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Media's Negative Effects On Body Image

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Beauty is a rather amorphous concept. When taking differing cultures’ views on it; interpretations of it can be complete polar opposites. Despite this, beauty still holds an incredible amount of control in almost every human society. When viewing Cameron Russell’s Ted talk, The Power of Image, she explains in depth the dangers of body image and the pressures it forces upon some people in our society. One subject she briefly touches on is that of societal image and power. A societal image can hold a large amount of power, but it can be completely dangerous as a result. The superficiality of beauty can cause depression, eating disorders & suicide. According to alarming studies, approximately 90% of all women from 10 countries through …show more content…

Esther Vargas from Penn State University would state “With the ever-increasing size and influence of the mass media in our daily lives, we are seeing more and more individuals suffer negative effects of being constantly exposed to images of ‘ideal’ bodies in the media. This can cause a negative perception of one's body image and contribute to developing eating disorders” (The Negative Effects of the Media on Body Image Paragraph 1). At the Bulimia.com, it tells us of the many eating disorders in depth, such as bulimia, anorexia, BDD. Along with this information, it gives us plausible reasons for why one could be suffering from such disorders. For BDD specifically, that negative body image is a key component to the disorder developing. As well, a most notable analysis comes from the article comes from Jon E. Grant and Katharine A. Phillips from the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown Medical School; noticing that those suffering from BDD or anorexia typically start it with excessive concern about their physical appearance. Others, such as Romeo Vitelli Ph.D., question: “Why have obesity and eating disorders become so common in children and adolescents? Along with an unhealthy obsession with food, diet, and appearance, there also seems to be …show more content…

Schwartz, M.D., professor emeritus of pediatrics at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, agreed with the findings and noted that in another recent study, 77.1 percent of obese and 54.2 percent of overweight adolescents had an accurate perception of what they weighed” (Sharyn Alden Body Image Tied to Suicidal Thoughts in Young Teens).
Furthermore, if we go to the AFSP, it gives a concise list and explanation of the risks and warning factors of suicide along with recent statistics. Suicide can stem from feelings of anxiety, depression, and serious chronic health conditions such as eating disorders… sound familiar? These are all the minor effects of the poor body image. It causes stress, anxiety, eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia, and extremely low self-esteem. These aren’t just the effects of failing to reach current “ideal” body images. It is also the beginning signs for another, even worse epidemic that plagues our society

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I chose to do a quote from the book for part two, the quote I picked was about fear in the narrator and all the people around him. The narrator creates fear here by telling us that something is coming to the earth. Ane he keeps the readers on the edge of their seat and keeps the fear of the people in the book and the people reading by telling us that this thing coming near will cause a lot of struggle and calamity and death to the earth. He keeps the fear in all of us by stringing it along all throughout the book he never really says what he will think will happen in the end. He could tell us that the Martians will die of cold in the end or he could tell us that he thinks everything will be fine.

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This constant fixation on physical perfection has created unreasonable beauty standards for women, ones we cannot possibly achieve on our own. Such standards permeate all forms of popular media, particularly fashion magazines and advertisements. Women are bombarded with the notion that we must be thin in order to be desirable. These images project an

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All three of these articles share one common topic: body dissatisfaction leading to an eating disorder promoted by some type of media. Some degree of body dissatisfaction among women and young girls is consider a norm today. According to one girl asked to describe the “ideal girl” she described it as “5 ft. 7 in., 100 lb. , size 5, with long blond hair and blue eyes” ( Groesz, Levine, and Murnen 1). This ideal is not attainable for all young girls and women and I can only imagine how horrible this would make them feel, always seeing images of ideal beauty and not being able to meet it can cause them to go to extremes to get the body they want.

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Everyday females are exposed to how media views the female body, whether in a work place, television ads, and magazines. Women tend to judge themselves on how they look just to make sure there keeping up with what society see as an idyllic women, when women are exposed to this idea that they have to keep a perfect image just to keep up with media, it teaches women that they do not have the right look because they feel as if they don’t add up to societies expectations of what women should look like, it makes them thing there not acceptable to society. This can cause huge impacts on a women self-appearance and self-respect dramatically. Women who become obsessed about their body image can be at high risk of developing anorexia or already have

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Dissatisfaction amongst today’s youth regarding their personal body image is increasingly common, warranting a necessary change in the norms and behaviours that are portrayed to Canadian youth. The necessary change that must be implemented moving forward is the portrayal of healthy and attainable body images through media. A 2012 ABC News article stated the average model weighs 23% less than the average woman (Lovett, 2012). Such an appalling statistic is something that must be tackled as we progress toward the future seeing as it showcases to the youth of today that anorexia and unhealthy body weight is seen as desirable or attractive. The relation between such a statistic and anorexia is clear.

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756 Words | 4 Pages

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

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According to a survey done by Jesse Fox, Ph.D., 80% of women feel bad about themselves just by looking in the mirror (Dreisbach). This has happened because of social media being changed to make girls feel like they need to have a certain body shape. Models and celebrities in magazines and media show unrealistic beauty and it contributes to eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and much more (Seventeen magazine). Media has put lots of stress on women throughout history with changing body shapes. A survey done by Dove found results that 9 out of 10 women want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance.

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Kirk, Ginger, Kusum Singh, and Hildy Getz. " Risk Of Eating Disorders Among Female College Athletes And Nonathletes." Journal Of College Counseling 4.2 (2001): 122. Academic Search Premier.

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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.

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Anorexia survivor Erin Treloar said “my eating disorder was perpetuated by retouched magazine photos”. Beauty standards has such a giant effect on women emotionally, psychologically and physically. The pressure on women to be thin leads to unhealthy weight loss practices (Battle & Brownell, 1996), eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia (Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, & Tantleff-Dunn, 1998) and low self-esteem (Tiggeman & Stevens,

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Does the media cause poor body image? This is a very important question I plan to answer during this essay. However, there are other questions we need to answer first, such as, what is body image, how important is body image, and how does the media portray body image, to fully understand the role the media has regarding this topic. What is body image?

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One of the most dangerous illnesses in the United States is an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. It is most commonly found in pre-teen and teenaged females. While peer pressure, bullying, or a need for control may influence the eating habits of a young woman, the major factor is the influence of the media. The media distorts how young women feel about their bodies and as a result, they turn to eating disorders in order to achieve their ideal body. The only way to halt the rising numbers of those with an eating disorder is to spread a positive message about body image.

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They often have an intense fear of fat and gaining weight and often have distorted views of their own body image (Shapiro 2). Thus, they resort to severe food restriction, periods of fasting and even various purging methods for weight loss (Grilo 5). On the other hand, Bulimic patients often binge-eat and then looking for methods to get rid of the food due to guilt by various purging methods (i.e., self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives or diuretics and excessive exercise) (Grilo 5). Although many say that the media causes eating disorders, studies have shown that the media is not the main cause of eating disorders. The media does have a part to play in causing the rise in eating disorders in today’s society.

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The media portrays these unrealistic standards to men and women of how women should look, which suggests that their natural face is not good enough. Unrealistic standards for beauty created by the media is detrimental to girls’ self-esteem because it makes women feel constant external pressure to achieve the “ideal look”, which indicates that their natural appearance is inadequate. There has been an increasing number of women that are dissatisfied with themselves due to constant external pressure to look perfect. YWCA’s “Beauty at Any Cost” discusses this in their article saying that, “The pressure to achieve unrealistic physical beauty is an undercurrent in the lives of virtually all women in the United States, and its steady drumbeat is wreaking havoc on women in ways that far exceed the bounds of their physical selves” (YWCA).

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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).

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