Too many put themselves down everyday about their weight and looks because the media puts such an emphasis on “so called perfection.” Media has a huge influence on society today, especially on teens. It is mental, physical, emotional, and perceptive. Everyone has seen or heard of some type of advertisement promoting some type of beauty product, jewelry, or a new brand of clothing. It is almost impossible to ignore it unless being cut off from the world, which is not realistic. The media influences men’s image issues as well.
Growing up in America is not easy, emotionally. From a young age, a child is taught that they must look nice and have a certain body image. As they grow older, this idea is only engraved deeper into their consciousness until they feel it is normal to look in the mirror and think, “Gee...I look fat” or “If I could just lose a few pounds here…” Society’s constant reaffirmations that we are not good enough, not “pretty” enough or “manly” enough to be accepted are continuously there, nagging at everyone. In “Veiled Intention: Don’t Judge a Muslim Girl by Her Covering” by Maysan Hadar and “Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender” by Aaron H Devor, both illustrate how men and woman face stereotypical roles in society,
Problem: Fad diets are unsafe in sports and everyday life for teens. The industry makes what they look like seem more important than our teens’ health. The industry has also shown us that skinny is in and is expected from every teen. To be the best and look the best at all cost is what people today push for. Teens are now picking up todays’ bad habits.
Media’s Affect on Teens Media in the form of magazines, infomercials, television, and films have a negative effect on teens and the way teens portray their own body images. Pressure to be “picture perfect” like models increases the risk of harmful dieting and medical problems such as bulimia and anorexia. In today’s society, the ideal body image has continued to become thinner and the dieting techniques have become extreme. With thinner models across magazines, television shows, and movies, the average teen can begin to feel insecure and lose self-esteem. According to Webster’s Dictionary anorexia nervosa is defined as an eating disorder, marked by an extreme fear of becoming overweight, that leads to excessive dieting to the point of severe ill health and sometimes death.
All teens should have a chance to be involved with others in a positive way, and without community groups going out and searching for them, its not going to happen. It is sad to me that people in control who have the opportunity to change lives of young people would rather let them go about their lives rather than coming around them and leading them in the right path.Teens need role models in their lives, and when adults disown them, then they feel worthless. Good role models set positive examples for teenagers and help counter negative influences they meet during teenage years. It is common for teenagers to view movie stars, sports figures, singers and TV actors as role models. While entertainment figures can serve as positive influences, teenagers gain greater influence from role models they can communicate and form relationships with.
Selena Flowers English 1302 10 May 2010 Teenage Girls in America – Beautiful or Not? The majority of the media characteristically exhibits reverence towards delicate, ultra-thin female models – a highly glamorized fallacy that continues to deceive and contaminate a large number of teenagers around the world. The majority of adolescents around the globe are far from the standards set by the media. Although parents strive to persuade their children that beauty is only skin deep, many, if not all, teenagers are acutely aware of the resounding magnitude that physical appearance emanates amongst their peers. In an attempt to meet this idolized intangible criteria, numerous teens turn to some form of dieting which usually evolves into an eating disorder, along with illegal drug use, excessive tanning and even plastic surgery to feel comfortable with their appearance.
When girls go through puberty and gain body fat, most of them will start to differ from the images burned in their heads by the media of the “perfect” body, causing them to develop negative body images and self-esteem issues. “The mass media has long been criticized for presenting unrealistic appearance ideals that contribute to the development of negative body image for many women and girls” (Hargreaves and Tiggemann, 2003, p. 539). So, even though advertisements may be seemingly innocent, they may be causing harmful implications that affect adolescent girls for the rest of their lives. How Do Television Advertisements Affect Body Image? In the course of a hour television show, how many times do networks run advertisements for diet pills or food that will magically cause viewers to lose weight and look as skinny as the people in the commercial?
A woman can have a little extra weight on her and still be beautiful. A man can have smaller shoulders or arms and still look fine. A person should choose to be healthy rather than what society wants us to look like and what media portrays to us what we should look like. First, we should achieve health and then later work toward the muscles or curves we want without harming our body and taking away from our inner beauty. Being healthy should be more important than the figure a person has.
We know this is not true because women have done everything in this world that men have including dangerous adventure sports yet they considered to be lower than men .Their talents are not as recognized as men’s talents are and they are mostly looked upon as not being fit for the same jobs as men are. These issues are presented in the texts examined in this essay. The song “What it feels like for a Girl” by Madonna and the essay “Fifty one percent Minority” by Doris Anderson are about Gender Inequality and how women are treated in society. The song by Madonna describes the pressure women feel to conform to social norms of politeness and subservience and the essay by Doris Anderson is about discriminatory practises that are done against women in Canada. Anderson is also one of Canada’s leading advocates of women rights.
It's disturbing to think that girls like you and me are doing this to their bodies simply because of what is portrayed in magazines like vogue and fashion catalogues. Media targeting teenage girls, like you and me, are emphasising the ideal of thinness as beauty. The media and fashion industry in my viewpoint are pushing a dangerously thin image that young girls may try to emulate. The promotion of the thin, sexy ideal in our culture has created a situation where the majority of girls and women don't like their bodies. This then leads