However, the media plays a significant role in how a person feels about his or her body. In many cases, depression can come from a person not being happy with their body image. Depression sometimes occurs in women when they do not reach the standards of beauty made by the media. A lot of the time, depression begins in the early stages of the adolescent years. In women, it starts when their body is changing and they are surrounded by the images that society says are perfect, compared with how the girls actually look. Most women perceive their actual figure as significantly larger than the ideal figure. This makes a girl believe that she is overweight, when in reality, she is at a normal weight. Generally, women are characterized by their concern of their looks, and less satisfied with their appearance based on unrealistic standards of thinness and …show more content…
In the United States and other western cultures, standards of beauty are being imposed especially on women, the majority of whom are naturally larger and more mature than any of the models viewed in magazines, films, or TV. The ability to sell cosmetic and diet products to promote not only thinness, but also youth to an aging population, has great economic import (Wagner). Corporations are constantly finding new ways to improve the human body and ways to make money off the insecurities of buyers. Almost anything can be sold if it appeals to people’s sense of beauty or is considered beautiful. Marketers use this because they will often use any method they can to make a profit. Companies promote images of the “perfect body” in television shows, fashion magazines and advertisements in hopes that women will buy the products. The problem is that that there is no such thing as the “perfect body” and the standards that the media promotes are unrealistic. The average model is around 5’10” and weighs somewhere between 100-115 pounds on average. Less than 9% of the women population in the United States have that body type. This shows that the body types portrayed to be perfect are not the average body