Written by: angie_banana
In a world surrounded by billboards, commercials and magazine advertisements, the grasp that the media holds and how it influences society has become an accustomed and accepted part of our daily lives. Whether these influences are present it is the evening news, reading a magazine with your coffee in the morning, or simply seeing yet another catchy advertisement for another catchy product, the target in all situations is the same- Appeal to society in whatever way suits a company best. This has resulted in the so called new and improved North America, with its sexy provocative models and young bubbling girls just waiting to help the corporate world sell just a little more. But where do we draw the line between selling and brainwashing? Advertising not only sells products, it sells ideals, morals and standards for society and communicates what it believes is acceptable and favored behavior. A generation ago, the average model weighed 8% less than the average women, while today that same model weights 23% less (Crow magazine). The grasping power of media has an impact on young women all over the continent. As adolescent women are redefining themselves and their relationships, dealing with the changing bodies and look towards the future ahead, the media can be one of the key influences in their decision making and growth process. The exposure young women have to any type of media whether good or bad can greatly affect their outcome as an adult. The image of women that the media portrays and its idolization of thinness and perfection create an immense pressure to be slim and pretty that can damage young girls self-esteem, distort their sense of body image, and contribute to disordered eating.
The image that the media portrays of thin and flawless women has a direct and damaging effect on the self-esteem of young females. Firstly, when young girls see these numerous portrayals of beautiful and sexy women, it begins to diminish their sense of self-esteem and pride in their individual uniqueness as a person. In the survey of fifty young girls ages fourteen through nineteen, there is a direct correlation between the amount of media they are exposed to and the self-esteem issues they acquire. More young women who are subject to more media show that they feel inferior to the Hollywood depiction of what a woman should look like. The more media they see, the more girls feel that the unrealistic image of women in media makes them feel less of a person, and they often find themselves comparing their bodies to others around them. In contrast, girls subject to less commercials and advertisements with women in them are less likely to judge themselves and others in this manner. This shows that when the girls are subject to more media, they feel less about themselves. Secondly, when the fifty young females were asked about what parts of their own bodes they were most unhappy with, the ones who tend to put, “everything” or “weight” watched more television and read more magazines, than those who listed such things as acne, specific facial features or simply “nothing”. This is due to the fact that the women in media today are all the same type- skinny, and perfectly proportioned. Because these seem to be the main attribute to their success as a beautiful woman and actress, girls tend to see that these are their main problems and that to be happy and carefree like those in media, they must lose weight, or even worse, change their entire bodies. When they realize that they are not the perfect image that is show to them on a regular basis, they begin to feel like they are less that the average women. Unfortunately, this is not the case what so ever, since the average women in North America is a size fourteen (Crow magazine). Lastly, the media attributes to the diminishing self-esteem of young women today by the sex appeal it gives young beautiful women on television. A 1999 study found that the thinner the character was in a television show the more positive comments she received from male characters throughout the show (Girls Inc.). This gives young women today who are beginning to want attention from the opposite sex because they are maturing and growing up, that if they want more attention and want to be noticed, they have to be skinny and beautiful. It is easily recognized that many self-esteem issues that young adolescent teens have today are a direct result of the damaging effects of unrealistic and high expectation media in their everyday lives.
When young girls are constantly subjected to perfect body images and the idea that to be skinny and pretty is the way to happiness, they began to lose confidence in their own body image. A body image is how one sees oneself, and how one perceives others see them. Firstly, When the fifty young women surveyed were asked to rate themselves on a one to ten scale of how much they liked their body, there is a direct link between how they see themselves, and how much of the media they see on a regular basis. For instance, girls who rated themselves zero to three on the scale of one to ten, watched an average of 5.44 hours of television a week and read 14.4 magazines a year. Those girls who rated themselves seven to ten on the same scale, watched an average of 3.25 hours of television a week and read only 8.7 magazines a year. This shows us that the more a girl is subject to the media’s unrealistic image of a “perfect women” the less they will see themselves and the worse there self image becomes. Secondly, the media’s absence of the average women, and their lack of accurate information about how a women should really look also affects the self-esteem of young women. Only 8% of those surveyed recognized women in the media as “fake”, “airbrushed” or “unrealistic”. This lack of self knowledge and the media’s lack of proper information leaves young females to believe that the women they are seeing on a daily basis in advertisements and commercials are that of the average women, when in actuality they are sadly mistaken. This accounts for the impossible expectations and goals young women set up for themselves and their feelings of worthlessness when this perfect image cannot be succeeded and contributes further to their diminished sense of a healthy body image. Lastly, women are constantly being pushed to diet and change their bodies. In 1992, the ten most popular magazines most commonly read by men and women were reviewed for ads and articles related to weight loss. The women's magazines contained 10.5 times more articles related to dieting and weight loss than did the man's magazines (AboutFace). This constant subjection to the idea that a woman can improve herself by just one less meal or one more diet pill is pushed upon women everywhere. For example, the countless gym advertisements that have the “look like her” attitude, with a beautiful women working out, and a message about becoming the best you can be. This gives women the idea that if magazines are talking about, then it must be a reliable source. Young women immediately began to believe that they are not good enough the way that they are and they start to believe that the only way to success and happiness is to change their bodies. Its is clearly evident by the points shown above that when young girls constantly see the perfect body images in the media, they adopt the idea that to be skinny and pretty is the way to happiness, and their confidence in their own body begins to weaken.
The constant images of Barbie like woman and the main media focus on skinny, pretty and perfect females as a medium to appeal to today’s generation of adolescent females contributes to the rise in eating disorders in young females of today. According to a recent survey of adolescent girls, the media is their main source of information about women's health issues (EDAP). In those surveyed, 38% of girls had attempted to lose weight using unhealthy eating habits, and they included binge and purge diets, diet pills and even anorexia. These girls were reading more magazines and watching more television other girls who felt more comfortable with their own bodies and it is clearly evident that the media’s influence had a substantial role in the ideals and beliefs these women had about their own bodies. Secondly, the media does not only influence women through pictures of skinny and pretty women about how a girl should want to look, they literally tell the girls in their countless articles on weight loss and dieting. In articles about fitness or exercise plans, 74% cited "to become more attractive" as a reason to start exercising and 51% noted the need to lose weight or burn calories (EDAP). A diet is supposed to make one more healthy and strengthen their body and heart by a means of healthy eating and regular exercising. The media is telling young girls that a diet is solely to improve how one looks, not how one feels, or how healthy they should be. In reality, this is false advertising, but they media has continued to promote this unhealthy lifestyle without telling girls of the dangers associated with over exercising, or over dieting. Lastly, the media through commercials and ideals of improving oneself with self-beautifying products on television gives women the idea to not only buy the product, but to follow the ways of the thin flawless, happy and successful model showcasing the product. A study examined over 4,000 television ads. On the average, 1 out of every 3.8 ads had an "attractive-based" message (FinalProject). These results were used to estimate that we are exposed to over 5,000 of these ads a year, and each one adds to women's body dissatisfaction and the desire to be thin and "beautiful" (FinalProject). Women resort to eating disorders because it is their only road to achieve this goal. We can clearly see that through focusing on dieting, attractive models and more media subjection can encourage and even cause a young girl to develop an eating disorder.
The images that the media sends out to young females on a daily basis cause self-esteem issues on growing female teens, weaken their sense of pride in their own body image, and encourages them to adopt healthy eating habits to look like the “ideal” women in today’s society. The media give young women on television a sex appeal- the better they look, they more attention hey get from the opposite sex. This gives young girls the notion that if they want to be noticed, the need to be flawless and skinny like those girls on television. Also, when women constantly see beautiful skinny women and countless dieting ads and exercising programs in magazines and on television, they begin to believe that to be happy and successful the need to look like those women. The countless success stories and ads of women who are happy now because they dropped seventy pounds with some diet plan r another gives young women the idea that to be skinny is to be happy, so to lose eight you will be a happier person. Lastly, more than a third of girls surveyed admitted to adopting unhealthy eating habits to try and improve themselves, and those same girls watched more television than girls who were comfortable with their own body. Everywhere a women goes today in society, the se the ideal woman- skinny, flawless and beautiful. It would seem to be that if so many women in the media looked so perfect, that it wouldn’t be such an unobtainable goal. In reality, it is all airbrushed. In the world there are three billion women who don’t look like supermodels, and only eight who actually do. This ideal women approach is not ideal at all. It has caused a substantial rise in psychological issues in young women and is only recently becoming recognized as a danger to women in society. What we need in our society is self-awareness. The majority of girls don’t understand that women in the media today are not realistic, how could they? Their main source of information is the media itself, and its not going to ruin its number one marketing tool to young girls just so they can know the truth, and unknown word in the world of advertising. The real key in all of this is to get the other influences girls have in their lives involved- parents, teachers and peers that can reinforce the idea of self-love, self-respect and self-dignity. It is when young girls realize that they don’t need beauty and perfection to be happy that the life of the maturing female teen will be that much more bearable, and they can journey through becoming an adult, without trying to already look like one way beyond their years.