Female Body Image Essay

Imagine feeling like you aren’t good enough every day of your life. You are bombarded by photos of photoshopped models and plastic surgery. You feel like you can't breath. This is a reality for many women today. In today’s society, the female body image is horribly distorted, resulting in girls feeling insecure, developing eating disorders, and committing suicide.
The pressure to measure up to society’s expectations is overwhelming causing these girls to feel insecure. An alarming 90% of girls aged 15-17 want to change something about themselves, weight being the biggest one. It’s absolutely horrifying to think that girls that young already want to change themselves. A study shows that by the age of 17, 78% of girls say that they are unhappy with their bodies. A huge factor in this is the way the female body is portrayed in the media. The average model is 5’10” and 107 lbs and the

It is approximated 1,000 women die from anorexia every year. 2%-5% of people who develop these disorders will end up committing suicide. In 1994, the cause of death being “anorexia” or “anorexia nervosa” was mentioned on 2,758 death certificates. The death rates for bulimia nervosa may not seem that bad being only 3.9%. This translates to 183,300 deaths on average. The death rates for anorexia nervosa is 4%. This totals to 320,000 people. Even though these stats are scary enough, some people don’t feel that it is that bad for these girls.
There are things others may argue against this. The main one is that it is just as bad for boys. They state that male models are nowhere near the average man, They say that if we help girls we must help boys just as much. They may also argue that it is healthy for these girls to see these body types so they don’t become fat. They bring up the fact that that society has begun to show different body types that are all healthy and good for reference for these young