Wynter+Sandalwood

The Effects of Media Images Do you like your body? Is your self-image influenced by images from the media? In today’s society, everything revolves around the media. What we watch on television, what we hear on the radio, and what we read in the articles. “Studies investigating the media’s impact on body image find that comparing oneself to thin models in the media results in body image disturbance” (Bergstrom, Neighbors, & Malheim, 2009 ). Over the years, we have become so accustomed to seeing nearly perfect images of superstars and celebrities that we have forgotten what it is like to be normal. So today we will be discussing women, how we are perceived in the media, and how these images affect our everyday life.

First we will discuss the problem. The issue with our generation is many women aren’t satisfied with their physical appearance. To make the issue worse, we see women with perfect beauty and we want to look like them. This includes, perfect breasts, flat stomachs, small waists, completely clear skin from any marks or blemishes, all natural hair, and the list continues. Men love these women, so we feel as if we have to amount to them in order to attract men as well or even to be accepted by society.

“Body image has emerged as a core aspect of mental and physical well-being” (Dittmar, 2009). Aside from affecting women and their physical appearance, women are being affected mentally as well. Women are forcing themselves to believe that they aren’t up to par. They are decreasing their self-esteem and self-confidence because of what they believe is “in style.” So they are taking away from their own self-satisfaction just to please everyone else around them and this could later on cause stress and depression if it becomes too serious.

I know this may sound alien to some women, and many others may not be able to relate, even I didn’t believe the myths until I began high school. In a typical high school they are many teenagers beginning to experience puberty and hormonal changes; they are becoming adults and they’re always searching for ways to fit in. In my opinion, this is where it all began because this is where everyone was divided into cliques based on who they were and what they were capable of doing. This is also when females began to attract males on a more serious level than just a friendship so they would pretty much do whatever it was that had to be done to impress him and most of the time, it meant to have the perfect body shape and a beautiful face to match.

Now we will talk about the solution. According to my research based on this topic, the perfect body image for a woman would be that of a model. She would be very thin, maybe a size 0 in pants, and would not weigh more than 110lbs. Most women begin with dieting. In my opinion, dieting is pointless because some of us give up on exercising or whatever that specific dieting plan is and others gain the weight back afterwards. The only way dieting could be a success is if one follows the same dieting plan and coordinates a routine exercise weekly so that they will maintain their desired shape but she has to stay consistent because the moment she begins to get lazy, every calorie she has burned off will return.

Over the last few years, plastic surgery has sky rocketed and more and more people are getting surgery done to their body to maintain this “perfect image’ that we are viewing in the media. “ In 2007, almost 12 million cosmetic surgery procedures were performed, a 59% increase since 2000” (Markey & Markey, 2009). This was almost 3 years ago so I can only imagine how much of an increase of the percentage since 2007. Studies also show that young women are going “under the knife” as early as 19 years of age. After the procedure they are usually excited about the change but after a while terrible health related side effects begin to occur. MTV has a reality TV show called True Life. I have watched many episodes of True Life where young women have chosen to get some type of cosmetic or plastic surgery because they were overweight, had wrinkles, not large enough breasts, and so on. In a few cases, I’ve even heard of women losing their life during surgery because she lost too much blood or for any other reason and in cases where women receive breast implants, having to get the implants removed from a sudden rupture. According to Dermatologic Surgery, “In 7 years there were 31 deaths and 143 procedure-related complications and hospital transfers. Liposuction and liposuction with abdominoplasty or another cosmetic procedure resulted in 24 complications and 8 deaths” ( (Coldiron, Healy, & Bene, 2008 ). Liposuction is the leading cause of deaths related to cosmetic surgery and in this case, 58% of those deaths were from liposuction. Majority of these young women have unrealistic expectations of how they want to look after the procedure and regret their decision afterwards, usually for health related reasons or simply because the results were not exactly how they had imagined them to be.

Besides exercising, dieting, and surgery, binging and purging has become a major health related issue for younger women in our own communities. “The combination of high perfectionism, low self-efficacy, and the stress of feeling overweight has been proposed as a vulnerability-stress model for bulimic symptoms and binge eating in particular”  (Cain, M., Abramson, Vohs, & Joiner, 2008). Binging and purging has become a very big issue mainly within our teenagers. Binge-eating is a destructive pattern in which someone starves themselves. To purge is the act of removing from the bowels or forcing oneself to vomit, which could soon turn in to a case of bulimia. Bulimia: //a serious [|eating disorder] that occurs chiefly in females, is characterized by compulsive overeating usually followed by self-induced vomiting or laxative or diuretic abuse, and is often accompanied by guilt and depression”// ([|www.dictionary.com]). “Several researchers have found that individuals’ views of their bodies and the relationship of those views to a sense of an “ideal” body type influences their eating behaviors” (Tyler, Lopez, & Flores, 2009).

In conclusion, women have to learn to accept their inner true beauty. We are ungrateful when we should be thankful for what we have because somewhere out in the world there is someone who adores our imperfections. In reality, we should not have to change anything about ourselves to fit in, that’s why we were each created individually. The littlest thing that we are unhappy about with ourselves could be something that another woman only wished she could have. “Feeling unattractive produces several intrapsychic conflicts leading to depression and anxiety’ (Lijtmaer, 2010). The reason for this is the fact that most women are not satisfied with their appearance. They either have low-esteem or not enough confidence. So their escape goat is to change what it is that is bothering them. Dieting and exercising is acceptable, however binging and purging is not, and cosmetic and plastic surgery can be dangerous depending on the type of surgery. It is okay to make minor changes but when it becomes drastic to where your health is on the line, it is not safe.  3D Female Woman Model in Bikini 15274 Uploaded by 3D Model Computer Graphics - FlatPyramid on August 31, 2009 <span style="color: #363636; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt;">© All rights reserved

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I chose this image because it is the perfect representation of the body image represented in this paper. The main thing I like about this picture is how it looks as if a woman is recreating an image of how she would like to look after dieting, exercising, or surgery. This is an ideal “perfect body.” The model has a very small physique, small waistline, very flat stomach, nice size breasts, blemish free face, and nice hair. When I look at this image I can imagine a woman, before attempting to recreate her body, using this image as a goal of how she would like to look afterward. In creating this image, the author had to consider the appearance of women in the media. This is a threat to our culture because this is not how many women look. It is a perfect representation of media images and how they are perceived and this image only changes the outlook of our women and their view of how all women should look.

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