Body Image Essay

1860 Words8 Pages
Body Image Body Image, Self-Concept and Self Esteem Awareness of body image and self-esteem issues has become a prevalent issue in today's culture. Doctors at the forefront of teen physiological development and research are becoming increasingly worried that teenagers are falling victim to unrealistic trends in perceived body image. (Gutgesell and Payne, 2004) Today's media and advertisers play a big role in the development of our teenager’s self-confidence and self-esteem. Particularly in relation to how they perceive body image and the term 'beautiful. "Advertisers often emphasize sexuality and the importance of physical attractiveness in an attempt to sell products; researchers are concerned that this places undue pressure on women and men to focus on their appearance" (Dr. Harrison Pope, 1997). A survey in 1996 stated that the media were making woman fear being unattractive or old and furthermore that advertisements were adversely impacting on woman's body image (Saatchi and Saatchi 1996). The impact of unrealistic body image is not just confined to women. Men and more specificity teenage boys are adversely affected by self-confidence issues as well. The average male/female today views 400 to 600 advertisements per day, by the time they are 17 years old, they would have received over 250,000 commercial messages through the media. Only 9% of commercials have a direct statement about body image and beauty, many more implicitly emphasize the importance of body image and beautiful (Paul Hamburg 1999). Therefore if body image and self-esteem are such considerable problems then what are they?" Body image involves our perception, imagination, emotions, and physical sensations of and about our bodies. A body image can be ever changing and is not created based on fact but influenced by self-esteem, environment, physical experiences and physiological experiences. It
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