Teenage Body Image

Improved Essays
How many times a day have you seen an advertisement that made you feel insecure about yourself? This includes your body image and is “how one feels and acts in response to his or her perceived appearance”(“Body”). For a teenage girl growing up in the early 21st century, society has created an ideal body image for all women. The media advertises ways to have a “skinnier” and “sexier” body type. This might influence a young girl to lose weight and contain depression. For young women, body image can be a huge negative influence during their teen years because of advertising and media. As we grow up we are most vulnerable during our adolescent age of puberty. Through this time the teen’s mood, body, and self-esteem changes. They are awkward and as their body grows they become more concerned about their weight and how their body looks. These changes can change the perception of the teen’s body image. Because they’re developing intellectually and physically, “seeing bodies that are more or less developed than one’s own can lead to feelings of isolation and doubt about whether one is normal or attractive.” (“Body) Girls will become preoccupied with the idea of the “ideal” body size and weight. So many changes …show more content…
Usually, these models are very tall and have a thin physique. These advertisements will take a toll of effects on teenage girls that include anorexia, undernourishment, and depression, however, “health is what should be valued, which may not fit with the fashion industry's emphasis on ultra-thin beauty.”(Schwarz) As these girls became more aware of their body they developed depression from being unhappy with their body. They would try dieting and lose weight only to become malnourished and more depressed. Many advertisers have used models of different sizes, and it makes a decent publicity gimmick, but there's a reason they always go back to slender models: Clothes look better on

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    By age 15, 46 per cent of girls were unhappy with their weight, and a quarter of them were dieting"(Bawdon). The media has played an important role in how people view themselves and all of their insecurities about their bodies. Especially in children because they become more vulnerable to changing their appearance. The negative impact left on these teenagers contributed to the growing amount of problems affecting body…

    • 1098 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The purpose of this assignment is to analyse how a child’s life is socially constructed, in relating to their development into adulthood, addressing particular issues that consider essentialist and deterministic perspective of the transitions faced during adolescences. In brief description essentialist is how one perceives themselves during situations they cannot control, and deterministic is things that can be controlled by prior conditions, such as decision making. Using the following quote which is about a child’s experience back in the 1915 “And according to the law I was damned. I had no money, I was weak, I was ugly, I was unpopular, I had a chronic cough, I was cowardly, I smelt…but a child’s belief in its own short comings is not…

    • 1007 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These advertisements, shows, and movies are also affecting adults and shockingly children, too. Since 19% of teen suicides are girls who suffer from insecurity-related disorders, body image is a colossal issue facing American parents, thanks to the images of perfection portrayed by various social media outlets. “Teen…

    • 1357 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Body Image Issues

    • 1761 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Body image issues — issues involving the ways we perceive our physical appearance — have become a major area of concern in the twenty-first century, particularly for pre-adolescent and adolescent girls. In a society that focuses much of its attention on looks, many young girls feel dissatisfied with their bodies, often resorting to methods of dieting in order to appear slimmer. These methods can often be dangerous and, in some extreme cases, precipitate eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa. It is largely believed that the media is the main contributor to young girls’ body dissatisfaction, due to its tendency to label thin figures as “ideal” and larger figures as “unflattering” or simply unhealthy, however, research…

    • 1761 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Victoria Secret Beauty

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Teenagers of today's generation are very concerned by their body image and refer to what they see in the media. The fact that brands such as Victoria's secret project a sense of beauty completely unrealistic has developed major health issues in the younger generation. According to Marjorie Hogan, "young girls in elementary and middle school who read fashion magazines were dissatisfied with their bodies and had more eating-disorder Merunka 3 symptoms; their own bodies suffered in comparison to the models in magazines (20). " It is obvious that in order to reach the appearance of a Victoria secret model, a very strict lifestyle…

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Media Influence On Women

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Teenagers desire to have a slim body and to be beautiful such as women in media. The media is the most powerful influence on teenagers’ sexual behaviors and attitudes because the media emphasized the slim body of woman in advertisings. Also, the media tend to impose that women should be thin, which can harm adolescent girls who are unable to achieve the highly idealized shape of models. When teenagers think that their body seems different than the models in media, young people are not only losing their confidence but also being afraid of standing in front of people or encountering people. The author stated that the young girls are influenced on the images of skinny women even if they do not want to be because they are insecure about their appearance when they are not skinny (Bowdon).…

    • 570 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In today’s culture, there is a cloud that simmers over teenage girls; this cloud is called body image, it lingers and constantly pressures girls into thinking that they need to attain a “standard” weight and have a “certain” body type to be appealing to society. One contributing factor is the media; it has poisoned the minds of our generation and now the damage seems to be irreversible. Girls are constantly bombarded with ads that tell girls they need to groom, get that bikini wax, buy this facial, have this hair style, buy the latest clothes and keep that weight down. The list goes on and on, the focus isn’t on the products anymore it’s on shaming girls into buying products in hopes of attaining that model figure. Although she successfully uses pathos to show how girls have been manipulated and succumbed to society's view of body image in her article, “From Girl's bodies, Girls selves”, Elline Lipkin fails to strengthen her argument by discarding the opposing view points forcing the reader into a one sided opinionated…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Rebecca J. Donatelle, the author of “Enhancing Your Body Image,” feels that society affects individual’s self-esteem in various ways, to prove how the body should be maintain, and giving the attention that is wanted in society. In another article, ”Skin Deep: Seeking Self-Esteem Through Surgery,” Camille Sweeney, agrees that today’s generation are persuaded to get their ideal body image, but she also disagrees Donatelle’s point of view, how parents should let their children embrace how they feel about their own body. Both authors share the common theme of body image and the effects it has on adolescents. After reading these articles carefully, each author gives their perspective on how body image can be used in a negative and in a positive view in society.…

    • 623 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    You see women half naked in food advertisement and in children’s commercials you see images of very skinny and pretty dolls. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, 69% of girls in the 5th- 12th grades reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape. I used to let myself fall into the lie that a women should look just like one of these dolls. I wasn't the prettiest nor was I as skinny as these dolls shown on television and because I wasn't pretty nor as skinny as these dolls I grew up very insecure about everything about…

    • 1227 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Objectified Body Image

    • 1340 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The media has such a huge impact on what people think is right and wrong and when it comes to body image, women and young girls often have a hard time finding a “realistic body” to compare to theirs. Advertisements in the media have given this false “ideal” body image that women and young girls try to compete with and obtain in order to be deemed beautiful in the eyes of others. This false image can lead to early dieting and eating disorders in adolescence and adulthood. At a young age girls are subjected to ideals on how they should look then and when they get older. According to Janet Shibley Hyde in Half the Human Experience: The Psychology of Women (2013) “There is little doubt that girls’ dissatisfaction with their bodies is powerfully…

    • 1340 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    False Body Image

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The media constantly expose young teens to idealized images causing them to feel the way they do. As they continue to feel that way, they begin to “try” to achieve this idealized body, causing many unhealthy…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Beside these ads are comments posted regarding the amazing and fantastic appearance of these women. It is photographs such as these that give women the impression that unless they are 5’8 and weigh 100 pounds they are somehow fat and ugly. Models are a great example because they are encouraged to stay at an unhealthy weight. When a designer has new clothes sewn, there is as little material as possible used until after a showing of the new designs. The models wearing these clothes need to be a small size in order to fit into them.…

    • 1166 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Human bodies are truly amazing as no one is exactly alike. So why is ‘body image’ such a big issue? In society today our body image or how we see ourselves is becoming a major problem (3). Youth are becoming more self-conscious about the way they look which is mainly due to unrealistic expectations forced onto them by everything around them. The desire to be thinner emerges in girls at ages as young as six (6).…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Media is damaging to adolescent females' body images and self-esteem. All sources of media include some form of target on appearance. Young women experience unhappiness with their bodies, negative behaviors towards their health, and an increased focus on appearance in advertisements compared to males. The media's focus on adolescent girls has drastically lowered body satisfaction. Advertisements have created what is know as "the new normal" by hiring models with unreal body types and using the infamous program, photoshop.…

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Teenage girls are expected to have perfect bodies. As a result, girls are constantly lowering their self esteem. • Girls are lowering their self-esteem because they feel that they are not as beautiful as famous models. What they don’t know is the amount of altering made to their pictures to make them seem “perfect”. When a model on a magazine cover is being called flawless, it is easy for a girl to aspire to be like the model.…

    • 962 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays