.....::Essay 2: Body Images are "Wearing Thin" ~ Media Bias
This is the second essay we did in English class this year. Again, we had the freedom to choose our topic, as long as it had to do with the media and media bias. I chose the topic of body image, and how advertising could negatively AND positively affect it. However, in my essay, I argued for how advertising could negatively affect body image, so the negative effects were the main focus of my research.
It was the same deal for this essay as the last one. We wrote three research responses, and after finishing our first drafts, we held many workshops to revise the essay.
All of the bolded things in the essay below are the changes I made. Mostly, I had to add in some more explanations to clarify ideas and facts I had presented.I also added a couple more facts about eating disorders, and how men over exert themselves while exercising. I also made some better word choices in order to, again, be more clarifying with the meanings of my sentences. Some of the sentences had errors in grammar and pronouns. I made some parts more concise and other parts a bit longer to make my meanings clearer. I changed my conclusion as well to make it more powerful as it closes.
Below you can see and download my essay.
It was the same deal for this essay as the last one. We wrote three research responses, and after finishing our first drafts, we held many workshops to revise the essay.
All of the bolded things in the essay below are the changes I made. Mostly, I had to add in some more explanations to clarify ideas and facts I had presented.I also added a couple more facts about eating disorders, and how men over exert themselves while exercising. I also made some better word choices in order to, again, be more clarifying with the meanings of my sentences. Some of the sentences had errors in grammar and pronouns. I made some parts more concise and other parts a bit longer to make my meanings clearer. I changed my conclusion as well to make it more powerful as it closes.
Below you can see and download my essay.
amanda_-_body_image_essay.docx | |
File Size: | 23 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Body Images are "Wearing Thin"
Early in the 19th century, during the Victorian Era, a plump and fleshy body with a small waist due to a corset was the ideal image of beauty for women. In short, the idea of beauty not two hundred years ago was to be fat. As western society entered the 20th century, thinness became a fad (“Body Image”). Researchers began using science to promote thin body weights. In the 1950s, thin women with large busts were more popular, and Marilyn Monroe set a new standard with her curvy body. In the 1960s, the model Twiggy was introduced, which set the idea of thin bodies into motion for today’s society. In the 90s, the idea of thin but large-breasted females became prominent in society, essentially combining Marilyn Monroe’s curviness and Twiggy’s thinness into one impossible idea of beauty (“Body Image”). Today, “we see beautiful people more often than we see members of our family, [and] the ideal becomes more familiar to us than our friends” (“Body Image”). We’re exposed to such beautiful people through the use of programs and advertisements seen on the television. Almost all American households have at least one television, and about half of America believes that they watch too much TV (“Television Watching Statistics”). People are exposed to hundreds of advertisements a day. Studies have found that over half of the advertisements on TV and in teen girl magazines use beauty and body image in order to sell their products (“Eating Disorders”). This applies to people of any gender, age, and size. Because of the widespread demographics and exposure to such advertisements, everyone is affected by the ideas that advertisers and propaganda artists put out. Advertisements and programs in television media of today encourages its viewers to think negatively of their own body.
The people who are most obviously affected by TV media are women. Most advertising campaigns are aimed at women to encourage them to strive for a thinner body. In retrospect, the idea of promoting thin and unhealthy bodies is atrocious, but unfortunately such a method is effective in marketing. Women desire a beautiful look by society’s standard, and they believe that the advertised product will help them achieve that look (“Eating Disorders”). It’s arguable that the thin ideal that these advertisements put out could have a positive effect. According to Philip Myers and Frank Biocca, two professors at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, female college students actually had a feeling of euphoria after watching TV ads that focused on beauty using thin models (126-127). This is because the girls would project themselves on the TV screen and envision themselves with the ideal body presented. However, Myers and Biocca say that the feeling may be temporary, and after the feeling of euphoria fades, the girls are hit with a bout of depression, because they do not have the desired body, and thus gain the need to be thinner. With so much exposure to this thin ideal, many women go to extremes in order to achieve that image. Many girls will develop eating disorders due to this, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (“Eating Disorders”). It’s estimated that about 8 million Americans have an eating disorder, and 7 million of those people are woman (“Eating Disorder Statistics”). According to this statistic, eating disorders are more prevalent in women than they are in men. This is because thinness is more emphasized as a woman's idea of beauty. Anorexia and bulimia can have fatal effects. Anorexia is the eating disorder in which the diseased will eat less and less. This can cause malnutrition. The patient’s brain and heart shrinks, and there is a gradual loss of cognitive skills. Eventually, the person will starve to death, all for the empty hope of being beautiful by society’s standards (Tapia). Bulimia is a further developed version of anorexia. Bulimics will throw up, or purge, their food after ingesting it. This constant regurgitation is dangerous because the person suffering from bulimia may throw up their own organs (Tracy). However, girls will keep doing such horrible things to their body because they truly believe they are fine. Both sufferers of anorexia and bulimia will look at themselves in the mirror and believe they need to be thinner. It is primarily TV ads that cause this widespread idea of an unattainable thin beauty to be planted in women’s minds. Women are the primary target of body image issues, and most often are the victims of eating disorders.
Although most of the emphasis on body image is put on women, it does not mean that men do not suffer from the pressures of society. This is, unfortunately, a fact that is not acknowledged by society merely because men don’t speak up about this problem as much as women do. For men, “their ideas about weight, body image and self-esteem have been largely swept under the ambiguous rug of masculinity,” (Strickland). The main reason that men are concerned with their body images is that they are too afraid of being emasculated; however, they also wish to be desirable like women when they wish to be thinner. Most men are raised from childhood to think in a very black and white mindset in which they have to fix a problem if it presents itself, rather than women who try to find a way to accept the problem instead (Fridkis). Fridkis intends that, if men think there is something wrong with themselves, they will try their hardest to make sure the problem doesn’t exist. She says that women are more accepting in the sense that they try to find a way to be comfortable in their own skin. Some men are even concerned with being a good and healthy role model for their children. These men would buy exercise programs sold using TV ads and work out excessively, to the point that it would over-exert their bodies (Fridkis). Although the idea of being healthy is good, this could possibly worsen the situation. It will cause children to think well-built men with muscles are the ideal look and plant that idea in their minds, creating another generation of men thinking that being well-built is what they should be looking like. David Zinczenko, the editor of Men’s Health Magazine, argues that the picture of health and fitness portrayed by models and advertising is a good influence on men. “With diabetes rates skyrocketing over the past 70 years, a little more ‘lean’ wouldn’t hurt us,” he says (Noveck 1-2). However, this quote exemplifies the mindset most advertisers use to convince their potential customers to buy their products. It also is the mindset that causes most men to think negatively about their own body image, awakening a latent desire to exercise and get fit. After all, much advertising in media that are aimed at men portray and raise the standard for them as well-built men (“Eating Disorders”). The ideal for men is very different from women in the fact that TV media encourages men to build up their bodies, whereas women are encouraged to slim down. Society plays a rather large role in how men think of their body image. A personal trainer named Drew Manning conducted an experiment called “Fit 2 Fat 2 Fit” (Strickland). He had a toned body with strong muscles and the like, and gained seventy pounds in order to show his customers that it was possible to lose that weight. As he was shopping for sugary and fatty foods, three girls had given him and the items he was buying judgmental looks. As a result, he learned the viewpoint of people with bodies that weren’t fit, and sympathized with them better. Manning’s experiment just proves that society’s judgmental eyes can degrade men who don’t have the “perfect body” that media in TV portray as much as they degrade women.
While body image issues have been a major issue for men and women, it also poses a significant problem to children and teenagers. Teenagers are in the transition to becoming adults, so they want to be desirable and pretty. Ninety percent of teenagers with an eating disorder are girls (“Eating Disorders”). Five percent of all teenagers use steroids to bulk up and increase their muscles (“Five Percent”). An adolescent’s body is fragile, and the strongest habits develop during the teenage years. As a result, such negative effects like doing drugs and having developed an eating disorder will grow into the teen’s adult years. It would be hard for the person to get rid of the habit. They are fragile, so they will bend to the pressures of society a lot more, especially because they watch a lot more television than adults do. Both children and adults are exposed to over an estimated 5,000 messages a year dealing with attractiveness and beauty, and about 14 a day on average (Myers and Biocca 111). On TV shows, teenagers are never depicted as obese, and a mere 7% of those teens on TV were overweight (Myers and Biocca 110). With nobody on TV being pictured as big, teenagers in society must have the need to be as thin as what the TV media portrays. Some teenagers even turn to smoking to help them lose weight (“Eating Disorders”). This poses a potential danger to adolescents, for they could develop habits that could impact their health further than an eating disorder alone. Silverstein et al. provides his analysis of television media when he says, “This standard may not be promoted only in the media and it may not even originate in the media, but given the popularity of television, movies and magazines… the media are likely to be among the most influential promoters of such thin standards” (Myers and Biocca 110). Programs, commercials, and even characters can exemplify the ideal body image that society sets. One character in particular that is very influential when it comes to body image is Barbie. According to Colleen Thompson, “They [children] look at her and feel that all women should look like her” (2). There are also the commercials during Saturday morning cartoons that promote designer fashion or toys. Most of the commercials sell toys, which are thin Barbies and Bratz dolls or G. I. Joe and other muscled men figurines (Thompson). Those commercials promote the message that kids must have those toys to be cool or even further look like the toys in order to be accepted. A study conducted by the Keep It Real campaign found that 80% of 10-year-old girls have already dieted in their lives (Delaney). Although women and men are more affected by the TV media, children and teenagers are affected as well.
People of any age and gender are affected negatively by TV and advertising media. Of course, they are all affected in different ways, but that does not make any group of people less affected than any other. Women are obviously the most targeted group of people, being impacted by the pressures of society and advertising plastered everywhere ranging from magazines to television ads. Most people think that women are the only ones affected by body image pressures and self-esteem issues, but men and teenagers are influenced by these same things. Furthermore, children are affected negatively by the toys they play with, having the desire to look like the plastic figures they are so familiar with. Such ideas about body image will never go away, and have been engraved in thousands of people’s minds. Even if the standard in society were to change, people’s minds will not. This is all because of media through the TV and advertising that we see every day. This affects us. It could be that if we do something to promote healthier bodies than those portrayed in advertisements, nothing would really happen. However, it will be the start to an era in which we could live a happier life, without the worries of feeling uncomfortable in our own skins.
Works Cited
“Body Image Timeline.” TheSite.org. 17 March 2009. 26 May 2013. <http://www.thesite.org/healthandwellbeing/wellbeing/bodyimageandselfesteem/
bodyimagetimeline>.
Delaney, Ja'anai. “Childhood Eating Disorders on the Rise.” PBS. 20 September 2012. 29 May 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/health/july-
dec12/eatingdisorder_09-20.html>.
“Eating Disorders.” HealthyPlace. 11 July 2012. 16 May 2013. <http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-disorders/articles/eating-disorders-body-image-and-
advertising/>.
“Eating Disorder Statistics.” South Carolina Department of Mental Health. 28 February 2008. 26 May 2013. <http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/
statistics.htm>.
“Five Percent of Teens Use Steroids to Increase Muscle.” DrugFree.org. 20 November 2012. 31 May 2013. <http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/drugs/five-
percent-of-teens-use-steroids-to-increase-muscle>.
Fridkis, Kate. “Men Have Body Image Issues, Too.” Huffington Post. 27 March 2013. 29 May 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-fridkis/men-have-body-
image-issues_b_2967247.html>.
Strickland, Ashley. “Defining the new male ideal.” CNN. 24 March 2012. 29 May 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/23/living/male-ideal-body-image>.
“Male Body Image.” TheSite.org. 13 April 2010. 26 May 2013. <http://www.thesite.org/healthandwellbeing/wellbeing/bodyimageandselfesteem/
malebodyimage>.
Myers, Philip N. and Biocca, Frank A. “The Elastic Body Image: The Effect of Television Advertising and Programming on Body Image Distortions in Young
Woman.” M.I.N.D. Lab. 1992. 16 May 2013. <http://www.mindlab.org/images/d/DOC828.pdf >.
Tapia, Allena. “What is Anorexia Nervosa?” HealthyPlace. 28 May 2013. 12 June 2013. <http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-
disorders/anorexia-nervosa/what-is-anorexia-nervosa-basic-information-about-anorexia/>.
“Television Watching Statistics.” Statistic Brain. 2 July 2012. 26 May 2013. < http://www.statisticbrain.com/television-watching-statistics/>.
Thompson, Colleen. “Eating Disorders in Children.” Mirror Mirror. 29 May 2013. <http://www.mirror-mirror.org/child.htm>.
Tracy, Natasha. “What is Bulimia Nervosa?” HealthyPlace. 28 May 2013. 12 June 2013. <http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-
disorders/bulimia-nervosa/what-is-bulimia-nervosa-basic-information-about-bulimia/>.
The people who are most obviously affected by TV media are women. Most advertising campaigns are aimed at women to encourage them to strive for a thinner body. In retrospect, the idea of promoting thin and unhealthy bodies is atrocious, but unfortunately such a method is effective in marketing. Women desire a beautiful look by society’s standard, and they believe that the advertised product will help them achieve that look (“Eating Disorders”). It’s arguable that the thin ideal that these advertisements put out could have a positive effect. According to Philip Myers and Frank Biocca, two professors at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, female college students actually had a feeling of euphoria after watching TV ads that focused on beauty using thin models (126-127). This is because the girls would project themselves on the TV screen and envision themselves with the ideal body presented. However, Myers and Biocca say that the feeling may be temporary, and after the feeling of euphoria fades, the girls are hit with a bout of depression, because they do not have the desired body, and thus gain the need to be thinner. With so much exposure to this thin ideal, many women go to extremes in order to achieve that image. Many girls will develop eating disorders due to this, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (“Eating Disorders”). It’s estimated that about 8 million Americans have an eating disorder, and 7 million of those people are woman (“Eating Disorder Statistics”). According to this statistic, eating disorders are more prevalent in women than they are in men. This is because thinness is more emphasized as a woman's idea of beauty. Anorexia and bulimia can have fatal effects. Anorexia is the eating disorder in which the diseased will eat less and less. This can cause malnutrition. The patient’s brain and heart shrinks, and there is a gradual loss of cognitive skills. Eventually, the person will starve to death, all for the empty hope of being beautiful by society’s standards (Tapia). Bulimia is a further developed version of anorexia. Bulimics will throw up, or purge, their food after ingesting it. This constant regurgitation is dangerous because the person suffering from bulimia may throw up their own organs (Tracy). However, girls will keep doing such horrible things to their body because they truly believe they are fine. Both sufferers of anorexia and bulimia will look at themselves in the mirror and believe they need to be thinner. It is primarily TV ads that cause this widespread idea of an unattainable thin beauty to be planted in women’s minds. Women are the primary target of body image issues, and most often are the victims of eating disorders.
Although most of the emphasis on body image is put on women, it does not mean that men do not suffer from the pressures of society. This is, unfortunately, a fact that is not acknowledged by society merely because men don’t speak up about this problem as much as women do. For men, “their ideas about weight, body image and self-esteem have been largely swept under the ambiguous rug of masculinity,” (Strickland). The main reason that men are concerned with their body images is that they are too afraid of being emasculated; however, they also wish to be desirable like women when they wish to be thinner. Most men are raised from childhood to think in a very black and white mindset in which they have to fix a problem if it presents itself, rather than women who try to find a way to accept the problem instead (Fridkis). Fridkis intends that, if men think there is something wrong with themselves, they will try their hardest to make sure the problem doesn’t exist. She says that women are more accepting in the sense that they try to find a way to be comfortable in their own skin. Some men are even concerned with being a good and healthy role model for their children. These men would buy exercise programs sold using TV ads and work out excessively, to the point that it would over-exert their bodies (Fridkis). Although the idea of being healthy is good, this could possibly worsen the situation. It will cause children to think well-built men with muscles are the ideal look and plant that idea in their minds, creating another generation of men thinking that being well-built is what they should be looking like. David Zinczenko, the editor of Men’s Health Magazine, argues that the picture of health and fitness portrayed by models and advertising is a good influence on men. “With diabetes rates skyrocketing over the past 70 years, a little more ‘lean’ wouldn’t hurt us,” he says (Noveck 1-2). However, this quote exemplifies the mindset most advertisers use to convince their potential customers to buy their products. It also is the mindset that causes most men to think negatively about their own body image, awakening a latent desire to exercise and get fit. After all, much advertising in media that are aimed at men portray and raise the standard for them as well-built men (“Eating Disorders”). The ideal for men is very different from women in the fact that TV media encourages men to build up their bodies, whereas women are encouraged to slim down. Society plays a rather large role in how men think of their body image. A personal trainer named Drew Manning conducted an experiment called “Fit 2 Fat 2 Fit” (Strickland). He had a toned body with strong muscles and the like, and gained seventy pounds in order to show his customers that it was possible to lose that weight. As he was shopping for sugary and fatty foods, three girls had given him and the items he was buying judgmental looks. As a result, he learned the viewpoint of people with bodies that weren’t fit, and sympathized with them better. Manning’s experiment just proves that society’s judgmental eyes can degrade men who don’t have the “perfect body” that media in TV portray as much as they degrade women.
While body image issues have been a major issue for men and women, it also poses a significant problem to children and teenagers. Teenagers are in the transition to becoming adults, so they want to be desirable and pretty. Ninety percent of teenagers with an eating disorder are girls (“Eating Disorders”). Five percent of all teenagers use steroids to bulk up and increase their muscles (“Five Percent”). An adolescent’s body is fragile, and the strongest habits develop during the teenage years. As a result, such negative effects like doing drugs and having developed an eating disorder will grow into the teen’s adult years. It would be hard for the person to get rid of the habit. They are fragile, so they will bend to the pressures of society a lot more, especially because they watch a lot more television than adults do. Both children and adults are exposed to over an estimated 5,000 messages a year dealing with attractiveness and beauty, and about 14 a day on average (Myers and Biocca 111). On TV shows, teenagers are never depicted as obese, and a mere 7% of those teens on TV were overweight (Myers and Biocca 110). With nobody on TV being pictured as big, teenagers in society must have the need to be as thin as what the TV media portrays. Some teenagers even turn to smoking to help them lose weight (“Eating Disorders”). This poses a potential danger to adolescents, for they could develop habits that could impact their health further than an eating disorder alone. Silverstein et al. provides his analysis of television media when he says, “This standard may not be promoted only in the media and it may not even originate in the media, but given the popularity of television, movies and magazines… the media are likely to be among the most influential promoters of such thin standards” (Myers and Biocca 110). Programs, commercials, and even characters can exemplify the ideal body image that society sets. One character in particular that is very influential when it comes to body image is Barbie. According to Colleen Thompson, “They [children] look at her and feel that all women should look like her” (2). There are also the commercials during Saturday morning cartoons that promote designer fashion or toys. Most of the commercials sell toys, which are thin Barbies and Bratz dolls or G. I. Joe and other muscled men figurines (Thompson). Those commercials promote the message that kids must have those toys to be cool or even further look like the toys in order to be accepted. A study conducted by the Keep It Real campaign found that 80% of 10-year-old girls have already dieted in their lives (Delaney). Although women and men are more affected by the TV media, children and teenagers are affected as well.
People of any age and gender are affected negatively by TV and advertising media. Of course, they are all affected in different ways, but that does not make any group of people less affected than any other. Women are obviously the most targeted group of people, being impacted by the pressures of society and advertising plastered everywhere ranging from magazines to television ads. Most people think that women are the only ones affected by body image pressures and self-esteem issues, but men and teenagers are influenced by these same things. Furthermore, children are affected negatively by the toys they play with, having the desire to look like the plastic figures they are so familiar with. Such ideas about body image will never go away, and have been engraved in thousands of people’s minds. Even if the standard in society were to change, people’s minds will not. This is all because of media through the TV and advertising that we see every day. This affects us. It could be that if we do something to promote healthier bodies than those portrayed in advertisements, nothing would really happen. However, it will be the start to an era in which we could live a happier life, without the worries of feeling uncomfortable in our own skins.
Works Cited
“Body Image Timeline.” TheSite.org. 17 March 2009. 26 May 2013. <http://www.thesite.org/healthandwellbeing/wellbeing/bodyimageandselfesteem/
bodyimagetimeline>.
Delaney, Ja'anai. “Childhood Eating Disorders on the Rise.” PBS. 20 September 2012. 29 May 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/health/july-
dec12/eatingdisorder_09-20.html>.
“Eating Disorders.” HealthyPlace. 11 July 2012. 16 May 2013. <http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-disorders/articles/eating-disorders-body-image-and-
advertising/>.
“Eating Disorder Statistics.” South Carolina Department of Mental Health. 28 February 2008. 26 May 2013. <http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/
statistics.htm>.
“Five Percent of Teens Use Steroids to Increase Muscle.” DrugFree.org. 20 November 2012. 31 May 2013. <http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/drugs/five-
percent-of-teens-use-steroids-to-increase-muscle>.
Fridkis, Kate. “Men Have Body Image Issues, Too.” Huffington Post. 27 March 2013. 29 May 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-fridkis/men-have-body-
image-issues_b_2967247.html>.
Strickland, Ashley. “Defining the new male ideal.” CNN. 24 March 2012. 29 May 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/23/living/male-ideal-body-image>.
“Male Body Image.” TheSite.org. 13 April 2010. 26 May 2013. <http://www.thesite.org/healthandwellbeing/wellbeing/bodyimageandselfesteem/
malebodyimage>.
Myers, Philip N. and Biocca, Frank A. “The Elastic Body Image: The Effect of Television Advertising and Programming on Body Image Distortions in Young
Woman.” M.I.N.D. Lab. 1992. 16 May 2013. <http://www.mindlab.org/images/d/DOC828.pdf >.
Tapia, Allena. “What is Anorexia Nervosa?” HealthyPlace. 28 May 2013. 12 June 2013. <http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-
disorders/anorexia-nervosa/what-is-anorexia-nervosa-basic-information-about-anorexia/>.
“Television Watching Statistics.” Statistic Brain. 2 July 2012. 26 May 2013. < http://www.statisticbrain.com/television-watching-statistics/>.
Thompson, Colleen. “Eating Disorders in Children.” Mirror Mirror. 29 May 2013. <http://www.mirror-mirror.org/child.htm>.
Tracy, Natasha. “What is Bulimia Nervosa?” HealthyPlace. 28 May 2013. 12 June 2013. <http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-
disorders/bulimia-nervosa/what-is-bulimia-nervosa-basic-information-about-bulimia/>.