Sociological Imagination - Anorexia

493 Words2 Pages
On the surface, sociology is the study of society and human behavior; yet looking deeper, it is the study of humans in groups and how they interact with one another. Think about if you just bought a new pair of jeans. You think that you look absolutely great in them until you turn on the television or compare yourself to the person on side of you. Today, women all over the world are focused on the way society views them, which has an influence on the way they view themselves. If you have ever watched TV, picked up a magazine or skimmed tabloid headlines at the grocery store, you should have an idea of what these images represent. They show celebrities at the peak of their careers, with a picture of them during their crisis right next to it. When Brittany Spears was going through her crisis she gained a lot of weight, the only media she got then was negative. She was no longer considered a sex icon like she used to be but rather an example of what happens when you go “against the grain”. This is an example of how our society associates thinness with beauty and adds all kind of negative connections to being overweight. The standards applied to Britney Spears and other celebrities come from our social constructions of what it means to be beautiful. As a society we decide what is positive and what is negative, and what is meaningful and valuable to us, and thus we construct reality. These sets of values are filtered into our everyday life and affect us when we interact with others, read a magazine, and even when we browse the Internet. These images have a very strong effect on teenage girls because they are at a stage where they are trying to develop their sense of self and personal identity. For teenagers, the most obvious way to find their place is by comparing themselves to their peers, and noticing qualities that make them socially successful. They also look
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