Issues of Body Image Due to The Media

[Clairey]

For my A level Media Studies course, I am studying the issues of negative body image due to teenage magazines.

I would really appreciate it if I had some feedback on to what extent you think teenage magazines encourage a negative body image amongst teenage girls, and whether you think this is the main cause of anorexia and bulimia in society today.

Thankyou in advance

Claire

[Vagrant]

Specifically magazines? I think magazines hardly have an influence -- I think it's more of Hollywood and TV that causes girls to think they're somehow too fat. Or convinces heavy women that they aren't fat.

[waggles v2]

Magazines are as much of a culprit, in my opinion. They give you images of popular people to which you 'must follow' due to 'Win, Free, Save' orgies on diets etc.

[DarkReality]

I'm sorry, but this is right up next to "abortion" on the list of overused research topics. And by that I mean you can probably google this and find several books' worth of text on the topic.

This also sounds like "hey, do my homework for me plz k thx bbq bai!" Give us something to work with. Either your own ideas to improve on or a yes/no questionnaire we can answer so that you have some sort of statistic to include.

[Dragon]

Going to be honest and say that the media has very little to do with everyday presures.

It is however a snowball effect from the media that leads to the school in my opinion. Look around the schools and you'll see that the more "big" kids are always getting some shot at them. Some form of conversation always leads to talking about ones health. The fact is... if your fat you get a lot of #### from everyday people around you. Intended or not.

This of course drives the person to either attempt to get skinny or just feel sad all the time. Most of the time it seems to be the latter.

If I was you I'd talk about the kids at school and how they act instead of the runway models.

[poguemahon]

I was flipping through my cousin's Cosmopolitan and Seventeen magazines. Damn! They only advertise designer stuff. Makeup, perfume, underwear. It's all about making money at youth expense.

It's not entirely the media's fault. Weak minds are an issuen too. If you bend to current designer fasion, you have to uphold it. You keep yourself skinny like a model. It's not the fasion industry i'm blaming (a fashion show in Paris recently set a limit too how skinny a model can be to participate), but media and the average consumer, self concious, and obsessed with obsolescence.

About Anorexia and Bulimia: The media doesn't say "Starve or Hurl!" but it does say "Be thin!" Not healthy, but thin. So, people do what they can, anorexia and bulimia, to get there. Once again, it's on the consumer.

Dragon, as a reformed tubby, or near it, I thought to myself all the time "Be fat and happy, or lose weight." I didn't get made fun of, but found I couldn't do much. Neither could my friends. That's where the trouble is. Not being made fun of for being fat, but for being slow, physically handicapped by it. I've known some big football players who were in excellent shape. Basically, you have no reason to be fat if you are. If somebody gives you crap, and you don't like it, fix it as safely as possible.

[CriticalX]

I hardly believe it's just magazines. Pr0nz also makes some women look insignificant sometimes because those women are so sexy. :P

[Spectral]

Wrote a short essay on this last week. I'm feeling very generous today. Here it is.

In Hunger Pains, Mary Pipher entails an influential and informative read regarding the growing habit of anorexia nervosa and it's effect on women today. Mary Pipher, born October 21st1947, establishes her ethos from the getgo when she states in the first chapter that she is an American clinical psychologist and author that graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 1969. She also has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Nebraska.

Pipher’s use of logos is convincing. In the last chapter of the book she states that anorexia nervosia has “the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder” and “5%-15% of people who develop the disease eventually die from it.” It was also noted that the longer you have the disease, the more likely you will die from it. After receiving a dose of all these frightening facts and statistics about the dangers of self-induced vomiting you feel like vomiting yourself.

Pipher also does an excellent job appealing to emotions. The pathos in the book are overwhelming. In a very direct language, she discusses how perception influences our reality, and how anorexia nervosa is much more than an eating disorder. It’s a fight with our inner feelings; a fight to change how you feel and perceive of yourself and accept who you are. She states in the middle chapters of the book of our society’s penchant for labeling women with unnatural bodies beautiful, through fashion ads, magazine covers, television shows, and movies. The media idolizes a body type that is impossible for most women to achieve without resorting to means of an eating disorder. And when everything is taken into account, Pipher makes it clear that it’s really not that hard for a woman to fall into the trap of anorexia nervosa. The media plus our appearance-obsessed society plus the woman’s fear of being labeled “ugly” all contribute to the increasing rates of anorexia, bulimia, and depression in women.

Pipher reveals the effects society has on women’s self-esteem and misery. The media encourages anorexia nervosia and stops women from accepting their true looks. Indeed Pipher gets across that the humiliation and embarrassment of obesity is worth the effects of anorexia nervosia for some women; yet when the consequences of anorexia nervosa are taken into account, this disease is not something anybody would want. Pipher points out that the greatest gift a woman can give herself is the ability to accept her body for what it truly is.

It isn't that well written because I did a 10 minute rushjob. But whatever. The 3rd and 4th paragraph are probably what you need for your essay. Enjoy.

[Kevim]

Ehm... I think if you can blame the media for anorexia or bulimia, you can blame it on anything else. Yeah, we glorify skinny people in our movies and magazines. But we also glorify gangsters, pimps, #######s, and drug addicts. And the majority of us movie-watching, video game playing, television viewers don't end up beccomming what we see on TV.

I think the root of these disorders is the universaly common human trait to find the easy way out of anything. I've been anorexic, and my girlfriend is still struggling with bulimia, and either of us can tell you that not eating/throwing up what you eat is a much more efficent way of losing weight than 2 hours of exercise and limiting your snacks for 2 years. People begin undereating and binging/purging because it is an available, easy solution.

What we need to start doing is start informing our elementary and middle school children of the dangers of these habits, much like how they so commonly do with ciggerates and alcohol today. By the time my girlfriend had known the true dangers of bulimia, she was already 16 and doing it.

No matter what the media is going to have an image of perfection. And it doesn't matter whether that image is to be fat, skinny, muscular, or some impossible-to-measure "average", people will always look for the easy way out to shape their bodies to how the world sees them best.