Media Influences On Youth Culture

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Media Influence on Youth Culture - Body Image: Skinny models. Girls are becoming weight conscious as young as 8 years old. 80% of 9 year olds are on diets. Eating disorders have grown 400% since 1970. By the time a person is 17 years old they have received over 200 thousand commercial messages throughout the media. Many men are becoming insecure about their physical appearance as advertising and other media images raise the standard and idealize well-built men. Researchers are seeing an alarming increase in obsessive weight training and the use of anabolic steroids & dietary supplements that promise bigger muscles and more stamina for lifting. Studies are finding that boys, like girls, may turn to smoking to lose weight. - Teens & Sex: Three out of four teens say ‘TV shows and movies make it seem normal for teenagers to have sex.’ Young teens (ages 13-15) rank entertainment media as the top source of information about sexuality and sexual health. Four out of ten teenagers say they have gotten ideas for how to talk to their boyfriends and girlfriends about sexual issues from the entertainment media. The American Psychological Association estimates that teens are exposed to 14,000 sexual references & innuendos per year on TV. A recent report from the Center for Media & Public Affairs found music videos to contain more sex per minute than any competing media genre. A study of 4,294 network television commercials found that nearly one in 4 commercials includes some type of sexual attractiveness as a base for the message. Young teens (13-15) indicate that a major source of sex education is from TV. - Violence: The Media scope National Television Violence Study found that children are: learning aggressive attitudes and behaviors, becoming desensitized to real world violence, and developing a fear of being victimized by violence. Many of the programs that children
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