An Essay On Body Image

The concept of body image is one of the most underlying themes in personal satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Body image as described by Nio, is “a person’s unique perception of his/her body. It’s how we perceive ourselves, how we think, we appear to others, how we feel about our look from ‘our own internal view’” (3). Humans are constantly making themselves aware of the image their body portrays. The problem has become that instead of being comfortable with the body they are given, there seems to always be a yearning for what others have. A number of these problems can be attributed to the ever-growing industry of media, and in this century even more so focusing on social media that has a purpose of strengthening external validity. The United

Self- Efficacy as defined in "Teens’ Social Media Use and Collective Action”, is one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task. Self-Efficacy plays a role in how one approaches goals, tasks, and challenges (ix). Collective self-esteem, is “an individual’s self-concept derived from his/her ‘knowledge of membership’ in a social group together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Seo et al. 885). Self-Esteem is an important psychological need of human beings. These are internal factors that affect how people view their external factors, and can affect how people modify their personal behaviors (Nio,

“Beautiful” women and even “attractive” men are portrayed as swimsuit models and body builders, and pageant girls. These expectations are often unattainable, unrealistic images that the media presents as overly-thin, glamourized, sexualized portrayals of women (Reed, 9). The reality is that media is distorting the ideal image of beauty, and has been doing so for generations. These problems result in young adults, women in particular to have issues with self esteem and social efficacy.
All things considered, with the recent obsession with body images, media had added extra stress. Many people in today’s society use this media as external validity, when in actuality when they don’t get the results they desire it ends with a lower self-esteem and a lack of self- efficacy. These standards are unrealistic and todays generation is having a challenging time realizing that