Negative Effects On Body Image

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The Negative Effects Media has on Teenagers Regarding Body Image
Imagine a young teenage girl walking in the mall and sees Victoria’s Secret’s advertisement introducing the new T-shirt bra and stops to take a look. Alessandra Ambrosio is on the wall and she looks beautiful. The smell of pretzels from across the store makes her stomach rumble, reminding her how hungry she is. The mere thought of not having a slim waist and small thighs like celebrities now a days has kept her from eating. She then looks down at her thighs and thinks “They were definitely smaller this morning, I should not have eaten the slice of bacon my mother offered me for breakfast.” It is not logically possible for a slice of bacon to make such a difference when ingested in under less than 4 hours. Considering the thoughts she has on her “large thighs”, she would be experiencing what you call negative body image. She, of course, is not alone in this way of thinking. Large amount of women and men have observed themselves pointing out what they believe are their flaws. Why is this? The media has been portraying the “perfect” body image for years, and has made people believe that their body should look a certain way. Teenage girls are the most targeted by this fake image corrupted with Photoshop leading them to develop eating disorders and have self-esteem issues. Teenage girls are obsessed with perfection and are more worried about their body image instead of realizing that their bodies are fine just the way they are. With its obsession with perfection, outreach towards young teenagers and subliminal messages, the media is one of the most harmful sources on the woman’s body image.
To begin, the media has an obsession with perfection. In the celebrity world eve...

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...iminal messages. Companies make them so available, and in large quantities, so that it makes them look desirable. If someone sees a product for improvement on neck wrinkles, they would think it is ridiculous and unnecessary. But if that same person saw a whole section of creams for them, then they would buy them for fear that their necks are too wrinkled and obviously needed to change to fit the standard. My last example of how the media uses subliminal messages is that, like discussed before, editing is a must in the beauty world, but where they trick people is in the way they edit. They edit in areas where it is not expected, for example when it comes to ads, whether they are selling perfume or even home supplies, they are edited to make the people more attractive because like discussed before, they want to promote a sense of perfection along with their promotion.

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