How do the media have an impact of body image in young women?
By media I am including magazines, Hollywood, movies, TV shows.
By body image I mean the way women feel about their body shape.
By young women I mean girls ranging from ages 10 to as old as late 20’s.
Sources:
1. In EBSCO Host Academic Search I found an article called “Relationships Between Body-Shape Discrepancies With Favored Celebrities and Disordered Eating in Young Women.” This article believes in the fact that due to celebrities being close in age to young women, girls the same age as these celebrities will want to look and be like them. Most celebrities are considered thinner than the average weight for that age. Since young women look up to these celebrities they will go to great lengths as to even having eating disorders. To prove their point there is a study included in this article that was conducted on around 159 college students ranging from the ages of 18 to 27. These students were asked to pick a certain celebrity around the same age as them that they looked up to. They were then told to judge the way they thought of the body of their celebrity, themselves, as well as the body image they would like to have. They would them compare the body image of what they would like to have with that of their celebrity. The study then goes on to rank whether the participant has an eating disorder or not using the EAT-26.
2. In EBSCO Host Academic Search I found an article called “Media Influences and Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women”. This article talks about how young women are pressured socially and culturally to be thin causing them to start having an eating disorder. There are two main ideas of what the media causes on young women, one being that when they are shown a picture of a celebrity they start to feel anxiety and self conscious, another is that when a young women is exposed to thinness more often than others then they are more vulnerable to have an eating disorder. One suggestion to help solve this problem is to encourage better media literacy. For girls to be able to interpret what the media is trying to convey successfully.
3. In EBSCO host Academic Search I found an article called “The Effects of the Media on Body Image: A Meta-Analysis”. In this article some researched have linked eating disorders to media exposure in young women. Another group of researchers have stated that the media has concluded a positive attitude of body image in young women. Others believe there is no relationship between the media and body image in young women. Then the article goes into talking about three different theories. One theory is that people will compare themselves to other people around their same age and who are better looking than they are. Another theory is that the more a person watched television the more that person will start to believe that television is “real life.” The other theory is that people will model and try to behave as the more attractive group of people.
4. From the Opposing Viewpoints research center I found an article titles “Why thin is in”. In this article the author talks about the different reasons young women feel that they need to be thin. She continues to talk about how the media promotes girls to look like how the celebrities look which causes them to want to become super thin. This can cause some young women to go to great lengths such as having an eating disorder. The author believes that young women want to become like the super models they continually see in magazine ads and on television. The media has portrayed a successful woman to be tall, thin, toned, and commanding. This then causes women to go to great lengths to try and become this successful woman. The article even goes into detail of how some celebrities even fight with their weight and how they are pressured to look thin and attractive to make a living. The article concludes in talking about ways to fight back against the media and not let the media influence our ideas of body image and to not dwell on the type of body you have now, even if it seems to you “not perfect”.
5. From Opposing Viewpoints research center I found an article called “Society’s Unhealthy Obsession with Thinness”. In this article they are at first agreeing with the idea that the main reason for young women to get an eating disorder is because of the media. Another reason more women are starting to have an eating disorder is because of society’s idea of the ideal women, thin and attractive. The article then starts to oppose the idea that the media is responsible of eating disorders in young women. They argue that if this was true then bulimia would be considered an epidemic. The author argues its case by paralleling bulimia with alcoholism. The example used is that when people go to casino just because they are around alcohol does not mean that they will become alcoholics by the end of the night. She parallels this with the idea that women are around advisements and music videos of thin women all the time and yet not every women who sees an advertisement of a thin model becomes bulimic. The idea of the perfect female needs to be re worked into society as an average sized girl in order to stop young women from idolizing thin girls and thus starting an eating disorder.