Body Image and the Media
The media is filled with people with perfect bodies. In advertisements they only show flawless people with no blemishes and with perfect body types, and on social media people post pictures with filters and photoshop and other ways to change their body to fit in with what society has deemed attractive. But how does this affect what people think of themselves? People need to stop letting the media govern what they should look like because it is causing them to feel pressured to have a certain “look”; and if they dont have that “look” they will feel as if they aren’t living up to society’s expectations for them. Therefore, the people portrayed by the media are detrimental for society and encourage bad body image. The …show more content…
Social media is a huge problem with the body image of people today. Often people will use social media in order to be accepted by others, before even trying to accept themselves. “News stories point to Facebook beauty pages, where teens post photos of themselves to be judged on attractiveness” (Kapidzic, Mirroring the Media.) These are girls who are allowing themselves to be judged, and usually it is simply to feel accepted. However, if you spend your whole life just trying to make your life seem perfect online, you are going to waste away your life in reality. "Nothing is perfect about spending every … day making your life look perfect online." (Katrina, The perfect (but not so real) life) Chances are, if you’re constantly trying to make your life online seem perfect, it will only make you feel worse about your real life. Not only that, but if you spend your time online only looking at people who life the life you want, you are never going to feel complete. For instance, There is something on the internet called “fitspiration” or “fitspo” which is described as a “genre of online photographs expressly intended to inspire people to work out harder.” (Schreiber, Body Conscious.) These photographs show perfectly skinny bodies and often have some kind of inspirational quote. It may seem like a great idea, but many women feel otherwise. “I would look at the accounts of women posting their perfect …show more content…
“Every year, scores of millions of people – as diverse as obese and lean, teenagers and older adults, sedentary and elite athletes, commoners and celebrities – attempt to lose weight on some form of diet.” the word diet is everywhere. Printed on the covers of magazines in big bright letters, in ways that it’s impossible not to notice. However, if all one does is diet for a while, then any weight they lose, they are almost guaranteed to gain it back. “Weight regain is generally the rule, with one-third to two-thirds of the weight lost being regained within 1 year and almost all is regained within 5 years.” (Dulloo, Schutz, Montani, Pathways From Dieting.) Meaning, no matter what, if you don’t change your lifestyle, you will almost always gain weight again. But despite that, dieting is still becoming more and more popular. “Despite the poor prognosis of dieting in obesity management, which often results in repeated attempts at weight loss and hence weight cycling, the prevalence of dieting has increased continuously in the past decades in parallel to the steadily increasing prevalence of obesity.” (Montani, Dulloo, Schutz, Dieting And Weight
The media is filled with people with perfect bodies. In advertisements they only show flawless people with no blemishes and with perfect body types, and on social media people post pictures with filters and photoshop and other ways to change their body to fit in with what society has deemed attractive. But how does this affect what people think of themselves? People need to stop letting the media govern what they should look like because it is causing them to feel pressured to have a certain “look”; and if they dont have that “look” they will feel as if they aren’t living up to society’s expectations for them. Therefore, the people portrayed by the media are detrimental for society and encourage bad body image. The …show more content…
Social media is a huge problem with the body image of people today. Often people will use social media in order to be accepted by others, before even trying to accept themselves. “News stories point to Facebook beauty pages, where teens post photos of themselves to be judged on attractiveness” (Kapidzic, Mirroring the Media.) These are girls who are allowing themselves to be judged, and usually it is simply to feel accepted. However, if you spend your whole life just trying to make your life seem perfect online, you are going to waste away your life in reality. "Nothing is perfect about spending every … day making your life look perfect online." (Katrina, The perfect (but not so real) life) Chances are, if you’re constantly trying to make your life online seem perfect, it will only make you feel worse about your real life. Not only that, but if you spend your time online only looking at people who life the life you want, you are never going to feel complete. For instance, There is something on the internet called “fitspiration” or “fitspo” which is described as a “genre of online photographs expressly intended to inspire people to work out harder.” (Schreiber, Body Conscious.) These photographs show perfectly skinny bodies and often have some kind of inspirational quote. It may seem like a great idea, but many women feel otherwise. “I would look at the accounts of women posting their perfect …show more content…
“Every year, scores of millions of people – as diverse as obese and lean, teenagers and older adults, sedentary and elite athletes, commoners and celebrities – attempt to lose weight on some form of diet.” the word diet is everywhere. Printed on the covers of magazines in big bright letters, in ways that it’s impossible not to notice. However, if all one does is diet for a while, then any weight they lose, they are almost guaranteed to gain it back. “Weight regain is generally the rule, with one-third to two-thirds of the weight lost being regained within 1 year and almost all is regained within 5 years.” (Dulloo, Schutz, Montani, Pathways From Dieting.) Meaning, no matter what, if you don’t change your lifestyle, you will almost always gain weight again. But despite that, dieting is still becoming more and more popular. “Despite the poor prognosis of dieting in obesity management, which often results in repeated attempts at weight loss and hence weight cycling, the prevalence of dieting has increased continuously in the past decades in parallel to the steadily increasing prevalence of obesity.” (Montani, Dulloo, Schutz, Dieting And Weight