Male Body Image example essay topic

The effects of the media today influence society. Standards of beauty, body The media predetermines all shape and size. The ideal body image for women is projected in magazines and television as thin, glowing skin, piercing eyes and the list of perfection goes on. Men are not dis cluded from this issue.

For years the focus has been on women but in recently a light has been shown on the man's perspective of how they are also being victimized. They also are expected to be trim and tall with muscles that have been perfected at a gym. This has an effect on how people view themselves and others within society in regards to body image. Key factors such as television ads, magazines, and billboards which are in abundance in daily life have an vast yet faint influence on how the standards are set.

Children are also greatly effected and at an alarming rate. Recent studies are paving that the media is having more of an influence then just what on what society watched, buys and eats but also sends the message that thin is in and that beauty is not the eye of the beholder but the media that projects it. The Untold Truth of Magazines and Television The notion that a person can achieve prestige happiness, eternal love and tremendous successes are all types of messages that the media sends out to society depicting that they can all be achieved by external beauty. At an early age young girls have already been programmed to view their bodies in a distorted manner. It has been determined that 90% of all girls ages 3-11 have a Barbie doll, with a figure that is unattainable in any notion.

In result children today are growing up to believe that our society values beauty more over anything else. Television characters have always set the standards of what general society determine to be the standard. Consequently 69% of female television characters are thin and only 5% are overweight. In comparisons to actually society the numbers are very different.

The current media ideal of thinness is achievable by less than 5% of the female population and contrary to popular belief 3 out of 4 people over 25 years of age are overweight, which works out to approximately 75%. A study done by Stick it Al concluded a direct relationship between media exposure and eating disorders. This furthermore states that media does send a negative impressionable image. This study also concluded that women's magazines have 10.5 time more articles relating to dieting in comparison to men's which only have about 3.6 articles. Battle of the Bulge: The Male Side of the Spectrum In recent ears the media has kept it's focus on women and the ideal. Now, with magazines specifically geared towards men the male body has been subjected to scrutiny.

Within Greek mythology the male physic is stand tall, appears to be very strong and every muscle is apparent. This image has been portrayed throughout every generation although it has only been currently that the media has put a focus on males in civilization. The ideal for males has been determined as "macho". Which can be defined in very few words such as muscular and strong.

For that reason a recent study has shown that there has been an increasing link between bodybuilders and steroid use. The relationship between the two is that steroids have been known to help achieve an enhanced well-developed body. Research has shown that since the early 1930's the male body has become increasingly larger. Although television does play an important role in the shaping of the male body image it is mostly magazines that have an effect on males. Not only in female magazines are males stereotypically larger than most males in society but magazines geared towards men are promoting a male body image that is unattainable for the most part of society. How We " re Passing our Behaviour on to Our Children A theory by Albert Band ura in 1963 concluded that children learn behaviour by observing other.

The act of watching television is an observational process. Television demonstrates and models behaviours and attitudes that children acquire. Therefore children who have observed that beauty is an importance within society will be affected. It has been proven that female dissatisfaction with appearance and poor body image begins at an early age.

Human infants begin to recognize themselves in mirrors at about two years of age. Female humans begin to dislike what they see only a few years later. A Harvard university study showed that up to two thirds of underweight 12-year-old girls considered themselves to be too fat. By age 13, at least 50% of girls are significantly unhappy about their appearance.

By age 14, focused, specific dissatisfaction's have intensified, particularly concerning hips and thighs. By age 17, , only 3 out of 10 girls have not been on a diet and up to 8 out of 10 will be unhappy with what they see. Media has been linked to these studies because of it the role it plays within the lives of children and teenagers. Teenagers become a target because of the buying power they posses and are easily impressionable when it come to physical appearance.

Today's generation places its values on beauty. We not only have programmed society to so but the next generation of people has already been greatly influenced. The media is having a much more profound impact on out lives then even thought to be imagined. It affects human beings emotionally and physically, which has in our society has been deemed acceptable. In no other society are individuals bombarded with the unattainable message of beauty standards. We as a society are fueling the fire of which the media has distorted the image of a real human body.