Emily Holmes Essays - Body Shape, Human Appearance, Human Body, Self

Emily Holmes Essays - Body Shape, Human Appearance, Human Body, Self Emily Holmes Mrs. Hankins English 102 1 October 2015 Body Image In the eyes of society, women like Pamela Anderson, Tyra Banks and Victoria Secret Model Candice Swanepoel are the essence of perfection. What girl would not want their perfect hair, curvy body, big boobs, or tall body? As of today, 2 out of a 100 Americans attempt to starve themself each day. Ninety percent of those Americas are female. (Newport) The media presents society with an unrealistic body types promoting people, especially women, to look like them. Through TV shows, commercials, magazines or any form of advertising, the media enforces a certain body type which women mimic. The so-called perfect body type causes many negative effects on women in the US. Women who focus on unrealistic body images tend to have lower self-esteem and are more likely to be a victim of eating disorders. The media in America has a dangerous influence on women's health. The media is a primary factor in the development and maintenance of women's body image problems. Women start to feel insecure about their bodies by looking at media images daily. This provokes women to diet more because they feel more pressured to be slim. "But advertisers are not particularly wicked, people who set out to trick and mislead us. They simply provide images that we find seductive. Advertisers are the voice of society projected on a billboard or a TV screen" (Miniskirt Revolution). The magazine racks in any local store are saturated with magazines highlighting beautiful women adorning the covers. Commercials on TV feature tall, thin women promoting a certain product. The media presents an unrealistic body type for girls to look up to. They do not reflect on images from everyday life. When walking around in any place, very few people look like the women in commercials, most of them thin, but not overly s o. Flawless images appear so often in daily life, it's hard to remember that they are not real. Often many girls don't realize this. They hold themselves u! p to these images and feel the only way they can live life to it's fullest is to look like these icons. Even if someone is as at their perfect weight, it's easy to feel like a failure when comparing to a movie star or to Seventeen's cover girl. The line between fantasy and reality is skewed by mass media. The media places much stress on obtaining the "ideal" body image. Society pays a significant amount of attention to body image, physical attractiveness, youthfulness, sexuality and appearance, "the minimum requirement for the sort of model who appears on advertising hoarding is a height of 5 ft. 9in. a size 8 to 10" (Miniskirt Revolution). No matter how hard someone tries they will never achieve the look and figure of these supermodels. The problem of girls and women comparing themselves to "ideal women" has gotten more difficult in recent years, "A look at the measurement of Playboy centerfolds and Miss America finalists over the past 20 years shows that, although these women symbolize beauty, have been weighing less and less. In other words, society's ideal women keeps getting thinner and thinner and much more difficult for people to imitate" (Miniskirt Revolution). There is a healthy way for the female body to look, "but what we see on television is a special kind of thin. Most of us could starve our selves down to slivers and still not look anything like those sleek bodies that flit across our screen day and night" (Miniskirt Revolution). Leading characters in the current crop of TV shows are all thin. The TV shows with the highest ratings, such as Friends and Ally McBeal, have tall thin lead actresses. In Friends, there are three young, tall and thin leads. They are outfitted in tight shirts and mini-skirts. They all live good lives and have fun. In Ally McBeal, a young, tall and extremely thin actress portrays a successful lawyer. The message that this is sending across is that the key to success in today's society is to be young, tall and thin. Characters that are heavier are usually elderly, matronly, in low-status occupations, or on the wrong side of the law. In the