When we open a fashion magazine, walk on the street or watch televisions, we can always see the images of slim models or advertising about building a slender body. The thin-ideal is popular in the social media of most countries and mass media touches every one with its strong and invisible influence. In mass media, including the elements such as advertising, images and articles in televisions and magazines, the thin-ideal seems to be an ordinary thing. However, the distorted thin-ideal images from the social media exaggerate the importance of thinness and have a negative effect on women, causing them to have reduced self-esteem and have weight lose actions which may lead to health problems. The exposure to thin-ideal body images may cause …show more content…
According to Conlin and Bissell's (2014) study of the thin-ideal in magazines, both of the beauty/fashion and health/fitness magazines contain a lot of thinness beliefs and focus on appearance rather than health. The mass media tends to emphasize the importance of thinness. In my study conducted a survey which involved 46 young female participants, 54.3% of them reported they have over weight whereas actually 50% have normal weight but think they are overweight. At the meantime, 70% of the women who is underweight stated they have normal or even over weight. The result implied that most women cannot evaluate their body appropriately and their desired weight is lower than healthy weight. Moreover, when asked to score the effect of the exposure of thin-ideal images or advertising in mass media on building people views to evaluate a suitable figure, 78.8% of people score equal or more than 3 (5 is the highest score and means strongest relationship) which means that most of them agree with that mass media have effect on building their value of figure. This suggest that mass media probably misled women into desiring excess
The author, Xiao, further explains how the media can cause corrupted body images, but may also have positive outcomes. Throughout the article, Xiao expresses a state of neutrality, he constantly stresses the both positive and negative stances of media. Moreover, the author provides the audience with structural models that represent the different medias and the influence it has on an individual’s self-esteem and body image. In addition to these structural models, the author concludes
This short documentary ‘’ Fast Food, Fat Profits: Obesity in America’’ presented by Josh Rushing focused on the rise of obesity in America among young adult. According to this documentary, obesity has reached a crisis point in America, as two out of every three Americans are overweight. While there are many factors that played a role in this issue, he believed that cheap food, food deserts and processed food are the reasons why one out of every three Americans is obese in our country. Back in the days, malnutrition and food shortage have been the scourge of humankind. However, as chronic food shortage issue has been resolved, we are now faced with the epidemic of obesity, and in most countries, it is now recognized as a public health crisis.
The average American will spend around a year and a half of their lives watching television commercials (Kilbourne 395). Presently advertisements are controlling our everyday lives. In Jean Kilbourne’s article: “Still Killing Us Softly: Advertising and the Obsession with Thinness”, she discusses how advertisements negatively portray women. This negative portrayal leads to self-hatred and a negative self-image for women. A major point of this is the idea of excessive thinness for women, which the advertising industry is dominantly influencing how women need to meet this standard.
Fat acceptance: A basic primer Critique essay Cynara Geissler’s article “Fat Acceptance: A Basic Primer” was first published in Geez Magazine in 2013. Geissler addresses a lot of issues about fat acceptance and how it is affecting our society and people’s attitudes towards over-weight people. One of the reasons why Geissler thinks that is because many health industries now days have a slogan “Thinner is better” and that makes over-weight people seem lazy or just not willing to put the effort to become better. Most importantly Geissler mentions that health industries and causing people to make a negative attitude towards overweight people which can be seen.
One of the biggest issues with the media is “thin-ideal media.” Many American celebrities of the twenty first century are incredibly skinny. However, this is only because so many of them lose weight due to unforgiving diets and overbearing workouts. Thin-ideal media causes the majority of issues, “‘thin-ideal media’ refers to media images, shows and films that contain very thin female leads… Thin-ideal media highlights the idea that thinness is a good and desirable thing to be, even if it is to a level that is potentially damaging to a persons health” (Farrar). Females are portrayed as feminine, skinny, and ladylike on screen.
These advertisements lower women’s status as the women portrayed in the photographs set merely unattainable standards that only assist in women’s inferiority. Advertisers should not seek to make women feel bad about their appearance as everyone comes in all different shapes and sizes and not all perfect thin and tall models. Women having a negative self-image of themselves is an ongoing issue, because the media unfavorably portrays them as they do not meet their standard of what the ideal body type of a woman should look like. Solving this issue would incredibly increase women’s confidence in themselves and their bodies, diminish eating disorders, and shrink the dieting industry that so drastically affects the health of
It Happened to Me: My Fitbit Reignited my Eating Disorder Media expectations are to blame when it comes to the increase of eating disorders in women. Concern in most recent years has gone beyond the casual worry about being thin. The assistance of computer retouching and various other methods increase the gap between media images of women’s projected beauty and the reality of the average female’s appearance (Engeln-Maddox, 2006). When the typical woman begins to comprehend that the magazine cover’s slimming airbrushed body is unattainable, she begins to internalize the mediated relationship between dissatisfaction with expectations (Engeln-Maddox). Andria Martin’s article expresses her struggles with body image and the obsession to be thin.
These women engaged in behavior agreeing to the advertisements and the message it conveyed by having a stronger preference for healthy food and decreased snack food consumption. (Williams et al., 2014) In the same article from Williams et al. it is noted that physical image is a highly efficient form of gaining popularity and acceptance and these individuals are treated better than their counterparts. (2004)
Men and women nowadays are starting to lose self-confidence in themselves and their body shape, which is negatively impacting the definition of how beauty and body shape are portrayed. “...97% of all women who had participated in a recent poll by Glamour magazine were self-deprecating about their body image at least once during their lives”(Lin 102). Studies have shown that women who occupy most of their time worrying about body image tend to have an eating disorder and distress which impairs the quality of life. Body image issues have recently started to become a problem in today’s society because of social media, magazines, and television.
"The Impact Of Advertisements Featuring Ultra-Thin Or Average-Size Models On Women With A History Of Eating Disorders." Journal Of Community & Applied Social Psychology 15.5 (2005): 406-413. Academic Search Premier. Web.
From an early age, we are exposed to the western culture of the “thin-ideal” and that looks matter (Shapiro 9). Images on modern television spend countless hours telling us to lose weight, be thin and beautiful. Often, television portrays the thin women as successful and powerful whereas the overweight characters are portrayed as “lazy” and the one with no friends (“The Media”). Furthermore, most images we see on the media are heavily edited and airbrushed
Body image has become such a big issue among society especially females mostly. According to Mariana Gozalo, states “Using Will’s sociological imagination, I thought about how there are girls who wish to look skinny because it is what is being idolized on TV and magazines and online ads. “Social media make us believe that there is a “ideal body” shape. In my opinion, there is no such a thing as the ideal body shape, because everyone is beautiful in their own individual way.
(2006), women who thought they were overweight actually averaged at a BMI of 23.7, which is still well within the healthy weight range of 18.5 to 25. Media’s portrayal of “healthy weight” promotes this inconsistency of perceived versus actual weight, even though women
Thus resulting us to further investigate on why society has the high expectations that have been set by advertising thin beautiful women with no imperfections in
This puts an idea in women's minds that, only qualified and fit models can look so exceptional in these clothes. Furthermore, after looking closely at the two adverts it is indisputable to deduce that the portrayal of women in such an intriguing way has a negative effect on the society; especially the female section. Many may suggest that there is just as much pressure on the male part however, according to the Association for Body Image Disordered Eating, it was revealed that women’s magazines had about 10.5 times as many weight loss advertisements