Impact of Social Media, Peer Pressure, and Fashion on Body Image

Body image is often not an accurate basis of judgment as it usually is a comparison of one’s body to the unrealistic portrayal of ideal image as portrayed in the media. Body image is nearly a universal issue affecting both male and female. Researchers found that 74.4% of normal sized women always thought about their weight and how they could lose weight. Women are not the only ones that view their bodies negatively: 46% of men feel the same way (Brown University). Studies show that social media, peer pressure, and fashion all have great impacts on how men and women view themselves and their efforts to attain the perfect body.

Studies show that the media make both men and women strive to become skinnier and more appealing. Sarah Grogan explains that, “The media presents the male and female body differently. Men tend to be portrayed as a standard weight (usually slender and muscular); whereas women tend to be portrayed as underweight.” Women are going to extremes to get the appearance of celebrities and models. Diets are now used for getting that skinny appearance rather than maintaining a healthy diet. Magazines that portray extremely thin models are a big motive and cause for women to go to such extremes. Studies at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts found that 70% of college women say they feel worse about their own looks after reading women’s magazines. “People see the same images over and over and start to believe it’s a version of reality,” says Deborah Schooler, one of the researchers. “If those bodies are real and that’s possible, but they can not attain it, how can they not feel bad about their own body?” (Brown). If teenagers and adults keep looking at images and keep wishing they looked like that, ...

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...get rid of what it does not want on its own course. Even if they have gained weight, they do not need to starve themselves and push themselves to the limit so they can become beautiful. They already are, and people need to start looking at the beauty within a person rather than judging them by their appearances.

Works Cited

Brown University. "Body Image." Brown.edu. Brown University, n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.

Grogan, Sarah. Body Image: Understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women and children. USA: Routledge, 1999. Print.

Konrad, Erin. "Why Photoshop Is Totally Messing With Our Minds." Teencom. N.p., 12 May 2012. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

Kurtz, Jason. "Model Paulina Porizkova Blames Photoshop for Image Issues..." CNN.com. Cable News Network, 18 Feb. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

Ojeda, Auriana. Body Image. Farmington Hill: Bonnie Szumski, 2003. Print.