Body Image Research Paper

Modeling brings to attention the many flaws that women often struggle with and causes a women’s body image to be recognized as being unfit in society. This brings up the question of how does modeling affect body image and what is considered to be the ideal body? An article written by Brown University titled Body Image, goes into depth of the subject. Body image is known as “how we perceive our bodies visually, how we feel about our bodies, our sense of how others view our bodies, and our connectedness with our bodies” (Brown). “Body image is a widespread occupation” and has been instilled in our mindset that it is important in order to be accepted into society (Brown). A recent study of college students says that about 74.4% of average

In an article titled Victoria’s Secret Angels on Diet, Exercise, and After- Parties, Danielle Prescod gets the models intel on their workouts and diets. Most of these models work out twice a day and diet by not eating things such as meat or sweets (Prescod). The models are expected to have sharp, defined attributes that enhance their body image. Their workouts are even harder on them as a result of their low body fat which can cause other issues dealing with their muscles. All Victoria’s Secret Angels have a body fat of sub-18% which is considered unhealthy for an average, normal weight woman. The average body fat for women ranges in between 21 -24% and is considered the healthy body fat percentage. Several examples of the workouts and weight trainings the Angels have to complete includes dead lifts, squats, weighted lunges, bicep curls, bicep dips, and press ups (Cross). In addition, they do sprints in addition to another cardio related workout activity of their choosing on a daily

As a result of this, there is a constant pressure on women to achieve this look, or something close. A majority of women, including myself, wonder if life would be different if we looked a certain way. Would society be more accepting if everyone had the same body image? I found a recent study that was published in the Huffington Post and was conducted by the Warwick Business School brings in a new perspective that I personally had never thought of. When presented with a picture of the ideal body image, a model for example, many women identify their beauty (Krupnick). However, they then bring up their own self defense mechanism when comparing themselves and therefore raising their self esteem (Krupnick). On the other hand, when presented with an image that was more subtle towards the models body image and more focused on another aspect, such as a product, the image tends to cause us to feel bad about ourselves (Krupnick). In a sense, seeing images directly focused on models, which is the most common, actually cause our self esteem to go