just Pictures”, I agree with the points she makes in her essay about what is being projected through advertisements and fashion modeling and the negative effects that these have on developing a healthy self-esteem and body image. Everyone, without gender as a factor, should openly embrace the good points of their body, flaws included. But still, we are surrounded by everything from commercials about diet pills, to articles on celebrities who are doing anything to become thinner and thinner, and the bizarre concept that a plus-size model is as small as a size 6 or 8. The saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words” rings very true to the emphasis put on what is seen when someone looks at an advertisement for something because it acknowledges something much deeper than the image that is seen. Besides the company selling the product that is shown, they are in some ways, sending subliminal messages of what a person who would buy or wear the product should look and act like. Even though advertisers and the media would be quick to deny that their work has anything to do with young women turning to eating disorders to look like what they see all around them, it is evident that this obsession with self-image and being as thin as humanly possible is clearly a result from none other than what is depicted in those very ads.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In our society today, people would rather see what celebrities are up to than what is going on with our health plan. Watching the news makes us aware of the latest trend, new gadget, who’s in rehab, or who has an eating disorder. In the eyes of society, women like Eva Longoria, Kim Kardashian, and Megan Fox are the epitome of perfection. What girl wouldn’t want to look like them? Unfortunately, this includes most of the girls in the US. Through TV shows, commercials, magazines or any form of advertising, the media enforces a certain body type which women emulate. The media has created a puissant social system where everyone must obtain a thin waist and large breasts. As a society, we are so image obsessed with the approval of being thin and disapproval of being overweight, that it is affecting the health of most women. Women much rather try to fit the social acceptance of being thin by focusing on unrealistic body images which causes them to have lower self esteem and are more likely to fall prey to eating disorders, The media has a dangerous influence on the women’s health in the United States.
Under society’s norms for decades, girls have been put under the pressure and expectation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin and curved, beautified by applying pounds of makeup to their face but not appear ridiculously overdone. Where do these unreachable standards come from? When a young girl hears the model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life replica of the photoshop. These companies spit out magazine covers plastered with girls’ idols daily. As if maintaining the perfect body wasn’t hard enough our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of makeup, however, body image is a pressing issue for girls. Ads and posters of skinny female models are everywhere. Young girls not only could be better but need to be better and feel forced to have the perfect physique. Girls are
Whether it’s your phone, your television, or your magazines, it’s a constant thing in one’s life. The media is designed to reach large markets through the use of technology. The media uses stereotypes to market and portray what a "perfect" body should look like. Often times when women are shown in the media they are unrealistically thin, and have airbrushed skin. The same could be said for men, but with big muscles and washboard abs. The media gives off the idea that these bodies are normal when in reality it can be somewhat unrealistic. This can be damaging to a teen’s self image because they have a certain expectation of themselves without being able to attain it. In 2003, Teen Magazine reported that 35 percent of girls 6 to 12 years old have been on at least one diet, and that 50 to 70 percent of normal weight girls believe they are overweight. Boys may also feel pressured to do things such as weight training and steroids to achieve that “perfect”
The media can impact people’s lives in many ways, whether it’s fashion, movies, literature, or hobbies. One of the impacts is how women view their bodies. Movie stars and models feel pressured to catch attention and to look good in order to have a good career in their respective field. People tend to judge how someone looks based on their body composition. The result of this “judgment” is that Hollywood is getting skinny. Since models and actresses serve as role models for people, people tend to want to look like them. The result of this seemingly harmless model of behavior is in an increase in eating disorders.
"Education is the key to opportunity in our society, and the equality of educational opportunity must be the birthright of every citizen.
Everyone has seen the modern day models, they’re everywhere; in magazines, on billboards, and in commercials. They even have a T.V. shows dedicated to them (America’s next top model, for example). These models are all skinny and seemingly perfect in every way. They are idolized and what most girls (and many boys as well) want is to be just like them, to be skinny, have the perfect body weight, and the perfect body figure. Some people end up taking it to the extreme though, and get sick. They become obsessed with how they look to the point where it’s unhealthy, and possibly even deadly, and develop what we call eating disorders, or ED for short.
Education is man’s most valuable possession: it is the concept through which one’s love for learning stems, and the equipment used to pave an individual’s path to success. Although easily influenced by the opinions of others, education is one of the few concepts that neither internal nor external stress can strip from our being. The future of our society lies in the hands of our educators; the values and morals instilled by such figures govern the actions of the earth’s people.