Impact Of Mass Media On Young Girls

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In today’s society, the media, whether it is through television or social media has a negative impact on adolescent girls. The media is very prevalent on pushing a propaganda on young women that their bodies are not good enough or that they should have certain features that are no way normal or obtainable. This propaganda is known as the Thin-Ideal. The Thin-Ideal with the media’s help is causing some young girls to have low self-esteem, extreme health issues, and depression which can be brought on by body dissatisfaction.
The media has a negative effect on young adolescent girls, causing some girls to have low self- esteem. According to “Influence of Mass Media on Emergence of Eating Disorders Amongst Young People” by Kaźmierczak, Patyrn., …show more content…

According to “Increased Body Satisfaction After Exposure to Thin Ideal Children’s Television in Young Girls Showing Thin Ideal Internalization” by Doeschka Anschutz, Rutger Engels, and Tatjan Van Strien, states that “Television watching in general, and especially experiencing pressure to be thin from the media, was found to be related to increased awareness of weight loss strategies and disturbed eating behavior later on in young children (Harrison& Hefner, 2006, McCabe, Ricciardelli, 2005)” (604). To reach the goal of being thin, some girls will binge eat and cause major health problem for themselves. Some girls can suffer from anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia nervosa is an intense fear of gaining weight even while the person is severely underweight. A person may engage in extreme dieting or physical exercise in an attempt to lose or avoid gaining weight. The health problems anorexic girls can go through are weak bones, kidney stones, and heat failure etc. People suffering from bulimia nervosa consumes large amounts of food in a short period of time. There is a feeling of having no control over their eating behaviors. To compensate for binging then, they engage in behaviors such as fasting, purging or vomiting. The consequences of those who suffer from bulimia is tooth decay because of the staining from the acid in their stomach, the rupturing of their esophagus because of the constant throwing up, and irregular heartbeats. According to “Increased Body Satisfaction After Exposure to Thin Ideal Children’s Television in Young Girls Showing Thin Ideal Internalization” by Anschutz, Doeschka J Engels, Rutger, Van Strien, Tatjan states that “In addition, young girls were found to use media as a source of information about dieting (Lawrie, Sullivan, Davies, and Hill, 2007, Schur et al., 2000). These are alarming findings, since body dissatisfaction and dieting are considered main

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