More handpicked essays just for you.
Effects of social media and body image
Media Impact on Teenagers
Positive effects of advertising on children
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Effects of social media and body image
Our media continues to flood the marketplace with advertisements portraying our young teens much older than their age. Woman’s body images have been the focus of advertising for generations. However, now the focus is more directed to the younger teenage girls instead of woman. Young girls are often displayed provocatively while eating messy triple decker hamburgers, or sipping a diet sodas on an oversized motorcycles. As a result, young teens are dressing older than their age, trying to compete with this ideal media image. By allowing younger girls and teens to be portrayed as grown woman in advertisements, our teens are losing their young innocence. With society’s increasing tolerance, this epidemic will continue to exploit our young daughters, sisters and friends. Young teens feel an enormous amount of pressure to obtain the ‘ideal’ perfect body. Trying to emulate the advertisements seen in the media and magazines. As a result, more girls and woman are developing eating disorders. Media can no longer dictate how our young teenage girls should look.
The media also portrays y...
Female beauty ideals are an overwhelming force in teen media. Approximately 37% of articles in leading magazines for teen girls emphasize a focus on physical appearance. This is none to surprising considering two of the top contenders in this media genre are Seventeen and Teen Vogue. CosmoGIRL and Elle Girl were among the ranks of popular teen magazines, but in recent years have become exclusively online publications. Add in a dash of publications Tiger Beat and Bop, and it becomes glaringly obvious that girls are charged with the prime directive of looking good to get the guy. The story becomes more disturbing when the actual audience, which includes girls at least as young as eleven years old, is considered. In a stage when girls are trying for the first time to establish their identities, top selling publications are telling them that their exteriors should be their primary concern of focus. Of course, this trend doesn’t stop with magazines. A study conducted in 1996 found a direct correlation between the “amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos” a...
The image of Disney’s ravishing princess marrying her perfect Prince Charming has infatuated young girl for decades. These delightful movies present role models for young girls influencing them to dress up as their favorite princesses in the image of their Disney princess models. Many parents regard this imaginative act of child's play as charming or innocent. However, there has been much speculation about the media’s message directed towards young girls. The most prevalent source of this worry is abundant in animated films (Travail). Although animated movies are exciting for young children, recent studies have shown that these films are causing a spike in body dissatisfaction in girls. Throughout the past century negative body image among young girls has been driven by Disney’s animated movies, Barbie dolls, and Barbie’s new animated films.
Our society today is heavily influenced by the media and the imagery it shows. Though it may be indirect, the media provides unhealthy messages about ideal body sizes, gender attractiveness, and weight control that make women view themselves in a negative way. Magazines, television, and movies influence teenage girls on what they believe their body image should be. The images they show set the standard of what is considered physically attractive in our society. With the use of photoshop, media depicts falsified images of models and actresses to create a perfected look that is unattainable by the average woman. This creates a desire among teenage girls to look like these stars that are often shown. When teenage girls look at these images, they compare themselves to those images, and then judge themselves based on these comparisons. These judgements can potentially lead to eating disorders. In order to prevent the risk of eating disorders among teenage girls, the media should depict a typical image of people, rather than idolizing a specific standard of beauty.
Paragraph 1- Girls can become victims of eating disorders because of society's promotion of an ideal thin female body. Models and stars shown in the fashion industry, magazines, movies, and other forms of media often appear very thin. These models are not a true reflection of the average female. Many are unnaturally thin, unhealthy or airbrushed. One former Victoria Secret model was shocked by the waiflike models that were shown on the runway during designer shows. A study referenced in the the article “Do Thin Models Warp Girls Body Image” describes how studies of girls as young as first grade think the culture is telling them to model themselves after celebrities who are svelte and beautiful. The same studies showed girls exposed to fashion magazines were most likely to suffer from poor body images. Psychologist and eating disorder experts agree the fashion industry has gone too far in showing dangerously thin images that women and young girls may try to emulate. The use of super slim models and stars, is sending the wrong message to young impressionable girls. These harsh influences lead us to think that thin is ideal body size. Seeing super thin models in the media plays a role in anorexia. Society’s promotion of a thin female body contributes to eating disorders for females striving to achieve this ideal bod...
One major issue that continues to arise from the influence of media on children in our society is issues with eating disorders. According to National Eating Disorders, 80% of Americans watch television for over three hours daily (Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders). Being exposed to this much media daily exposes young kids and adolescents to skewed ideas of beauty and skewed standards of body image. Children and Adolescents are also constantly exposed to these images through advertising online, on billboards, in magazines, on transportation, etc. The images we see in the media are not even physically possible without the help of photo-shopping. Because of this, many kids and adolescents try to achieve the same appearance and end up developing eating disorders. An ongoing study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood institute shows that 40% of girls 9 and 10 years old have tried to lose weight (Teen Health and Media). Girls ages 9 and 10 years old should not even be remotely worried about their weight, yet being exposed to constant media in today’s society has led to severe body image issues. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated disorders, 8 million people in the US have an eating disorder, 90% of those are women, and they usually begin in teens but may begin as early as 8 years old. (Teen Health and Media). These
It has recently been brought up that media influences girls in pre-adolescence, which is highly likely since most young girls idolize Barbie (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). “Were Barbie a flesh-and-blood woman, her waist would be 39% smaller than that of anorexic patients, and her body weight would be so low that she would not be able to menstruate” (Rintala & Mustajoki, 1992). Most young girls wish that they could look like Barbie when they grew up, but if they knew the reality of having her measurements, their perceptions would probably change. Children frequently fantasize about who they will be, what they will do, and how they will look when they grow into adulthood. Advertisers use women that are abnormally thin, and even airbrush them to make them appear thinner.
It is evident that today’s advertisements for teen clothing are neither healthy, nor ethical, to use as a way to attract teen consumers; however, companies are getting away with this behavior, because their effective and inappropriate advertisements are merely innuendos. The modern label placed on teens is said to be the primary contender for the cause of eating disorders, suicide, bullying, and depression. Fortunately, groups of teens are getting together to put an end to these unethical advertisements and the messages the ads give off to teens; because of their efforts, the amount of effect that advertisements have on teens now, may dramatically plummet sometime in the near future. In my opinion, it is crucial that us teens make a profound alteration to the way teen merchandise is advertised, which in turn will end the knavish behavior of ...
In recent years, sociologists, psychologists, and medical experts have gone to great lengths about the growing problem of body image. This literature review examines the sociological impact of media-induced body image on women, specifically women under the age of 18. Although most individuals make light of the ideal body image most will agree that today’s pop-culture is inherently hurting the youth by representing false images and unhealthy habits. The paper compares the media-induced ideal body image with significant role models of today’s youth and the surrounding historical icons of pop-culture while exploring various sociological perspectives surrounding this issue.
Photoshopping in advertisements appealing to teenagers has a long lasting impact on the lives of teenagers. Teenagers internalize these unrealistic photoshopped images of models in the media. This can have a negative impact on their self esteem and create eating disorders. Photoshop artists’ use this software to create a false image of what society has deemed as perfect. Huffington Post recently exposed Target’s excessive use of Photoshop in their online swimsuit line advertised for teenagers. It was obvious that the photograph of the teen model was stretched to make her limbs longer and skinnier, and the Huffington Post reported that “the model is missing a piece of her crotch.” (Feldman, 2014) The purpose of the missing crotch was to use the software to create deception of the thigh gap, a new trend of skinny by having your thighs not touch. This advertisement was appalling because Target photoshopped junior models who appeal to young girls. Jamie Feldman, a writer for the Huffington Post, states “The only thing worse than photoshopping adult models is photoshopping junior models, who market to young girls.” (Feldman, 2014) This issue matters because teenagers, especially young girls, are pressured to achieve this unattainable beauty that is portrayed in advertisements geared towards teenagers.
It is a common consensus within today’s America that teenagers are looking and acting older, younger. The rise of social media and sexualized clothing marketed to young girls has young girls look older and more provocative than ever. However, despite the fact that young girls are physically presenting as older, it is still morally incorrect to sexualize them. This is due to the fact that young girls are sexualizing themselves in accordance with societal pressure, not because they are emotionally mature enough to receive sexual attention, especially that from older men.
If a young woman or girl were to open Time magazine to find the advertisements I have created for you about positive body image, I feel that more mother’s and daughters will continue to view your magazine as a reliable weekly news source. What is the purpose of using original Victoria’s Secret ads that put a faulty image into the minds of young women? Freshman biologist Megan Miller argues, “Body image is such a huge issue now. Young girls are so impressionable and when they see everyone ‘oooing and awing’ over the models, it’s going to get into their heads whether they want it to or
It seems like every little girl dreams of becoming a model. They want to be thin and pretty like the models they see on television and in magazines. Often the desire becomes an obsession and young girls see "thinness" as being a needed characteristic. For many girls, the teenage years are spent trying to acquire this look. Females are trying diets and are exercising like it is a competition to see who can lose the most weight the quickest. The obsession of many young girls over their appearance or weight has led to a growing number of people who have developed an eating disorder to try to deal with their lack of self-esteem or other related problems.
No matter how serious the impacts of eating disorders are, the fashion industry still continues to give out the products called “doll clothes” (The Sunday Telegraph, 2009) to young women. People in our society do not want to see teenagers with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” (The Sunday Telegraph, 2009). We really want to see girls with healthy body image. Clearly, there is a need to curtail the cases of teenagers suffering from body image pressures immediately (Kennedy, 2010).
In today’s world, advertising reaches and influences teens in both negative and positive ways. Teens are bombarded with ads through television, teen magazines, radio, and the internet. Advertisers know teen’s buying power and their willingness to spend their money. Many companies even hire teens to be “consultants” and trendspotters. They want to know what teens are thinking and their likes and dislikes. Some feel this is a good thing and that teens are letting companies know what they want. On the other hand, many believe all this advertising to teens has a negative impact on them. Ads show models with “perfect” bodies. “Every year, the average adolescent sees over 5,000 advertisements mentioning attractiveness” (Haugen). Some feel this leads to teens having low self-esteem, while others argue that it does not have an effect. These people believe teens have the power and control in the advertising world.
Teenagers constantly worry about their body image. Magazines, newspapers, and television don’t exactly help to boost their confidence. The portrayal of stick thin woman and body building men forces teens to believe they need to achieve that “perfect” body and look. The biggest issue of these images being broadcasted to teens is the effects that the images have on them. Teenagers who obsess over their body image can experience stress due to trying to impress others, develop an eating disorder, and neglect, and even jeopardize, important aspects of their lives when they focus too much on their body image.