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Influence of media on teenagers
Causes and effects of negative body image
Causes and effects of negative body image
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Nowadays, society is obsessed with the way our body looks because it is now used as a way to portray what is on the inside. The ideal body image is socially designed as the ultimate goal that one can attain in order to fit-in and be acknowledged in today’s society. The image that society has on the “perfect body” that has been gathered through media, ads and culture, is something that most people have started to “idolize” and are setting
These expectations can cause insecurities in adults, teens, and even children who normally have little to no insecurities. Young children should not have to worry about the way they look or what they are wearing. Therefore, society needs to address the problem of creating negative body images. It can start by recognizing that unreal and unnatural body image can cause eating disorders and mental disorders. “50% of teenage girls and 30% of
Due to the increasing focus on women’s bodies, is it any wonder that young girls experience body dysmorphia? Studies of body image have established that girls as young as 6 to 7 years of age desire a thinner, ideal body. In many cases this is due to the portrayal of women in the media that children are excessively exposed to. This comes in varying mediums such as film, television and music videos, portraying women negatively as sexual objects of the male gaze, an aspect that has become normalized in today’s society. Girls grow up to believe that they have to be attractive to attract the attention of a man.
The media negatively influences female perception of the body image in America. Advertisements, magazines, billboards and commercials portray women to be thin and flawless. The media’s perception of the perfect body image causes women to have a low self-esteem that can influence eating disorders, such as, bulimia and anorexia. Media influences cause women to look at image rather than personality, and creates a negative opinion about heavy people. Advertisements such as magazines and billboards spend thousands of dollars to persuade women to be uncomfortable in their own skin.
“I’m so fat, why can’t I be skinny just like her!” “How does she get the perfect body, while I’m stuck with all of this fat!” These statements are common among teenage girls of today’s society. Social media of today shows unreal pictures of photoshopped models and the “perfect life”. This leads to discontent of young women with their body and lives.
Men and women nowadays are being assaulted and humiliated into considering that their body is not good enough. Body shaming is uncompromising and punctures deeply. People often listen to their minds expectations, lies, and criticism body shaming themselves. Another way people are being shamed for their body is by the judgement of others. This affects mental health of those who have experienced body shaming by causing anxiety, depression, and loss of self-confidence.
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.
In today’s modern culture, almost all forms of popular media play a significant role in bombarding young people, particularly young females, with what happens to be society’s idea of the “ideal body”. This ideal is displayed all throughout different media platforms such as magazine adds, television and social media – the idea of feminine beauty being strictly a flawless thin model. The images the media displays send a distinct message that in order to be beautiful you must look a certain way. This ideal creates and puts pressure on the young female population viewing these images to attempt and be obsessed with obtaining this “ideal body”. In the process of doing so this unrealistic image causes body dissatisfaction, lack of self-confidence
Have you ever look through a magazine and you see all these models, celebrities, or fitness instructors with a great body? After looking at the magazine, did you start criticizing your body? These are one of the problems the media has on body image. These media resources are designed to make certain individuals feel depressed about their body image. The media has a dramatic impact on the self image of how people see themselves.
Body image is liable to affect someone’s performance in the future and their ability to perform something in a permissible manner. Someone’s low thoughts on their body can sabotage their chance to be successful as it can lead to no belief in themselves. Having low body image can lessen a person’s chance of succeeding in their lifetime because body image lasts for their entire
Body image basically has a perception component, how one visualizes the size and shape of the body; an attitudinal component, what one thinks about one’s body both cognitively and affectively and how committed one is to a thin ideal and behavioural manifestations related to body image.(Botta, 1998) Body image, as defined by Judy Lightstone, “involves our perception, imagination, emotions, and physical sensations of and about our bodies. It’s not static-but ever changing; sensitive to changes in mood, environment, and physical experience. It is not based on fact. It is psychological in nature, and much more influenced by self-esteem than by actual physical attractiveness as judged by others.
Ways that body images can harm teens body image is when girls or guys try to act different from who they really are and dress like they have to be the best looking everyday. In my opinion you don’t have to look the best everyday because you don’t
The issue in the scenario is Photo Manipulation. Photo manipulation is altering or transferring a photograph to make it look more appealing. Some photo manipulations are considered an art form because it involves the creation of unique images. The manipulation of photographs can be done using a variety of software programs like Photoshop, Lightroom, Gimp and many more. Photo manipulation creates an illusion or deception on the original photograph.
For example, girls will style their hair to “become more attractive” (Berger 2014), or they will purchase ‘minimizer,’ ‘maximizer,’ ‘training,’ or ‘shaping’ bras, hoping that their breasts will conform to their idealized body image” (Berger 2014). This all appears to be harmless activities, yet when body image is only addressed outwardly and not psychologically, there can be an increase in poor and destructive behaviors. For instance, body image dissatisfaction can lead to poor self-esteem, which can create a cycle of increased body dissatisfaction, followed by decreasing self-esteem (Stapleton et al., 2017). Ultimately, a teenage girl can find herself in a cycle of “depression, eating disorders and obesity” (Stapleton et al., 2017). On study in 2012 revealed, “Two-thirds of U.S. high school girls are trying to lose weight, even though only one-fourth are actually overweight or obese” (Berger 2014).
B: Body image is socially constructed: In medicine, the human body is viewed as a biological entity made of several organs, each has a specific function. In contrast, sociologists believe that the human body is socially constructed. In this sense, the human body has two dimensions: biological and social. The first refers to the way the body carries its biological function and the later refers to how the cultural and societal values shape the body to carry out social functioning.
