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Mattie Hernandez
Ms. Poth
Eng. IV. 1
5/5/14
The Media's Influence on Girls is Detrimental to their Health In today's society, teenage girls are pressured more than ever. Society's expectations of teenage girls have become unrealistic. Girls can't be expected to look like something that doesn't actually exist or is physically impossible. The modern beauty standard is so ridiculous that it is literally physically impossible to achieve. Attempt at trying to achieve this look causes low self-esteem in girls and ultimately depression or another mood disorder. Yes, I agree that expectations for teenage girls are causing a mental health crisis. The media uses means such as social media, magazines, and television to influence people, specifically
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The American Medical Association recently decided to stand up against the dangers of photo manipulation. Some agreed but others, like eating disorder specialist Carrie Arnold, argue that the illustrious culprit known as Photoshop has no connection with mood disorders or eating disorders. There are two common eating disorders that girls experience: anorexia and bulimia. Bulimia is an eating disorder where a person eats a large amount and then vomits to prevent weight gain. Unlike mood disorders, eating disorders are harder to treat because they often begin in one's teen years and travel into adulthood. She further explained her opinion on the subject in her work what’s Photoshop Got to do with it? Another woman Elizabeth Perle believes that it's too late to consider taking a stand against Photoshop for fear of ruining the careers of actors, actresses, and models. That statement alone proves that society values physical perfection than the health and emotional well-being of people, specifically impressionable teenagers. There are girls everyday who are impacted by the media in one form or
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
Martin Seligman wrote in the book, Abnormal Psychology, that one out of six teenagers now suffer a serious episode of depression before graduating high school. This is a continuing trend in our society that is commonly overlooked.
The media and how it affects our society has changed tremendously over the past few decades. Our population of children who spend a lot of time in front of the television or on social media continues to increase, creating a superficial view of themselves and who they should be. This superficial outlook has been created by the media because it preaches to our society that looks matter. Not only are there millions of advertisements saying to lose weight and buy certain products to be beautiful, but there has been a specific standard of beauty set for models and actresses to obtain. These standards include big eyes, volumino...
There are many kinds of psychosocial disorders that deal with deferent things. Some psychosocial disorders are genetic and some people just pick up from everyday life. Teens can pick up disorders from high school and form our popular media. The media plays a huge roll on what teens do to their life. The media tells teens what they should eat, what size teens should be, and what is okay to wear. Media is mostly worried about what people, mostly celebrities, look like. Teens see a tiny model; teens see that as being attractive. The teen that saw the tiny model attractive would start to starve them self to become that skinny or what is known in the psychology world as anorexia.
Eating disorders are described as an illness involving eating habits that are irregular and an extreme concern with body image or weight. Eating disorders tend to appear during teenage years, but can develop at any age. Although more common in women, eating disorders can affect any age, gender or race. In the United States, over 20 million women and 10 million men are personally affected by eating disorders. There are many different causes of eating disorders such as low self esteem, societal pressures, sexual abuse and the victims perception of food. Eating disorders are unique to the sufferer and often, their perception of themselves is so skewed, they may not be aware they have an eating disorder. Media, for quite some time now, has played a significant part in eating disorders. Magazines with headlines ‘Summer Body’, or ‘Drop LB’s Fast!’ attract the attention of girls who may be insecure with themselves. Television productions such as the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show or American’s Next Top Model, show airbrushed and photoshopped women who have body types that may be unachievable. Those who are suffering from eating disorders can suffer dangerous consequences, and it is important to seek help.
By allowing younger girls and teens to be portrayed as grown woman in advertisements, our teens are losing their young innocence. With society’s increasing tolerance, this epidemic will continue to exploit our young daughters, sisters and friends. Young teens feel an enormous amount of pressure to obtain the ‘ideal’ perfect body. Trying to emulate the advertisements seen in the media and magazines. As a result, more girls and woman are developing eating disorders.
Supporters of nurture influences on the child becoming a criminal believe that one of the major factors is from the media, as the current era now depend heavily on technology. One of major influences from media is usually from televisions, films and especially the internet that contain strong violence. According to the article ‘15 films That Inspired Real Life Crimes’ (n.d), in 1993, two 10-year-old boys who were fans of the movie ‘Chucky’ had killed a woman, Suzanne Capper, by torturing and torching her to death. The two boys were chanting “I’m Chucky. Chucky wants to play” and played mimics from the movie on a tape. Other than that, according to statistics by Caroline Knorr (as cited in Emmons, 2013) , 90% of movies and 60% of television shows show some form of violence and this is a prominent because children usually watch 4 hours of television a day and have multiple risk factors that make the likelihood of them acting aggressively. Thus, it can be concluded that exposure to media violence will increase the likelihood of a child committing crime afterwards.
Nevertheless, the girl screeching in horror of her own reflection is not the only teen, who talks about, each and everything they despise about themselves. Furthermore, this girl relates to Charlotte, in the book Girl In Pieces, which is about a young 17-year old girl that was so insecure that the cuts that were imprinted on her wrist, she was determined to hide them. She made such an effort to look somewhat normal that she had to wear long-sleeves even when it was scorching hot outside. She was so insecure about herself, which caused her to suffer on the inside. This is the problem, teens suffering because of their insecurities.
The standard way of thinking while looking through magazines is to compare ourselves to the people we see in them. Innumerable teenage girls assume that the media’s ideal beauty is unrealistically thin women. Looking up to adults as role models, we are constantly influenced to be on a diet, to not eat as much, and to feel poorly about yourself if you aren't thin. Growing up with this expectation to be skinny, some women develop bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating. Americans today tend to believe that we can be as skinny as models if we just eat less, work out more, and get plastic surgery. Consequently, with technology growing, you can now alter a photo using an application called photoshop. Photoshop is a tool commonly used in magazines to enhance a photo to it more appealing to the consumers. The problem is, that many teenage girls don't notice the subtle changes the photo has gone through. Therefore unrealistic beauty standards women have been given are what makes us have negative body images.
Teenage Depression. Everywhere you look these two words appear together as one, in newspapers and magazines, as well as in scholarly reports. Teenage depression is one of today's "hot topics" this among other teenage mental health problems, has been brought to the forefront of public consciousness in recent years after several incidents involving school shootings (CQ 595). The environment that teens grow up in today is less supportive and more demanding than it was twenty years ago. Not only are the numbers of depressed teens rising, but children are also being diagnosed at younger and younger ages. Studies have found that, "There is an estimated 1.5-3 million American children and adolescents who suffer from depression, a condition unrecognized in children until about 20 years ago" (CQR 595). This increase in depression is due to social factors that teenagers have to deal with everyday. A recent study found that, "About five percent of teenagers have major depression at any one time. Depression can be very impairing, not only for the affected teen, but also for his or her family-and too often, if not addressed, depression can lead to substance abuse or more tragic events" (NAMI.org). Gender roles and other societal factors including the pressures on girls to look and act a certain way, the pressures on boys to suppress their emotions and put on a tough front and the pressures on both sexes to do well in school and succeed, all contribute to depression in teens today. Depression is a growing problem which crosses gender lines and one that needs to be dealt with with more than just medication.
Its seems as though everyday we hear of another young girl committing suicide because she felt worthless. Even more of these girls develop an eating disorder in order to look like the women in the...
Until about ten years ago, children’s mood swings and irritability were considered nothing but a phase that kids go through and would eventually outgrow. It has been proven that if depression in teenagers goes unnoticed and, therefore, untreated, the children gradually will turn to doing drugs (“self-medication”) and consuming alcohol, will drop out of school, will become promiscuous, and for a lot of them it even might lead to suicide.
Forty-four percent of girls and fifteen percent of boys in high school admitted to attempting to lose weight. In the cases of women, self esteem is normally related to how they view their own body shape, not their actual weight and size. Seven out of every ten females believe they are not good enough to meet the standards of society, including relationships and grades. Teenage girls that have a negative self-image are four times more likely to engage in wrong activities with men that they will regret. Nearly twenty percent of all teenagers will experience depression before they reach legal adulthood (DoSomething.org). Suicide is the third leading cause of death in teenagers (Tarshis 131).
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.
Conclusively, teenage depression is a chronic problem in the life of teenagers, which should be properly handled. When signs of this are seen in teenagers, adequate steps should be taken, in order to ensure their safety and restore their mental strength.