The study will be investigating women’s pressure to be thin, as the dependent variable, and media pressure, socio-cultural influence, aging-related alarm in relation to appearance, perfectionism, body dissatisfaction, and stress and depression, as the independent variables. The surveys will be designed with open-ended questions to encourage the participants to provide full and meaningful responses concerning the research topic.
The questions that will appear in the survey include:
1) How old are you?
2) Do you have any children?
3) How many are you in your family?
4) How many times do eat in a day?
5) Which kinds of food do you like eating every day?
6) What do you feel should be the ideal body size and shape?
7) How well do size and shape represent an ideal body?
8) How does the ideal female body size and shape differ from one woman to another?
9) How does accessibility to media images influence your feelings concerning your body shape and size?
10) Which kinds of physical exercises do you engage in to help you maintain your ideal body image?
11) How often do you engage in such physical exercises?
12) Which kinds of food do you usually avoid to enable you to maintain your ideal body image?
13) What usually drives you to eat? Is it physical hunger, anxiety, depression, or sadness?
14) What tells you when to eat? Is it your body or emotions?
15) What is your opinion about fattening and eating high-calorie food?
16) How do you usually feel eating food that is rich or high in calories?
17) How do you usually feel when you find out that your body weight has increased?
18) How often do you engage in talks about women’s body image?
19) What feelings do you usually experience during such talks?
20) Which advice can you give to fellow w...
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...ating Disorders in Middle-Aged Women.” The Journal of General Psychology 135(4): 393-407.
Park, Sung-Yeon. 2005. “The Influence of Presumed Media Influence on Women’s Desire to Be Thin.” Communication Research 32(5): 594-614.
Pidgeon, Aileen, and Rachel Harker. 2013. “Body-Focused Anxiety in Women: Associations with internalization of the Thin-Ideal, Dieting Frequency, Body Mass Index and Media Effects.” Open Journal of Medical Psychology 2(1): 17-24.
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Wasylkiw, Louise, and Molly E. Williamson. 2013. “Actual Reports and Perceptions of Body Image Concerns of Young Women and Their Friends.” Sex Roles 68(1): 239-251.
There are three variables that affect the body image one perceives about themselves, the first according to Thompson and Stice is “internalization if the thin-deal, that is, the endorsement of the media-prescribed ideal as part of one’s own personal belief system” (Thompson & Stice qtd. in Ashikali et al. 143). (Alvarez 4)
Every morning as I start my day, I am obligated to step on the scale and weigh myself whether I want to or not. Reason being, I must ensure that I am not accumulating fluid from congestive heart failure. There are days where I can gain anywhere from five to ten pounds, if I am uncareful, in turn that takes a toll on my self-image regarding my weight even though it is fluid weight. Growing up, I never had major issues regarding my weight. I was active in sports, clubs and always outdoors. It was not until after I had a child, that I began having major issues and had to do a life style change to save my life.
Van Vonderen, K. E., & Kinnally, W. (2012). Media effects on body image: Examining media
Society plays a big role in how people perceive their body image. Everyone has their own definition of body image, but it is simply one’s logic or ideal image of what one's body is or should be like (Dictionary.com, 2015). Females of all ages have high standards in society. Even though social expectations do not dictate that women change themselves, the media effects body image by giving us an image to strive to be. Sometimes this image is unrealistic. Over the past 100 years, body image has evolved. Each decade a new body image and style of how the ‘perfect’ female is supposed to look changes.
The sociocultural approach to the issue of body image among women states that women receive harmful and negative cultural messages about their bodies. These messages can come from the media as well as from family and peer influences (Swami, 2015). By promoting the thin ideal for attractiveness, the media contributes to women rating their bodies more negatively and thus increases their likelihood of developing eating disorder symptoms (Spitzer, Henderson & Zivian, 1999). In a meta-analysis studying the effects of media images on female body image, Groesz and Levine (2002) found that women’s body image was significantly more negative after viewing thin media images than after viewing average or plus size models. Harmful body messages from family can be direct, such as verbal criticism or teasing, or in...
Wiseman, C., Gray, J., Mosimann, J., & Ahrens, A. (1992). Cultural expectations of thinness in women: An update. International Journal Of Eating Disorders, 11(1), 85--89.
It has been said time and time again that media heavily influences the desastisfied body image, may women and girls enconter. Previous studies have shown how over expouser to the hyper-sexualized ads and images in the media lead to a distortion of body image in women and girls. However, there is yet another factor that influences the decline of body image just as much. Peer competition has been shown to contribute to this decline as well. Peer competition is any rivarly for supermacy amongst those of the same age group or social group. A recent study shows that women’s body dissatisfaction is influenced by peer competition with other rather than depictions of women in the media. Muñoz and Ferguson, (2012) developed a study in order to further understand the influence of inter-peer pressure in body dissatisfaction.
Holmstrom, A. (2004). The effects of the media on the body image: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 48(2), 196-217.
Yamamiya, Y., Cash, T. F., Melnyk, S. E., Posavac, H. D., & Posavac, S. S. (2005). Women's exposure to thin-and-beautiful media images: Body image effects of media-ideal internalization and impact-reduction interventions. Body image, 2(1), 74-80.
In today’s society, we are bombarded with media messages about how we should look, dress and behave. The seemingly unattainable ‘ideal’ body is broadcast on our television and movie screens, in magazines and on the internet, displaying what men and women should look like. With these images being in such abundance, many may see this body ideal as normal, with anything less unacceptable. With the advancement of technology, many of these images are altered in ways t...
O’Dea, J. (1995). Body image and nutritional status among adolescents and adults. Journal of Nutrition & Dietetics, 25, 56-67.
People react differently depending on their own traits. Studies have shown that women identify the media as the major source of the perceived social pressure to maintain a thin body image. Male body image suffers as well. When men are exposed to unrealistic male bodies, they can suffer from the same symptoms as females. People should not let the media negatively influence their bodies. The public needs to view the media for what it’s worth…pure entertainment. Media’s depiction of a “normal” body type portrays a standard of beauty that is unattainable. Both women and men are suffering from trying to reach these unattainable goals and are suffering from low self-esteem, depression and eating disorders. This is a huge epidemic and hopefully one day it will change. The media needs to promote healthy lifestyles and show men and women of all shapes and sizes that they can feel good about themselves. The “real size” people in the world, will then be able to stop feeling pressured by the media to obtain a certain standard body
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...
Studies of body image in the past have gained varying results as to the groups that are affected, as well as the amount of impact body image has with these groups. There has also been much debate over the validity of methods used to judge body image, and how well the measurements used actually correlate participants’ actual views of body image (Cash, Morrow, Hrabosky, & Perry 2004). Some factors that have led to this discrepancy in answers are questions that were framed to be more suitable to attain the attitudes of one gender over another. The initial studies of body image focused upon simply body shape which seemed to be more important to women, whereas body image affects were seen for men when questions of muscle definition were included into the questionnaire process (Ridgeway, & Tylka, 2005).
Body image for women has always been stressed for them to look a certain way and to try obtain “physical perfec...