Beauty Secrets--media
The media's effect on the body images of children is a substantial one. Both boys and girls, not to mention adults, feel the pressure of attaining the perfect bodies displayed in the media. Television and print media make no attempt to hide their opinion that thin, slight women and large, muscular men are the ideal body types. Self esteem is often shown in relation to a character's body - overweight women are shown to be depressed, anti-social, bitter and mean spirited; large men are shown to be unintelligent, gullible, plain, and unsuccessful in their careers. The media willingly portray how people should look, dress, act, and even speak, according to their gender and body type. Children today face stringent expectation as to how they should look and act, according to their gender, to gain social acceptance. Children as young as five know that if they want to be well liked and lead a "normal, happy life," they must conform to our society's standards of beauty. These standards are taught to the members of our society using the media. Family values, friends, religion, and any other social factors that may affect children also teach them. Children see it everywhere, in movies, an television, in magazines, in t
Jill Welibourne, an eating specialist, was quoted as saying "a cloud of blame (should) lie over television, which chooses men of all sizes to be presenters, but only thin women [Morant, 3]. Botta concludes by saying that 'yes' the media do influence what we consider to be the "perfect" body, but she notes that she does not see this ideal as motivating (most) people to attain this body. It is true that everyone in the media is held up to higher standards than the rest of our society's population, but it seems that women ultimately bear the brunt of such expectations. A boy of seven years might learn from both media and social cues that it is now less appropriate for his best friend to be the girl down the street, and more appropriate to replace her with the boy next door. She also notes a 1988 study by Nassar, which found that "the rate of eating disorders was found to be lower in non-western cultures where thinness was not particularly valued. When the years of education increased to 13 or more, females averaged 10 fewer pounds. The underweight models shown on television, in movies, and in other forms of media, give children the impression that they must be extremely thin and physically fit to be a normal, functioning member of society. Disturbingly, although only twenty-nine percent of the girls were overweight, nearly seventy percent admitted they wanted to lose weight. The study aimed to improve this group's endorsement of the "thin ideal. These men, having had the standards raised by the centerfolds in Playboy, would now make harsher judgement on the women in their everyday lives, (which the little girl would pick up on through conversation) and how the men acted towards different types of women. The pervasiveness of our mind-media link will continue until the two are inseparable. Some say that the media reflects society, but as time goes on, it may seem more accurate to state that society mirrors the media. This process would most likely be a combination of the girl's media exposure, and her perception of what men deemed attractive from listening to the comments the men around her made about women. Somehow, many people feel that "if they could just lose the weight" their lives would somehow "come together.
Common topics in this essay:
Beauty Secrets,
Abraham Johnson,
Schwartz Thompson,
Adolescents Botta,
Jill Welibourne,
Report Women,
Alison Field,
Medical Journal,
Peterson Kelly,
Renee Botta,
percent girls,
eating disorders,
people feel,
television magazines,
according gender,
girls island,
ideal body,
body types,
fashion magazines,
ages 18-74,
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Acceptance Essays
