The Impact of Culture Media on Young Girl's Body Image

In our society, we tell little girls to love and to be true to oneself. As they grow up, this message begins to disappear because our culture contradicts this idea. As girls enter the world, they are already confined with how the media set unrealistic standards for the female population. This leads girls to harm their own body, including eating disorders such as bulimia, and anorexia. The most prominent cause of these acts is advertisements. Advertisements are everywhere and they have the power to promote, sell, encourage, and give unrealistic ideals of the common people. Advertisements and media images have a negative effect on the way women view their body image which leads to self-harm.

Advertisers often emphasize sexuality and the importance of physical attractiveness in an attempt to sell products, but researchers are concerned that this places pressure on women to focus more on their appearances. As stated in an article from Body Image and Advertising, the average woman sees 400 to 600 advertisements per day and by the time she is 17 years old, she has received over 250,000 commercial messages through the media. While only 9% of advertisements have a direct statement about beauty, many more implicitly emphasize the importance of beauty- particularly those that target both women and girls. (HealthyPlace)

A body image is a subjective combination of all the thoughts, emotions, and judgments that an individual may perceive about his or her own body. Each individual has a unique perception of his or her own body. This image is strongly influenced and often times skewed due to the increasing pressure created from outside, societal factors. With a world that is continuously creating new forms of social media and entertainment, individuals are constantly exposed to images that supposedly define bodily perfection and are then expected to resemble these images in order to fit in and/or please society. The expectations that have been put in place by society has created unwanted pressure on individuals who feel as if they need to resemble these images to get society’s approval.

Media has become a significant component within society. While media provides many pros, it supplies various cons as well. One very prominent fault that the significance of media has is its visual depiction of women. There is an abundance of media portraying women to have ideal bodies, and this undoubtedly has a negative effect on adolescent girls. Two of the many effects of media on females are depression and self esteem issues, as well as eating disorders. Unfortunately, body dissatisfaction caused by media is becoming more and more common.

Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass Media is a key idea in one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for a sense of entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl. Media’s way of portraying a woman can be skewed and unrealistic way from what reality is. Teenage girls then have a desire for this look or way. In this essay the three ways I will describe as to why the media can negatively affect a teenage girls body image is by showing

In a recent survey done by the National institute on Media and the Family, fifth graders, ten year old boys and girls told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show “Friends.”(4) If this isn’t shocking enough, the research group reported that at the age of thirteen, fifty-three percent of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to seventy-eight percent by the time the girls reach seventeen. Also, eating disorders are beginning to start at an alarming young age. Statistics show that girls are developing eating disorders at the age of six.(1) Young girls that are exposed to appearance focused television programs, and magazine shows feel that they need to look like the models that they see. Most of these girls are not even have fully developed bodies yet and are already trying to perfect themselves. One girl had even shared how one of her best friends discovered that her fifth grade cousin was bulimic. Girls at that age should not even be concerned with their bodies yet and eating disorders being developed is a harsh wake up call as to how young girls everywhere are being effected by the media each and everyday.

Over time, the perfect body image has changed in many ways. This is very evident in the female sex, especially through media. “Americans spend about 68 hours per week exposed to various forms of media” (US Census Bureau 2009). This media exposure through outlets such as t.v., radio, music videos, movies, and the internet, all influence the way people think about gender. The media influence is very evident in the way people view women and think about women in different cultures. Media influence on women creates negative viewpoints with how women view themselves and even how men view themselves, in turn making it hard to break certain beliefs and stereotypes instilled on society.

The media plays a major role in the way our society sets certain standards and forms opinions. No matter where we go, the media is everywhere. The message that the media illustrates today is that “thin is in”. When was the last time you flipped through a magazine or through the television channels without seeing some type of advertisement promoting a new diet or new product being promoted by a super thin model or actress? Young girls are the main targets for new products. It is common for young girls to be obsessed with what is “in”. The message that young girls are getting from the media is that having bones sticking out is the way to look. They then become preoccupied with their bodies and self image. “ The exposure to ideal images coincides with a period in their lives where self regard and self efficacy is in decline, where body image is at its most fragile due to physical changes of puberty and where tendency for social comparison is at its peak” (www.eating-disorders.org.uk/docs/media.doc). The media illustrates to young girls an “idealized” shape which leads to being beautiful, popular, successful, and loved but which is not realistic to have unless you have the “idealized” shape. Therefore, they believe that their lives will be perfect as long as they are thin and have the “idealized” shape. The two main sources of media that reach young girls are television and magazines.

Body image crisis is strong evidence which support the idea that media negatively affect the psychology and behavior of children and teenagers. There is an inherent interconnection between the modern media and body image. Today’s media creates stereotypes of perfect bodies which make children and teenagers who do not fit the image lose confidence in them and become depressed. Perfect women according to modern magazines and television should be thin and perfect men should be with large muscles. Children and teenager are not aware of the fact that images that are show in the media are often edited with Photoshop and that everyone is beautiful in his or her own way. These are the reason why they are influenced more by perfect images in the media

Body image is an important and influential topic in our society that impacts the self-esteem, good eating habits and body satisfaction of female adolescents. Magazines and TV programs use beauty and ideal thinness to connect with young ladies and persuade them to look as good as the models in magazines by purchasing their dieting products. As asserted by Dohnt and Tiggemann, in order to advocate for female adolescents, we need to introduce programs in schools and TV with a purpose of strengthening their self-esteem (935). Although I disagree with Dohnt and Tiggemann point about introducing preventive programs in the TV, I fully endorse with introducing preventive programs in schools because it helps young adolescents to build on their understanding of an actual body shape. The media is the most influential factor in the body image of a young woman because as insisted by Gallivan, “over 80% of Americans watch TV daily, 3 hours on average.” Overall, this demonstrates that TV programs, social media, and magazines play the major role in the perception and mindset of a young women because in our generation we dedicate most of our time to watch shows and commercials that influence the way we think about

Research Proposal From television commercials to radio to print ads, advertising has defined the meaning of perfection. Most notably, advertising dictates what to eat, what to wear, where to go and who to be seen with. At the same time that childhood obesity is at an all time high, women in our society are facing advertising 's idealized portrayal of unrealistic bodies. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia and a multitude of other self inflicted diseases are running rampant in societies nationwide. Our group was intrigued by the relationship between women and advertising. College aged women often find themselves as the target of many advertisements. At a time when women are told to define themselves and mature, advertisers recognize their

We as people are easily influenced. From what to eat to how to dress and finally how to look. The media directly influences our daily decisions from the phones we buy i.e. (apple or Samsung), to the sodas we drink (-Cola or Pepsi) to how we should look. Television commercials often use thin beautiful Caucasian female models to advertise their products. The constant presence of models on television is beginning to affect how girls perceive themselves and their bodies. And this influence is having a negative impact on young girls and women. Girls are constantly trying to attain this model like figure in hopes of social acceptance and happiness in how they look, however some of the options some girls are going to are dangerous.

In today’s society as teenage girls and young females, in particular age 16-24 are more influenced by media, i.e. magazines, internet adverts, TV, music videos, etc., many of them wish having the models’ features and then they aim towards conforming to the society’s perception of beauty. Trying to achieve a ‘mirror-image’ of what media portrays as beautiful is a goal hard to obtain, as it can lead many young females to adopt eating disorders, as well as low self-esteem. Due to these factors, I have decided to conduct a mini-research project. The project will analyse the impact of media images on the body image of young girls age 16-24. In this essay, I will provide a literature review, to either challenge or agree with the findings from my own research. I will also include the methods that I used to conduct my research, but also talk about their limitations and strengths. After talking about the methods, I will discuss the findings from the research I conducted. Lastly, I will write a brief conclusion, to summarise the research.

The misconception of what is beautiful can be detrimental to young girls. In a television industry attempt to sell goods, they are depicted as sexy. Creating a need for parents to intervene and present a more realistic and normal view of physical beauty. Today, TV presents sexually based images crafted to appeal to young girls. Unfortunately, they are led to believe that their value is only skin deep, causing flawed expectations, illusions, and wrong information about the truth of the physical body in the real world. In an attempt to look the part some have fallen victim to eating disorders, while others have exchanged childhood innocence for an Adult view of what is sexy.

Advertisements for various products are seen everywhere — on billboards, in magazines, on television, and countless other places. What draws the consumer into the advertisement — the actual product, the display of the sensual woman as she drinks a glass of milk, or the muscular man sporting a Ralph Lauren blanket as a loincloth? These types of advertisements display unlikely depictions of men and women to society. Today, advertisers use the influence of gender and sex to sell various products to consumers, resulting in unrealistic expectations of men and women to society.