The Tender Trap Summary

In “The Slender Trap” by Linda Piscatelli the author argues that society and media play a big role in how women feel about their bodies and suggests that they both play huge contributing factors in women developing anorexia. Media and societal pressures do play a role in this, but she also touches on how family and friends and place an extreme amount of pressure on young women. How much damage does the media’s portrayal of the ideal body affect a young woman’s feeling of self worth? Media is everywhere, we are plugged in and inundated with images or what we are “supposed to look like” every time we turn on the television or log onto the internet. Television, magazines and movies have set out unrealistic representation of what the female body should look like. According to the author, “only 5% of North American women are underweight, 32 percent of female television and movie personalities are unhealthily thin” (ANRED sec.6). Many young girls and women look up to these movie and television stars as role models and can begin to feel inadequate about themselves especially when their friends also look up to and strive to look like the famous people they envy, or that they see in magazines. …show more content…
Wanting to fit in with their friends and feel like they are a part of something, can lead to unhealthy insecurities about how she looks. After being out with friends feeling that pressure, young women often go home to a place that should feel happy and secure but often get faced with the same pressures. When a family member jokes about her appearance, even though it wasn’t meant to be harmful, it can have lasting damage on an already fragile state of mind. “By emphasizing physical appearance, by criticizing physical features, and by restricting food, family members can push a young woman over the cliff edge that separates health from