Letter to the Shorthorn Editor: What is beauty to you? Is it having perfect teeth, amazing hair, and the hourglass figure; or is beauty what makes the person they are today. Everyone has a different opinion on beauty. Raina Kelley makes an argument over beauty in an article called “Beauty Is Defined, and Not By You.” Although she makes a somewhat valid argument, I find that there is much more to this topic. Yes, body image is becoming more of an issue in today’s world, especially within young girls and women. In a study that was done by the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 1999 found that twenty percent of nine year olds and over forty percent of fort-teen year olds reported wanting to lose weight. In addition …show more content…
Raina Kelley has some logic behind her reasons for her argument. But, she shows very little ethos, pathos, and logos. I personally believe in today’s world the beauty standards as far as appearance are almost impossible to reach. In addition, I do believe those beauty standards are affecting the younger girls and boys. But Raina’s reasons she gave in her argument are just plain crazy. Not only that I find the way she explains further on this topic as personal opinions. She almost seems to be jealous of swim suit models and what she calls hotties. Making such comments like “three of the last four secretaries of state have been women-none of whom showed up on the cover of W. Sonia Sotomayor may never win a Miss America pageant, but boohoo, she’s a Supreme Court justice. I’d choose that over a tiara any day”. Therefore, the students that read the shorthorn, I believe would be very interested in the topic of the argument. But I find it far too conversable with far too many things to debate. Raina Kelley’s article is more directed towards women, thus making this a bias claim from the start. So publishing this article would be damning to the
The media has promoted a dominant view of how people should perceive beauty, and what consists of perfection in beauty. According to Dr. Karin Jasper, the media have women encouraging them to be concerned with their outward appearance and how others perceive them by surrounding everyone with the ideal female beauty. (Jasper, 2000) Body image has become a particular concern for young girls and women, often females work diligently to attain the perfect body image advertised in mass media. (Gibbs, 2010) When women are not able to obtain their ideal body goal, many develop negative feelings and become self-conscious about their bodies. Conversely, it is not possible for someone to look like a model in ads, someone without blemishes, scars, or pours. Another study conducted in 2012 showed contemporary media and culture has defined a women’s social desirability in terms of their bodies. For females, this has often resulted in comparing themselves to bodies shown in advertisements, commercials, magazines, etc. however not all body
Body image is the perception, both thoughts, and feelings concerning an individual’s physical appearance. Research has suggested that exposure to an ideal standard of what it may mean to be beautiful is the norm for the media to expose a woman to. The results of an idea of feminine beauty can be disastrous for women, leading to depression, and an unrealistic body image. According to Posavac & Posavac in the article titled Reducing the Impact of Media Images on Women at Risk for Body Image Disturbance: Three Targeted Interventions...
Society is obsessed with fitness and weight loss. Ever since I was in sixth grade I have had issues with my weight and self-image. The article “Fat Is a Feminist Issue”, by Susie OrBach focuses on how our society puts this unrealistic image of what women should look like into everyone’s heads. The media and magazines urge women to conform, at any cost, into a constantly changing expectation of what is beautiful. Women are taught to look at themselves from an outside view, to be a sex image for men and fuel the diet and fashion industries. Society thinks if women do not fit within the unrealistic image something is wrong with them. The highly glorified concept of beauty marketed by the media contributes to the concern over body image that causes many women, including myself, to eating disorders and poor self-image.
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.
Beauty is an omnipresent characteristic that plagues societies’ youth today because mainstream media has them convinced that inner beauty is less important than physical beauty. Unfortunately the media’s warped sense of what true beauty is has been advertised in such a way that it has become an unhealthy observation for today’s youth. The expectations of beauty are unacceptably stereotyped, which creates unrealistic idealistic goals for our young people to try to achieve. It is crucial to mention that as a society we need to strive toward teaching the proper balance between both aspects of beauty to offset the portrayal of what true beauty is by the media.
If one does not fit this ideal, then they are considered unappealing. Unfortunately, there is nothing one can do to truly change their body image other than think happier thoughts, obtain plastic surgery, or go to the gym to make themselves feel and potentially look better. Popular media is making it extremely difficult for one to maintain a positive body image. They have created the perfect human image that is almost unattainable to reach. The idea of a teenager’s body image is being destroyed by the standards of magazines, television shows, and society as a whole, making it to where it will never recover again. To better understand the effect popular media has on one’s body image, viewing psychology, medicine and health sciences, and cultural and ethnic studies will give a better understanding on the
While women have made significant advances over the past decades, the culture at large never fails to place a strong emphasis on the way women look. The new standards for beauty are ultimately causing dramatic influences on adolescent females and their body image. Anyone who is familiar with American culture knows that these new standards for beauty is proliferated through the media. No matter the source, we are constantly surrounded by all kinds of media, and we continue to construct ourselves based on the images we see through the media. The more young girls are surrounded by the “thin ideal” kind of media, the more they will continue to be dissatisfied with their bodies and themselves. Thi...
What do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror? A seed sticking out from your teeth? Bed head from just waking up and sleepy eyes? The truth is every time we look at ourselves in the mirror we can not help but notice some of our imperfections. Whether it is our nose, eyes, lips or ears there is always something. The beauty standard pop culture has today on women is unattainable. Women somehow have to have a thin body, giant chest, big rear, and tiny waist. Unfortunately these are the molds young women in America wish to fit into in order to feel beautiful. The word beautiful has many different meanings, but most interpret it as a physical description. Many young women believe that in order to acquire this beauty standard they need
Throughout the success of my solution to this problem, women will no longer be victims of the Medias negative influence on the imposed body image. In result, the empowerment of the redefined meaning of beauty will now allow women to start to really acknowledge themselves. They will start to focus on the part of them that is most beautiful which
In Nio’s dissertation, she states, “today, we are living in an era and culture that place much emphasis on the physical attractiveness of both genders” (3). Early research on body image started around the 1930s (Nio, 18). Originally, the research on body images focused on women and men feeling fat, dieting, weighting themselves, and eating disorders (Reed,1). In a more recent research study, done by Fallon and Rosen, they dived body images into four categories; current, ideal, attractive, and other attractive. Current is the way subjects perceive their bodies now, whereas ideal is the image they would prefer to have. Attractive is an image that subjects believe is the most attractive to the opposite sex, conversely other attractive is the body image that subjects prefer in the opposite sex. Through this research it is concluded that women have a distorted view on the body images that mean find attractive (Reed, 4). This is because “researchers have found that images of women in the media have been getting thinner over the past four decades” (Nio, 5). This is what Nio calls the Thin-Ideal Syndrome caused by an unconscientious internalized sociocultural of the ideal standard of beauty. This creates the idea of beauty being almost synonymous with being thin
Throughout the years, the definition of beauty is constantly changing. In today’s society many children are told to be “true to themselves”, “unique”, “who they are”, etc. On the other hand social media, and the celebrities on there, are a constant reminder that there is a certain type of “beautiful.” The juxtaposition of being yourself and being what is “beautiful” has consistent grey areas and blurred lines making it almost impossible to keep up with is acceptable. The media, whether intentional or not, portrays a certain body image that you have to be to qualify as beautiful.
The misconception of what is beautiful can be detrimental to young girls. In a television industry attempt to sell goods, they are depicted as sexy. Creating a need for parents to intervene and present a more realistic and normal view of physical beauty. Today, TV presents sexually based images crafted to appeal to young girls. Unfortunately, they are led to believe that their value is only skin deep, causing flawed expectations, illusions, and wrong information about the truth of the physical body in the real world. In an attempt to look the part some have fallen victim to eating disorders, while others have exchanged childhood innocence for an Adult view of what is sexy.
The overwhelming idea of thinness is probably the most predominant and pressuring standard. Tiggeman, Marika writes, “This is not surprising when current societal standards for beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, an ideal accepted by most women but impossible for many to achieve.” (1) In another study it is noted that unhealthy attitudes are the norm in term of female body image, “Widespread body dissatisfaction among women and girls, particularly with body shape and weight has been well documented in many studies, so much so that weight has been aptly described as ‘a normative discontent’”. (79) Particularly in adolescent and prepubescent girls are the effects of poor self-image jarring, as the increased level of dis...
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.
How many times have we heard or said the clique “don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” yet we focus so much of our attention on our physically appearance. Everyday we encounter images in the media that make us believe we have to look a certain way. Physical beauty is portrayed as important and essential in order to find love and acceptance. Although physical beauty is moderately important, it is less than inner beauty for it diminishes with age.