Media’s Negative Impact on Teen’s & Children’s Body Image
Body image is an important aspect in American culture. We as humans let companies and Hollywood determine the perfect body image, but why should we let the media define the ideal body image? Companies spend a massive amount of money to advertise to teens and children. With our constant obsession over Hollywood, the media and advertisements cause terrible effects on teen’s body image and self-esteem of children as well. Media affects both genders male and female. Not only is it mental effect, it also is physical causing eating disorders and the altering of physical appearances. Media effects teens and children in many ways through advertisements, television shows, movies, and social media. With such a controlling media it’s hard to understand what the perfect body image is.
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On average children and teens are exposed about 25,000 advertisements a year and the companies alone spend over $17 billion to market their advertisements. (Zieger) That’s an obscene amount of money put into the massive amount of advertisements shown to teens and children through various types of media. Being exposed to advertisements has a strong effect on how we see ourselves in the mirror and how we think we should actually look. Magazines themselves cause us to rely on them for information on beauty and how we should look, valuing the advice in the magazine as highly as the people around us. Woman’s magazines have a huge influence on body image, especially on teenage girls. Teenage girls rely on magazines like J-14 or teen vogue to follow the latest style and trends for