Mass Media Overrules Peers in Body Image Effects

1178 Words3 Pages

If you ask just about every female in society today if she finds something wrong with herself, she will most likely say there is. Maybe you are one of the women that say society has no effect on you. That is until you go home and watch your favorite tv show and a commercial for a new skin care product appears on the TV; all of a sudden you want to try it in hopes of finally receiving clear skin, at least that's what happened to me. “Researchers have called female's concerns with their physical appearance ‘normative discontent;’ implying that body dissatisfaction affects almost all women at some level,” says Serdar. The mass media seems to have thinner models, providing their belief on what a woman should look like, while the pant sizes of females continue to grow (Serdar). In the long run this can have a major effect on young adults and their eating behaviors. At the same time peers are pressuring women more and more because they have more model-like, society accepted features than they do causing them to feel bad about themselves and possibly even change the way they look. Based upon research and theories I have concluded that the mass media is the greater cause for concerns of body image than peers due to the fact that the mass media sends the overall message of what Serdar calls an “ideal image” and standard of what a women should look and be like.
In the article “Peers, Not TV, Influence Girls’” research was conducted by Texas A&M International University that consisted of 237 Hispanic girls ages 10 to 17 who were asked about 3 of their favorite TV shows and to rate the women in these TV shows based on how pretty they were. Rating the women’s beauty was to test their familiarity with the “Hollywood beauty ideal,” according to ...

... middle of paper ...

...ful because all women would be considered attractive. If there is no standard of beauty eating disorders would eventually go away and we wouldn’t have unhealthy women. People should realize how much of an indirect effect they can have on someone just because they prefer a certain type of women. Not everyone can be skinny and perfect so women should just be accepted as who they are. It is important to consider the outcomes of body image; more and more women are becoming unhealthy and depressed because they so badly want to fit into society.

Works Cited

"Peers, Not TV, Influence Girls' Body Issues: Study." LiveScience.com. TechMedia Network, 30 Jan. 2013. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Serdar, Kasey L.. "Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard." Www.Westminstercollege.edu. Westminister College. 2005. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.

More about Mass Media Overrules Peers in Body Image Effects

Open Document