Body Image Pressure Analysis

While we are familiar with how advertising can affect how women feel about their appearance, we don’t tend to think as much about its impact on men. Advertising has a negative influence on men and boys by presenting unrealistic and unattainable images that are impossible to achieve for the normal man. Three articles address the same issue in different ways. The article “Body Image Pressure,” from The Atlantic, written by Jamie Santa Cruz, discusses how the ideal image of man has changed, and the effect these changes have on an average individual. James S Fell, in his article, “How the Media Makes Men Hate Their Bodies Too,” mentions how the media influences a person to become muscular. Another article “How Energy Drink Companies Prey on Male Insecurities,” by Rachel Geese, discusses how the media …show more content…
The common man comes across the muscular models through different instances like magazines, movies, toys and even on food products. James Fell by citing “The grocery store checkout seems specifically designed to make you hate yourself,” feels that every advertisement we observe has the primary goal to provoke a feeling of dislike of oneself. By taking the example of action figures, Santa Cruz in his article mention that the action figures from the last two decades have lost a tremendous proportion of fat and added a significant amount of muscle. By mentioning that only one or two percent of males have that body type, he clarifies that the bodies depicted are unnatural and are not easy to achieve. In the article “How Energy Drinks Prey on Male Insecurities,” Giese shows how the stunts of a sportsperson are being used to endorse an energy drink by conveying that “the drink can help any guy unleash the beast.” There is a significant amount of pressure building on an individual to bring his body into conformity with the muscular