Look at all the images we see with tanned, shiny, thin bodies glowing and shimmering; the women with perfect jaw lines, makeup, and whose faces that never really age for many years that have passed them, yet they stay as beautiful as ever. Does any of it make sense or sounds familiar? The results lead to many women spending thousands of money and time to make themselves a beauty queen. Toddlers, teens, and women are drawn into what the media portrays of an ideal woman: unhealthy and its body image. We are so caught up with the media and it’s “perfection” we see in it, it is self destruction.
Toddlers and teens are being sexualized too much at a young age. They participate in beauty pageants. Their needs and wants are higher than usual, they want to look good, and act like a woman. One of their biggest dreams is to become a super model when they grow up. Everything they want to be is what they are seeing on TV and what we are as role models to them. According to the article Teen Health and the Media, “In a survey of girls 9 and 10 years old, 40% have tried to lose weight, according...
Beauty is a cruel mistress. Every day, Americans are bombarded by images of flawless women with perfect hair and smooth skin, tiny waists and generous busts. They are presented to us draped in designer clothing, looking sultry or perky or anywhere in between. And although the picture itself is alluring, the reality behind the visage is much more sinister. They are representations of beauty ideals, sirens that silently screech “this is what a woman is supposed to look like!” Through means of media distribution and physical alteration, technology has created unrealistic beauty ideals, resulting in distorted female body images.
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
We hear sayings everyday such as “Looks don’t matter; beauty is only skin-deep”, yet we live in a decade that contradicts this very notion. If looks don’t matter, then why are so many women harming themselves because they are not satisfied with how they look? If looks don’t matter, then why is the media using airbrushing to hide any flaws that one has? This is because with the media establishing unattainable standards for body perfection, American Women have taken drastic measures to live up to these impractical societal expectations. “The ‘body image’ construct tends to comprise a mixture of self-perceptions, ideas and feelings about one’s physical attributes. It is linked to self-esteem and to the individual’s emotional stability” (Wykes 2). As portrayed throughout all aspects of our media, whether it is through the television, Internet, or social media, we are exploited to a look that we wish we could have; a toned body, long legs, and nicely delineated six-pack abs. Our society promotes a body image that is “beautiful” and a far cry from the average woman’s size 12, not 2. The effects are overwhelming and we need to make more suitable changes as a way to help women not feel the need to live up to these unrealistic standards that have been self-imposed throughout our society.
Erica Zhang Professor Nelson Intro to Mass Media & Communications 3/11/2013 Media Analysis Assignment In today’s media, the sexualisation of women has unfortunately also extended to young preteen girls, through a myriad of detrimental social constructs and internalized prejudices spanning centuries. The commodification of their sexuality is unnerving, as it encourages predators to project their fantasies onto unwilling participants that are too young to understand the nature of these harmful actions, and know how to escape or refuse them. In an attempt to shed light onto this issue as a concerned parent, Rachael Combe wrote the article Little Girls Gone Wild as a response to this sudden boom in increasingly sexualised behavior among and towards preteens. While her intentions remain sincere and her concerns as a mother legitimate, the article is flawed in the sense that she is not delving deeper into the causes behind this phenomenon, shaming the young girls for indulging in their outward appearances and for participating in a role that society has forced them into, instead of the predators that reinforce this sexualised image and make it something to be desired and aspired to.
Mass media has evolved over the years and is heard to have many effects on body image. Does mass media have an effect on body image? To answer this question, I have explored academic articles for different social science disciplines. This particular discipline is Psychology. The discipline of psychology will show how body images affect people and what causes them to be affected. The articles being reviewed are Barlett, Christopher P., Christopher L. Vowels and Donald A. Saucier. “Meta-Analyses of the Effects of Media Images on Men’s Body Image Concerns.” Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology. 27.3 (2008) : 279-310., Hayes, Sharon and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn. “Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children’s media on
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.
Our media continues to flood the marketplace with advertisements portraying our young teens much older than their age. Woman’s body images have been the focus of advertising for generations. However, now the focus is more directed to the younger teenage girls instead of woman. Young girls are often displayed provocatively while eating messy triple decker hamburgers, or sipping a diet sodas on an oversized motorcycles. As a result, young teens are dressing older than their age, trying to compete with this ideal media image. 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. Media can no longer dictate how our young teenage girls should look.
The media's emphasis on having a flawless body, or face is starting to influence girls at a very young age. When given a unrealistically thin doll, such as Barbie to play with, girls ages five to seven said that they wished to be thinner (Swinson). Not only are young girls wishing to be thinner, their self-confidence is being demolished by the media. “In one recent study, researchers found that TV programs focused on appearance are swaying the self-esteem of girls as young as 5” (Heubeck). The medi...
To begin, social media has created unrealistic standards for young people, especially females. Being bombarded by pictures of females wearing bikinis or minimal clothing that exemplifies their “perfect” bodies, squatting an unimaginable amount of weight at a gym while being gawked at by the opposite sex or of supermodels posing with some of life’s most desirable things has created a standard that many young people feel they need to live up to. If this standard isn’t reached, then it is assumed that they themselves are not living up to the norms or the “standards” and then therefore, they are not beautiful. The article Culture, Beauty and Therapeutic Alliance discusses the way in which females are bombarded with media messages star...
"Children are influenced by media–they learn by observing, imitating, and making behaviors their own" (APA, 2001, p.1224). Girl’s as young as 4-years sees Britney Spears music clip “Baby One More Time”, who at the time was a 17-year old girl/world pop icon at the time wearing a school uniform showing off her midriff, wearing a lot of makeup and a short skirt. Disney teen icons such as Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana taking personal photos of herself in “sexy” poses and sending it to her ‘older’ boyfriend and then having it all published all over the internet for the entire world to see. Boys also face sexualization too, as has been seen in Calvin Klein ads, where pubescent-looking boys pose provocatively with perfectly sculpted six-pack abs hawking teen fashion These pop culture celebrities both female and male are always in the media, for inappropriate actions and they’re meant to be role models for children. In fact most of these sexualized celebrities are still children themselves. The sad part is it’s not just sexualization being encouraged in the media other negative things such as violence, drug and alcohol use ...
The media has one of the most influential impacts on what is seen as beauty in society (Bromley, 2012).Women spend thousands of dollars on products and cosmetics to achieve the unrealistic and unhealthy look of models on advertisements (Valenti, 2007). In most extreme cases, women who feel that their unhealthy weight goal is not achieved turn to extreme eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating (Cunning, 2011). However, despite the unrealistic frames of models on advertisements, women are still lured and pressured into the “perfect” image that is portrayed by the media using race, youth, and sexuality (Bromley, 2012).
Research in psychology today seems to be drawn towards particular fields of interest especially when it comes to understanding human behavior. One of the most common research topics for social psychology is body image and the perceptions that are related to age groups, genders, and ethnicities. Young people today are pressured by society to make physical appearance a dominant factor in their everyday lives, and the pressure is found not only through media influence but friends and family as well (Pavica, 2010). These pressures can affect many different aspects of a person’s life and significantly influence their actions. The aspects affected by body image can include popularity among peers, social comfort, and the attitudes an individual comes to commit to behavior (Lewis & Rosenblum, 1999).
Media has been filled with exaggerated scrutinies and trashed with unreasonable criticisms. It deserves a break. This is the generation of Information Technology. Danger is just around the corner, where a click from a mouse or a remote control and all sex-related garbage can pop out of the monitor. Truly, a vulnerable teenager can easily get lost to temptations. As an adolescent, I can empathize how these sweet girls feel about how horrible their body shapes are, how ugly their face is, and how brands in fashion seem to be worth more than anything in the world. Fashion labels, tiny bodies, and sexual activities are all characterized in Sex and the City. From th...
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.
Body image is the mental image of one 's own body. Body image is very important because the majority of people think about their appearance and how they look all day long. Many people today have a very poor body image. The causes of poor body image include: body size, bullying, media, low self-esteem, depression, and even gender. Body image also has some very unhealthy effects on men and women. Body image in our world today is at an all-time low, but there are many ways to help improve it. The most important ways are to focus on the good and positive talents he or she has and to not compare his or her body to another individual’s body.