Mirror Mirror on the wall, am I beautiful?
As
I walk to the mirror and stare inside it, all I can see is fat, ugly, and not
good enough. This could be your best friend, sister, brother, mother or even
yourself. While growing up did you wish you looked like that model you’ve seen
in the magazine or an actor/actress you seen in a movie? You wish you were as
skinny as they were. Anyone can fall under the pressures society creates to be
‘perfect’. The trouble these days is that the media is constantly and greatly
impacting the people to have a perfect body image, which leads to psychophysical
problems such as bulimia and anorexia. This can cause many people to go to
extremes in order to achieve what they perceive as the perfect body.
As
mention above, bulimia and anorexia is very dangerous.
Bulimia is a food disorder caused by mental insecurities. Doctors
recommend that bulimic people see a psychiatrist because the illness’s symptoms,
including compulsive exercise, taking laxatives, and throwing up can cause
one’s body to become short on electrolytes, which is extremely unhealthy. Anorexia
is a similar condition in which one loses excessive amounts of weight often by
eating very little or long periods of starvation and vomiting.
From
an early age we are bombarded with images and messages that reinforce the idea
that to be happy and successful we must be thin. It is nearly impossible to
open a newspaper or magazine, listen to the radio, shop at a mall or turn on a
TV without being confronted with the message that to be fat is to be
undesirable. The most frightening part is that this destructive message is
reaching kids. When young people feel as though their breasts, weight or hips
don’t match up to those of supermodels and actors, they feel fatally flawed.
Sadly, even children of elementary school age are obsessed over their weight.
To illustrate the media’s obsession with thinness, try and name 5 current
female television personalities who are overweight. Did it take you a while, if
so, it’s because you barely see any bigger people on the media.
According
to a study from the University of Central Florida, nearly 50% of girls aged
three to six were already concerned about their weight. Another research also
showed that four out of five women in the U.S. are unhappy with their
appearance. Many magazines create images of women that don’t really exist by
using computer-modified compilations of various body parts. Many actors and
musicians have admitted to struggling with eating disorders including Demi
Lovato, Katie Couric, Lady Gaga, Kate Beckinsale and Kelly Clarkson.
Dr.
Susie Orbach, PhD best known for being the first to raise awareness of women’s
body image and eating disorders through her book Fat is a Feminist Issue tells
us about how the media affects many women today.
Dr. Orbach was part of of a study group at Harvard, through their studies she
had found that only 2% of women felt able to say that they were beautiful
despite beauty being an incredibly important category for women. Half of 16- to
21-year-old girls would consider having surgery to change the way they look.
Jean Kilbourne, who is well known for her award-winning films
Killing us softly tells us about the media effects on body image. Kilbourne
says that women in general only exist in a world where their bodies are
constantly judged, and their worth depends on how they look. Only 5% of women
have the body type that is good enough. They must be young, thin, and almost always
have to have breast implants.
Besides all he bad factor that the media plays in body image,
being thin and attractive can be very powerful in today’s society.
Having this image can mean the difference in getting a job you want or that guy
that you’ve had your eye on. Society bases a lot on first impression, which impacts
our outside appearance. Therefore, to be successful, women believe that they
have to have the perfect body image. Society or success aren’t the only argues
why women obsess about their body image; media is one reason too.
Silvia Knobloch Westerwich, PhD, professor and graduate studies
director has wrote many articles and journal on the media and body image. She
has found that several women may be inspired by the images they view and become
momentarily hopeful that they can improve their own body shape and possibly
even achieve the same thin-ideal bodies they see in the magazines. The media
can play a big role for motivation for men and women. It can be a inspiration
to many. This is contradicting as many studies suggest that the media obsession
with promoting ideal bodies only damages a woman’s satisfaction about their
weight and their body. Westerwich said, “Women are motivated by these fitness
and beauty magazines to try to attain these supposedly perfect bodies, and may
even get a short-term body image boost when they start dieting.” Westerwich
also mention that this stems from problems
the person has within themselves rather than the media. Eating disorders are a
psychological disorder, so some say the urge to eat less or purge stem from
biological concepts, not the media. According to Knobloch-Westerwick the media
simply cannot be the cause of 8 million people in the United States who have
eating disorders. Other issues such as environments and troubled personalities
seem to be labeled as contributing factors on body image and not just the
media. The National Eating Disorders Association states that a contributing
factor could come from problematic relationships at home with family members,
and not the media.
Overall, whether you debate if the media that has a influence on
body image is up to you. I personally think that the media is a big factor to
body image for today’s society. It plays a big role in everyday life. I’ve seen
many of my friends and even family member suffer through eating disorder or
just being overly conscious of their body everyday to the extreme. I wish that
the media would stop displaying ultra thin models or actress on advertisement and
magazines. I want to see real people and know that they are beautiful from the
inside and outside.
