Body Image Research Paper

Young girls are taught that they need to achieve this ideal body however it takes, but realistically this cannot be achieved. The ideal woman’s body is very skinny, Caucasian,

Women have always been pressured to look a certain way from being a skinny model to even being plus sized . Growing up many people wanted to look like other famous women like cindy crawford . Then later on they made plastic surgery where you can differentiate the way your body looks and ever since then social media has been booming .Celebrities even have taken a role in it to stars from Kim Kardashian where she got butt implants . Even something as small as a nose job like Iggy Azalea. Body image is the subjective picture or mental picture of someone's own body .

In today’s society, the average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds. The average model displayed in the media is 5’11” and weighs 114 pounds. Take a minute to consider that extreme difference in weight and height. This statistic alone is shocking, but the fact that these models undergo intense retouching before ever being seen in magazines and advertisements has an effect on what women today, view as standard beauty.

Negative Effects Resulting from the Presentation of Women in the Media The subject of women’s bodies has been a topic of mass discussion for many years. With the advancement of technology, the distortion and manipulation of images has come to reach an all time high. For many clothing companies, especially retailers of intimates such as Victoria’s Secret, the emphasis of advertising focuses on the beauty and body of the depicted woman. There are various expectations of what a woman should look like and the debate over “the perfect body” has been an issue of controversy for many years.

Men and women nowadays are starting to lose self-confidence in themselves and their body shape, which is negatively impacting the definition of how beauty and body shape are portrayed. “...97% of all women who had participated in a recent poll by Glamour magazine were self-deprecating about their body image at least once during their lives”(Lin 102). Studies have shown that women who occupy most of their time worrying about body image tend to have an eating disorder and distress which impairs the quality of life. Body image issues have recently started to become a problem in today’s society because of social media, magazines, and television.

Fashioning Fat: Inside Plus-Size Modeling by Amanda Czerniawski, details her experiences as a plus-sized woman in the fashion industry. The fashion industry is known for pushing the agenda of the ideal image of a woman. When plus-sized models enter the modeling industry, they are often scrutinized or fetishized. Additionally, Czerniawski analyzes how the fashion industry objectifies plus-sized models.

With the ever presence of Facebook, Instagram, twitter, TV reality shows, and magazines there is always going expectations of what females should look like. It has become a growing trend among celebrities to post pictures of their not so realistic bodies trying to promote exercise and nutrition. While the celebrities may exercise and eat healthy there is absolutely no way that any human beings body can look like that without some type of plastic surgery or photo shop. In Piercy’s poem she states that the girl was “exhorted to come on hearty, exercise, diet smile, and wheedle (13-14).” In these lines the reader can clearly see how much the female’s image of herself can be distorted into thinking that they need to look and act a certain way.

Sexually objectifying media is broadcast and leads to body surveillance, self-objectification, and the internalization of body ideals designed by fashion media. When people internalize ideas of how an individual’s body should look like according to the media, it becomes ingrained in them to the point that they might never be satisfied with their own body image. This leads to body dissatisfaction and further emphasis on developing unsafe habits of becoming a replica of the thinner, and photoshopped, models in the fashion and beauty magazines (Vandenbosch, 873).

Body image has become such a big issue among society especially females mostly. According to Mariana Gozalo, states “Using Will’s sociological imagination, I thought about how there are girls who wish to look skinny because it is what is being idolized on TV and magazines and online ads. “Social media make us believe that there is a “ideal body” shape. In my opinion, there is no such a thing as the ideal body shape, because everyone is beautiful in their own individual way.

As I already mentioned, the average citizen of the United States encounters 3000 advertisements every day, so the image that every young girl 's brain receive to be good-looking is just an idealized picture made up by the capitalist western media. According to CNN, every fourth citizen is depressed about their body. It is no wonder that capitalists created a fantastic image for the women to copy because by doing so they established the beauty industry. It is a million dollar industry, filling the pocket of a very few with so much money that one just cannot imagine. It does not only fill the pocket of that very few, but it is the thing which causes misery, anxiety and endless suffering for many women all around the globe.

Controversy about fashion models and their body shape has been raging for over a century, “and the argument about how it affects body image and self esteem is just as old” says a professor of fashion history . From the twentieth century, professional fashion models were called “living mannequins” , which suggested that they were no more than animated dolls. However, at that time, the media and advertising was not as advanced as it is now which is why the ideology of having the perfect body would not have affected most of the audience of their time. Whereas, the employment of thin models in advertising today has escalated to affect most of the population, particularly the youth as they are more vulnerable and interactive with new technology.

Furthermore, we will study the definition of a body image and what the causes are for developing a negative body image. In this part also the influence of the media will be taken into account. However, before these things can be discussed it has to be clear if there are certain aspects or characteristics that belong to every beauty ideal around the world and how we learn what is pretty and what is not.

This puts an idea in women's minds that, only qualified and fit models can look so exceptional in these clothes. Furthermore, after looking closely at the two adverts it is indisputable to deduce that the portrayal of women in such an intriguing way has a negative effect on the society; especially the female section. Many may suggest that there is just as much pressure on the male part however, according to the Association for Body Image Disordered Eating, it was revealed that women’s magazines had about 10.5 times as many weight loss advertisements

Models frequently fall into the role model figure and become people who inspire young women who see them. Many times young women strive to imitate women they view on social media and in everyday life. “Among girls ages ten through eighteen, seventeen percent reported that they defined the “perfect body image” as what they see on models” (Schalabs). For this reason, modeling should show diversity among body shape, size, and color. It should not limit society to seeing one image although, people may only want to view one image.

Popular models such as Kendall Jenner and Alexis Ren is known for their ‘perfect’ bodies. They post daily of their ‘fitspo’ images, gaining millions of likes and compliments. These compliments about their appearance support the importance of body image in how you are judged as a person. These images, send a destructive message about their appearance as well. Ms Morgan stated that ‘appearance-based talk and body comparison can be unremitting, with little understanding of how detrimental it is for self-esteem and mental-health’.