The Influence Of Body Image

Body Image According to Burgerjon and Clydesdale (2016), body image is an individual's perception of how he or she appears to the outside world. Today’s society, portrays an extremely unrealistic and distorted idea of what “beautiful” is suppose to ideally look like. In the media, girls are often represented as being having very ‘feminine’ traits and looking ‘flawless’. Whileas, men are often portrayed as being very ‘masculine’ and ‘strong’. The advertisements we see are predominantly of models whom are photoshopped, edited, and airbrushed to an extreme to look “perfect” and “beautiful”. However, everyone is yet still so caught up with the idea of wanting to look beautiful, that it often leads to extreme health issues such as disordered eating

However, Pallan et al. (2011) states that the influence of ethnicity on body dissatisfaction is complex and interacts with other factors, such as societal, media and peer influences.A child’s peers can exert pressure, urging each other to attain a certain ideal figure or criticizing individuals who somehow do not measure up to their expectations (Davidson & Cataldo, 2015). Media depictions of models and actors and popular discussion of celebrities in terms of their physical appearance also shape young people’s perceptions about ideal body type (Davidson & Cataldo, 2015). Media sources, such as television, the Internet, and magazines, often portray people closer to the commonly accepted ideal body type than the average body type in order to sell their products and services (Davidson & Cataldo, 2015). Consequently, people—especially older children and young adults—are overly influenced and swayed by such depictions of body image (Davidson & Cataldo, 2015). According to the Association of Body Image and Disordered Eating (ABIDE), the average U.S. citizen is exposed to about 5,000 advertising messages every day. Studies of network television commercials have shown that attractiveness is a desirable trait that advertisers regularly use to convince viewers to purchase their products (Davidson &

Petersson et al. (2017) states that perfectionism can lead to eating disorders and is a maintenance factor which interferes with treatment. Petterson et al. (2017) also states that Perfectionism is one factor that, independently or in combinations with other risk factors, has shown to predispose and/or maintain ED symptoms in Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Many women diet excessively or undergo cosmetic surgery in an attempt to conform to the largely unattainable ideal body images presented by the media (Burgerjon & Clydesdale, 2016). Dangerous and unrealistic cultural ideals of slimness (particularly in females) and muscularity (particularly in males) have filtered down to the child and adolescent population. Young people often feel dissatisfied with their body weight and size (Abbott, Lee et al. 2010; Duncan, Duncan et al. 2011). In many situations body image issues are reported by young people with a healthy weight (Abbott, Lee et al. 2010; Duncan, Duncan et al., 2011).Although shape is also a factor, weight has become the most significant issue in Body Image (Burgerjon & Clydesdale, 2016). The concept of dieting was widely promoted through television advertising (Burgerjon & Clydesdale, 2016). Body image dissatisfaction (BID), that is, the negative evaluations of one's