...these forms of entertainment seem to be harmless outlets of creativity. Yet these very forms of media affect women all over the world and tell them what they should physically look like to be deemed as beautiful in society. One may not believe that the media is up to such a terrible act, but subconsciously women believe what the media portrays as beautiful. Today’s pop culture demonstrates the impact of self-image and the effect it has on society and the way the society should look. Ads and pop culture enforce a negative outlook on the body image, which affects young women throughout the society. There are many aspects of today’s society that effect women within this pop culture and the way they have started to look at their bodies and see themselves as below average because they are not measuring up to the standards of society. In all reality, media and advertisement must know the effects it has on the young women and their body image in the world, but choose to ignore the fact because of the success that has sky rocketed in the past years. Not many people can ignore the media and find themselves beautiful no matter what features they have, but the ones who do such things are confident and strong while growing up in this tough and harsh world. Ads within television, magazines, newspapers, etc. all have some direct correlation to the media having an effect on the body image of young teens. These ads show beautiful models with long skinny legs, blonde hair, and blue eyes laying...
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...Empty Vessel: Self-esteem Concerns in young girls Gonzalo Melendez University of Texas in El Paso Abstract This paper will take a look at the different dynamics of the rising the issue of the continued decrease in self-esteem in young girls. This paper will inform you of the age that self-esteem becomes a factor in a young girl’s life. It will also address the multiple causes that affect self-esteem in young girls. It will explain the long-term effects that come with low self-esteem and low self-image. Finally it will highlight ways to help mitigate and prevent low self-esteem in young girls in our society. Intro 12 year old Lana wakes up one morning looks in the mirror and thinks “Ewe why are not pretty.” “I really hate the way my jeans look on me.” “I wish I was smart.” The thought process behind a young girls mind today is a scary one. “Today we define self-esteem as ‘positive or negative attitude toward one’s self’’ and can be viewed as a key indicator of a healthy psychological well-being.” (Daniel Clay, 2005). Self-esteem can be fragile and can be easy shattered. Body image is central to adolescent girls’ self- definition, because others have socialized them to believe that appearance is an important basis for self-evaluation and for evaluation. (Daniel Clay, 2005) Poor self-image is a growing issue among most young girls in today’s society. When you think of poor self-image, most people think immediately of looks, but the truth is poor self-image is also how...
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...The Harmful Effects of Media on Teenage Girls’ Self Image Media is one of the most effective tools in the world. People learn more from the media than any other single source of information. No matter where people look, they are constantly assaulted with images and ads, whether it is online, watching television, or even walking down the street. Because of the media’s ease of accessibility, it is vital that America understands the subliminal messaging behind the entertainment and advertising, not necessarily for the adults’ sake, but for the sake of their children’s impressionable minds. With the average teenager spending 10 and a half hours a day absorbing the media’s messages, it is imperative that parents become aware of the negative effects it is having on their child, especially young teenage girls. The media has targeted this demographic and the results are tragic. The average teenage girl spends 31 hours a week watching TV, 10 hours a week online, and 17 hours a week listening to music. (Kaiser Family par. 13) With that much time spent doing these things it’s a safe assumption that the media has a huge influence on teens and takes up a majority of their free time. Drew Altman, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation said, “When children are spending this much time doing anything, we need to understand how it’s affecting them – for good and bad” (par. 7). With the media imposing so much influence over young America, it is crucial that action be taken...
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...Media Research Assignment: Body Image “If your hair isn’t beautiful, the rest hardly matters” (an ad for shampoo). A woman in a diet ad exults, “I’d probably never be married now if I hadn’t lost 49 pounds.” Society never noticed beauty because it is too busy trying to create it. What role is media playing in the effects it has on people? Today's media in America affects social standards, and many often identify the media as their primary source of information. The mass media serves as a mediating structure between individuals and how we address identity by sending a powerful message to society: only a determined physical stereotype of beauty is valued. Reiterated by other primary agents of socialization, such as families, peers and schools, the idea is taken seriously by individuals. Body image is a complicated aspect of the self-concept that concerns an individual's perceptions and feelings about their body and physical appearance. Media negatively affects body image through ideal appearance, health issues and self-esteem. Effects of Advertisement: Society is extremely immersed in media. Media portrays the ideal body image negatively and impacts ideal appearance through magazines, commercials, and advertisement. The mass media's depiction of women portrays a standard of beauty that is unrealistic and unattainable for a majority of women in society. For example, Amy Finley, a community leader advocating advice for women, discusses a healthy message that women shouldn't...
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...Does media effect a women’s body image? Rational The rationale of this experiment is to study the effect media has on a female’s body image and self-esteem. “Popular media barrages women with images that portray what is considered to be the ‘ideal body’” (Serdar, 2014, para.7). Society tells women what kind of body image they should strive for. The media portrays the ideal body as accentuating features such as eyes, breasts, bottom and legs. This image is based of the look of an average fashion model that is 5’10” and weighing around one hundred twenty pounds. These features do not apply to the average day women when in fact the average Canadian woman is only 5’4” and weighs about one hundred seventy pounds (Linken, 2009, para.3). These ideas are pressured upon women of all ages through every source of media. Television, bill boards, newspaper, radio, magazines etc. are all guilty of applying such pressures to females. Media is also guilty of creating a “cult of thinness” known as cutting girls down to size, infantilizing so grown women appear as children and objectifying women by turning them into objects, cutting out body parts and attaching them to objects in ads. It’s important to understand that the ideal body image that is presented by the popular media is not healthy or realistic. Should a female actually achieve this body image or weight, she would be classified as underweight. Risks associated with being underweight include anemia, nutritional deficiencies...
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...does the media use airbrushing to hide any flaws a model has? If looks do not matter, why do so many teenage women suffer from low self-esteem? If looks really do not matter, why do so many young women struggle with eating disorders? It is because our society promotes a certain body image as being beautiful, and it’s a far cry from the average woman’s size 12. A common issue young women face in today’s society is the airbrushing of models in the media, creating an impossible ideal for these young women to strive for. The unrealistic standard of beauty that women are bombarded with everyday gives them a goal that is impossible to reach, and the effects are devastating....
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...this is what child beauty pageants consist of. At a very young age, little girls are exposed to the world of child pageants and often forced to participate in the contests. The popular television show, Toddlers and Tiaras on TLC which aired first in 2009 exposes viewers the life of young pageant stars. It entertains viewers by displaying how the young girls and their families deal with child beauty competitions which is not all fun, as it consists of tantrums and attitude. Toddlers and Tiaras displays how the young girls wake up early on the day of their competition, get dressed up with their big gowns, apply heavy weight of makeup, and walk down the stage in front of...
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...Self-esteem is a major challenge in our era today, especially in younger women. It lies at the heart of many of the diverse issues and challenges we face in life. But what exactly is self-esteem? According to the Webster’s Dictionary self-esteem is “the confidence in which we view ourselves”. Everyone needs self-esteem, regardless of age, sex, and ethnicity, considering it affects virtually every facet of life. The positive self esteem that middle school girls possessed in the past no longer exists and the lack of a strong sense of self will negatively affect these young girls well into their futures. Low self-esteem is a feeling of being unworthy, of not measuring up to others and feeling incapable of achievements or successes in life. Low-self esteem essentially comes about from a lack of self-love and self-rejection (Teen, 2). It is rooted in past experiences, especially if the person did not get much affirmation and reinforcement in their childhood, or was hurt and rejected in some way, and has fear and negative thinking at its core (Harter, 2). Other causes that trigger low self esteem in middle school adolescent girls include peer pressure from social groups, the media, and elders. Low self-esteem can be physically, mentally and socially debilitating (Results, 1). Countless amounts of problems occur if a young teen has self-esteem issues. According to the Dove self-esteem support foundation, “Over 50% of women say their body disgusts them, 6 out of 10 girls think they'd...
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...The media have brainwashed our minds, with the same body type, causing us to lose confidence in ourselves. These actors and actresses displayed, show bodies which are not realistic of the general population. Self-harm has increased over the years due to body distortion, diagnoses such as depression, suicide, anorexia, substance abuse, and eating disorders...
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...Media Effects of Women’s Body Image This paper aimed at to help 15-30 years old women to build a healthy and positive attitude toward their body image. The research question that I raised is how do TV advertisements and fashion magazine affect 15-30 years old women to build their self-esteem and body image view in the U.S.? More specifically, I will examine the various aspects of negative effects that the television and fashion magazines bring to the 15-30 years old women. I proposed that the negative effects that television and fashion magazines bring to young women is more serious than people expected. I do intend to cite the relatively few statistic data and clinical studies that have been conducted on media’s negative effects on women’s body image. My audience will be the 15-30 years old women who do not aware enough of the problem that I describe or who was struggled by the problem that I describe for a long time. Nowadays, a woman’s identity is linked strongly to her physical appearance. In this situation, coverage of women in media mostly concerns women’s appearance and set them as sexual objects. Most social commentators agree that the media reflects current social norms (Grogan, 1999). Body image is the picture of the size, shape, and form of people’s bodies that people see in their mind’s eye (Honigman & Castle, 2007). It is also central to the self-concept and to self-esteem, influencing psychological functions and diverse behaviors (Cash & Pruzinsky...
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...Anorexia: The Role of Media Hillary Indako University Of Nairobi Eating disorders have a higher mortality rate than any other mental illness. As many as 20 percent of those who suffer from anorexia will die prematurely from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems. While there are many possible causes and triggers for these disorders, the media’s influence on body image cannot be overlooked. The media has been playing a central role on the growth of eating disorders such as anorexia. As adolescents we are convinced with images and messages that tend to further the idea that to be happy and successful we must be slim. Nowadays, It is nearly impossible to open a newspaper or listen to the radio, or turn on a TV without being confronted with the ideas that to be fat is to be undesirable. When adolescents feel as though their breasts, weight or hips don’t match up to those of supermodels and actors, they feel fatally feel secure. This in turn makes to feel insecure about their body image and thus resulting in this eating disorder. Surveys show that there is plenty of evidence demonstrating that the media encourages slimness and weight loss and over-emphasize the importance of beauty and appearances. It appears that beauty and fashion magazines significantly impact the process of identity development in young women, especially with regards to gender-role learning, identity formation, and the development of values and beliefs (Arnett...
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...become acceptable for individuals to nit-pick and degrade themselves based solely on their physical exteriors? Is the media to blame? Throughout the years, the media has reached countless individuals and has had an influence on them in a number of different ways. From the moment we get out of bed the mornings to the time we lay our heads down at night it seems that we are constantly exposed to some form of media, whether it’s through the radio, the television, magazines and/or newspapers. This assignment allowed me to gain an understanding about how much of an impact the media has on individuals in an undesirable way. Specifically, I was interested in the possibility that communication media had a negative influence on the body images of both men and women. Originally I was only concerned with adults but then I expanded and began looking for data representing young children and...
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...wearing more makeup, and the focus is shifting away from natural beauty towards glitz and glam. The emergence of a pageant industry has changed the pageant system, but what affect does this industry have on contestants? More importantly, do pageants’ effects on young contestants warrant regulation? As more young girls compete in pageants, answering these questions and determining the effects of child beauty pageants becomes more important. These questions need to be answered so that the well being of pageant participants is ensured. The issue of regulation is of particular importance since parents, pageant companies, and the media all contribute to the growing pageant industry. Some regulation is needed to protect the young participants. Generally this regulation would be the parent’s responsibility, but in this paper I will argue that the industry merits specific regulation. In order to prove that regulation is warranted, I will analyze the negative impacts of the pageant industry using research from psychologists and sociologists along with accounts from previous contestants and media sources. Prior to providing this analysis, I will also present a brief history of the pageant system to show readers how today’s pageant industry has emerged. By illustrating the negative impact the pageant industry has on young contestants, I will show that pageants merit regulation. While the emergence of...
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...$55-billion on cosmetics, it is no surprise that 82% of women apply makeup to increase their self-confidence (Cash, 1989, p.351). This depressing statistic means that only 18% of women do not need to apply makeup to increase their self-confidence. In today’s American society, we are constantly bombarded by images of flawless, perfect figured girls in the media. The media is allowed to set the beauty standard, and its presence can become harmful towards women, and society as a whole. The media reinforces its message through a number of outlets such as: advertisements, social media, and magazines, ultimately making its influence inescapable. Although it may be too late to change the media’s grip on our generation,...
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...The media is selling the idea that girls’ and woman’s’ value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality and not in their capacity as leaders. Boys learn that their success is tied to dominance, power, and aggression. Many would agree that some strides have been made in how the media portray women in film, television and magazines, and that the last few decades have also seen a growth in the presence and influence of woman in media behind the scenes. Documentaries such as “Miss Representation” focus on outlining the flaws and misrepresentation media has on woman and girls. Their project aims to challenge and change the way media objectifies woman. Nevertheless, female stereotypes continue to thrive in the media we consume everyday. Gender stereotypes are everywhere. Stereotypes are defined as a “generalized view or...
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