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Body Dissatisfaction And Unconsciously Affected By Social Media

1653 Words7 Pages

We live in a world bounded by Media, we can say that we are unconsciously influenced by it. What we listen to, what we watch, what we like and dislike ,how we dress and represent ourselves and even our ideas and thoughts are said to be shaped by the Media. Billboards, cellphones, books, magazines commercials and advertisements not to forget social media from Facebook to Instagram to Myspace and Yahoo etc... All of the latter go under the term Media. With the rise of such technologies and communication techniques people were able to communicate easily entertain themselves and facilitate their lives however many disadvantages appeared such as the lack of interpersonal relationships, autism in children specifically, in addition to some health …show more content…

This theory proposes that people are constantly evaluating themselves, and do so by comparing themselves to others (Festinger,1954).The article highlights two types of social comparisons the upward comparisons and the lower comparisons. Upward comparisons are when people compare themselves to someone else and find themselves to be lacking. Whereas the downward comparisons occur when people compare themselves with others and find the other people lacking. When women compare themselves to thin media figures while evaluating their own attractiveness, and cannot match what is physically portrayed, body dissatisfaction can occur (Tantleff-Dunn &Gokee,2002). Bailey and Ricciardelli(2010) found that upward comparisons are one of the strongest reasons for body dissatisfaction. Women read a lot of health and beauty magazines and watch television on continuous basis the “ideal-thin body image” becomes internalized which results in upward comparison leading to the formation of what is known as body …show more content…

Once schemas are formed, they are stored in long-term memory and act as the foundation for the processing of subsequent interactions with the environment (Taylor & Crocker, 1981). Self-schemas are stable and enduring memory structures about the self that integrate and summarize a person's thoughts, feelings and experiences about the self in a specific behavioral domain (Markus & Sentis, 1982). It can be formed around any aspect of the person, including physical characteristics, social roles, personality traits, skills, competencies, and interests. They are established in domains that the individual values, and they reflect the time and effort invested in the domain (Markus, 1977). To date, studies have documented the availability of self-schemas in a variety of behavioral domains including body weight (Markus, Hamill, & Sentis, 1987) since some people prioritize appearance in their self-schemas; these people are more likely to place more importance on media images and messages about body

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The author suggests that people strive to form a new relationship with their bodies (167). Worley describes the new relationship as, “... one that does not involve self-loathing, one that appreciates the miraculous bodies we have, one that brings us joy” (167). She also mentions that one should never say sorry for his body size and people should embrace their body sizes (167). Worley explains how people look at models and pictures in magazines wanting to be skinny just like them. However, society fails to remember the reality of those photos.

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The mindset that a person can never be "too rich or too thin" is all too prevalent in society, and it makes it difficult for females to achieve any level of contentment with their physical appearance (Serdar, n.d.). The level of persuasiveness the media has can be overwhelming for women in particular who are constantly hit with images to compare and evaluate themselves to (Achtenberg, 2006). Recent literature suggests that girls as young as 6 years old experience body dissatisfaction, as evidenced by a preference for an ideal figure that is thinner than their perceived current body size (Ambrosi-Randic, 2000; Davison, Markey & Birch, 2003; Dittmar, Halliwell & Ive, 2006; Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2004, 2005, 2006a; Lowes & Tiggemann, 2003). It is evident that the experiences have a profound effect on how we grow up, making them a critical factor in our development. Often, the self-esteem we develop by the age of five-years-old is what carries us through for the rest of our lives.

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Americans tend to value thinness while shaming those who are overweight. With the rise of technology and social media, social comparison is ever-present which is culminating a series of issues related to body satisfaction. This combined with limited research on eating disorders in people who don’t fit the white woman persona leads to misdiagnosis and mistreatment of patients. With time spent on social media platforms increasing, the rates of eating disorder is also on the rise, “…respondents who spent more time on Facebook were more likely to display eating disorders, have negative body image, eat in dysfunctional ways, and want to diet” (Comer 2015). With social media being as prevalent as it is, there are countless opportunities for users to compare themselves to fitness models, celebrities, and even their peers, perpetuating issues such as cyber-bullying, body shaming, and ultimately, eating disorders.

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Self-schemas related to body appearance are thought to influence how individuals respond in various social and private contexts (Cash et al., 2004 and Cash et al., 2005). Women are under constant pressure to achieve and maintain unrealistic slim and toned bodies in accordance with the Western cultural ‘ideal’ (Thompson & Heinberg, 1999) which increases the likelihood of negative emotions and body image disturbance (Brunet et al., 2012, Cash and Smolak, 2011, Fox, 2000 and Monro and Huon, 2005). Although negative body-related emotions may not always lead to clinical psychopathologies such as eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, and depression, they are associated with reduced overall psychological well-being (Davidson and McCabe, 2005, McKinley, 2006 and Moradi and Huang,

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Since this is this case young women traditionally look to media as a way to gauge how they should act, what they should be wear and what they should look like. Young women are aware of the fact that the images and videos that are seen through the media are often doctored and idealize thin body images; however because media is ever present adolescent girls tend to give into the thin-ideal as normative and realistic representations of the female body, resulting in negative effects of exposure and reinforcement of thin-ideal standards as frequently aired in Western media (Harrison, 2000; López-Guimerà et al., 2010). Some experts argue that many of the studies done on media are inconsistent because in certain instances the thin-body ideal that is present in advertisements could induce negative perceptions of the body and in other cases there is little to no effect on the individual. This is the case because there are a variety of different factors that can affect body image and self-esteem that make some individuals more susceptive to having issues such as age, body weight along with peer and parental support and interaction to name a few. The results of a study conducted by Mike Featherstone a sociologist and professor at the University of London have shown that “an individual’s susceptibility to having negative body image issues reflects the extent

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Social media plays a big role in how society portrays body image. “Alternatively, an increased number of Facebook friends may provide girls with greater opportunity to rapidly make multiple social comparisons, itself shown to be associated with body image concern”(Tiggemann and Slater 82). According to the survey that was taken by Marika Tiggemann and Amy Slater, the more Facebook friends the girls had, the more likely it was that they had body image concerns. They were able to compare themselves to the other girls that they were friends with, which led to them to have an increase in their drive for thinness. “Further, these comparisons are likely to be with somewhat idealised images, in that girls mostly post photographs in which they look good or are doing something ‘cool’ (and can be digitally altered)”(Tiggemann and Slater 82).

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It is common for women in many societies to view their physical appearance as a basis of their individual worth (Haboush, Warren, & Benuto, 2012). While it may not be healthy, it is a frequent theme seen throughout the United States. Nationally, the ideal woman is reflected as having a, “very thin body with long legs, light eyes, clear skin, and no wrinkles,” (Haboush, Warren, & Benuto, 2012, p. 668). Women who seek to achieve this ideal draw information about it from media because it reflects their worldview (Balcetis, Cole, Chelberg, & Alicke, 2013). Some women in the United States may feel pressure to attain this ideal and go to great lengths to achieve it.

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I believe that American culture and media has had a negative impact on our perceptions of body image. In American society now, beautiful qualities are denoted by a skinny figure, large bust and hips, long hair, and a submissive personality. These attributes are unimaginable and have truly caused strife and complications to the other individual self esteem. Women today now stress over trying to obtain and maintain the specified attributes to stay what they believe is beautiful. Many girls become bulimic, anorexic, and or depressed in response to the verbal abuse or pressure that they may experience.

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People tend not to sometimes love the body they were created in because of the way the media culture has acculturated certain body shapes and sizes. Body image refers to a person’s mental representation of their body. The way people view their body mentally can either be positive or negative. In today’s society, where the media culture and celebrities dominate almost everything, including a certain way people should look, have made most people have a negative body image. As a result of people having negative body image, it has contributed to many eating disorders, low self-esteem and low self-confidence.

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Weight-influenced self-esteem (WISE), a self-schema that connects weight to self-esteem (McFarlane et al. 2001; Trottier et al. 2013) is a vital self-schema that is associated with appearance. Based on ladies' weight, they assess their self-esteem more, as ladies have stronger WISE. Thus, changes in self-regard can be brought on by even the little variances in weight. Even more particularly, as indicated by Trottier et al. (2013) ladies who have embraced this self-schema not just assess themselves adversely around physical attractiveness, additionally in different areas, for example, in their relationships with other individuals, and their work in response to weight gain (Dijkstra, Barelds, and Van Brummen-Girigori, 2015).

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Social media is a powerful source in today’s society, 81% of the population in the United States alone has set up a social media profile. Many use the media for useful things, like educational opportunities and business inquiries. Although there are people who may look at it more in a concerning aspect. Many people today view the social media as a stage where they are judged and told what the real way to look and act is, more specifically, body image. Social Media has a negative impact on body image, through creating a perfect view physically which affects someone mentally, targeting both male and female, and turning away from the real goal of social media.

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The author discusses how the modern society objectifies the female body, and how females have come to view their body from the eyes of society by living through the standards set by society. The chapter also talks about the negative effects associated with self-objectification such as body shame, appearance anxiety, and depression. The book also discusses recent research developments on self-objectification of women and various scales for measuring self-objectification. The researches carried out showed evidence for and the causes of self- objectification including psychological consequences , and associated mental health

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This piece of literature further proves the counter-notion that self-objectification only occurs in women and not in men. Throughout the document, there is no male-empathetic statements that acknowledge the pressures felt by men to attain a certain physical appearance. This source also confirms the undeniable presence of self-objectification in the twenty-first century, as I proposed in my introduction to this research task. Reliability: this source is reliable because it clearly states on the front page of the document that the document “has been accepted for inclusion in McNair Scholars Research Journal by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@EMU.”, which means that the document has been analysed and deemed suitable for public access. The company would not have authorized the publication of the document if it would tarnish or jeopardise the company’s name.

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Media are platforms of mass communication that can be categorized as either new of traditional media, with new media being forms of communication that make use of technologies such as the Internet, and traditional media being more conventional forms of media such as newspapers. Media, primarily new media, is getting more popular and influential, especially in today’s day and age since we are exposed to it a lot more than in the past and also since media is more easily accessible now. The media can shape our behaviours, perceptions and opinions, and it is important to know how people are influenced and impacted by it. The media can influence someone’s perception of social reality, or perceptions of beauty or even influence people’s behaviours and habits and therefore, the media does shape who we are. One way that the media can shape who we are is by influencing our perception of social reality.

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