Need For The Ideal Body Image example essay topic

Everyone who brings home a bad report card knows that with a little effort they can better their grades. Yet there are some things in life that you cant change and the way you look is one of them. In today " society teenage girls face an ongoing battle to attain the perfect body image. The following paper discusses the definition of perfect, why we strive to attain this impossible ideal, why we don't fight to change the image, and the consequences that can result from this battle to please. A dictionary definition of perfect is: 1. complete, having all its essential qualities 2. faultless, excellent 3. exact, precise 4. entire, total (1). Now does this seem like a reasonable goal to strive for?

Absolutely not, it is impossible, yet so many teenage girls feel that perfection is within their reach. Society plays a massive role in influencing our lives and our judgment. The emphasis placed on looking good in our society clouds our vision of what is truly important. Western culture portrays certain morals and ideals that girls feel they must live up to. Society's ideals themselves are largely influenced by those of the media, which in return puts added stress on the image problems that teenage girls face. Every time they look around themselves.

' [They] loose [their] sense of self, individuality and fall victim to narrow definitions of beauty defined by the media. The media acts as a propaganda machine determined to shake our confidence, remind us we aren't good enough, we haven't made it, that we just simply don't measure up. ' (2) All we see in the media these days are tall, thin, beautiful girls with great skin and even better figures. The medias ends out the message that the ideal body should resemble that of a Barbie doll.

Girls are supposed to try and look like this, so they will 'fit in. ' Girls feel that with an 'ideal' body comes power in society, and they are shown this starting at a very young age; She will be a woman like all the women in the thousand of ads and movies and television programs she has seen since she was very little. (3) The media is sending out negative messages to millions of vulnerable teenage girls striving to be accepted in today's society and this is causing extreme problems. The media image is only going to become more and more destructive because, while the media ideal female is getting smaller, the average North American female is getting larger.

This dichotomy is creating more and more girls who feel unacceptable and unattractive. The effects of a narrow feminine ideal are crippling. (4) Girls who assume they must be thin to please, and be accepted in today's world have a very negative mental attitude contributing to their compulsive behavior to be perfect. Women are enslaved to a beauty myth, chained to the false belief that our value is based on our appearance alone. (5) Women can be very vulnerable and susceptible to believing that such notions are reality, even though they know in their heart that it is not the truth. We allow ourselves to fall victim to the mind games that the media plays with us to convince our minds that thin equals good and fat equals bad.

The need for the ideal body image takes its tolls on a female, mentally not just physically. When one gets caught up in the desire to please others it can distract [them] from what [they] truly feel. One who excessively pleases places her worth into the hands of other people and depends completely upon their judgment while doing their best to influence their judgment. (6) It is mentally unfavorable to depend on the critique of other for one's own sense of self, yet it is an ongoing problem that occurs every day in many parts of the world. Why do we strive for this ideal image? One of the leading reasons we struggle to attain this ideal is to survive in today's society.

It is survival of the fittest and every girl wants to come out on top. Unfortunately, not everyone can win the never-ending game that is life. Pursuing the act of thinness creates a life that excludes other more important and interesting aspects of living; developing skills and hobbies, developing character and personality and finding and keeping friends. (7) The problem is that women don't stop to think about or even care what they are missing in life; the only thing they see is what they must look like. She strives for the impossible in pursuit to trick herself into thinking that if she becomes thin and perfect that everything will just fall into place. These girls couldn't be any more wrong.

Nothing in life just falls into place, even the women that we idolize from the media had to work for their right to be there, but we overlook that. The way we see it, life is so easy for them, therefore we strive to be just like them so we too can be idolized by both men and women and have everything handed to us on a silver platter. We see ourselves getting job promotions, getting stares from men, finding someone to settle down with, if only we had the ideal body. We tend to underestimate the attractiveness of a confident, intriguing personality (8) because we are too blinded by body image to realize what is right in front of us. Another reason we strive for such high ideals, is out of fear. The obsessive impulse to please is generated by fear of loss.

It is based on ones fear of losing the love of another and the need for approval, admiration and caring from those who are close to us. If we achieve the impossible, everything in our life will seem easier. Why don't we strike out against these misconceptions? As I previously stated, females these days associate thin with success and feel a strong drive to be successful. The problem lies in our definition of success.

Success is not defined by a size 10 but rather the achievements we make. Humans are social animals; we have a strong need to belong to a group (11); we don't want to go against the media for fear that we will be different. If almost every women in today's society that was slightly overweight, or had bad skin, or was short, gave in to the media's misconceptions and ideals, it would make it extremely difficult for woman to fight the media for fear they may have failed in some way. The value placed on looking good in our society outweighs considerations of character, personality, productivity and social contributions, (12) the things that actually matter. When women strive to please they don't realize what is really around them and life becomes a constant battle with tape measures and clothing sizes. Butt is when women feel they have failed that the more serious problems arise.

The more you fail to please the person, the more you get worried. The more intense the pain gets, the greater the need to please becomes. Even if you hide your pain from others, you cannot hide it from yourself. (13) These girls main problem is that they are so blinded that they believe that the impossible is achievable. We are taught from the time we are little that there is an ideal body size and appearance (14) so striving for society's ideals are like second nature because it is all we have ever known. We think that we have to be perfect, because that is what we have always been brought up to think.

We must please Mom and Dad and learn to be a good girl. A good girl learns to please others in order to fit into a social group. She reacts to their needs like a weather vane, spinning and changing direction to suit the prevailing climate. She loses pounds, changes hairstyle, and buys new clothes, and exercises, trying to become what others currently demand. Because she is anxious to please everyone, she responds to the strong social demands of the media pressure. This value is not a product of our need to attract a mate and reproduce.

It is a product of our economic market. ' (15) Economy is a large part of our world, and we can be easily convinced into thinking things that are not healthy if it helps our economy. The media largely contributes to our economy; therefore they have great power in our society. Even the strongest willed girls know they cannot hide from the media's pressures and expectations, therefore they deny themselves the effort. There are vast consequences for trying to attain the ideal body image. One of the most common that arises from the battle to attain the perfect body is low self-esteem.

Women, who feel inferior because they are not perfect, tend to develop lower self-esteem. Women depend on others to boost their self esteem and make them feel good about themselves and this causes problems because once a woman depends on assurances outside herself for her vision of herself, she loses control of her life. (16) The lack of self-esteem that arises from the pursuit of an impossible goal prevents women from grasping opportunities and competing with men. (17) This can lead to more serious conditions such as, eating disorders, depression, self mutilation and even suicide. Many girls turn to eating disorders because they don't know what else to do when the pressure get to high for them to handle.

The pursuit of thinness has led approximately seven million women in North America into the dangerous world or eating disorders-anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive eating-according to information from the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Diseases in Highland Park, Illinois. (18) It may be obvious to others when someone is suffering from anorexia as it is often accompanied by drastic weight loss. Because eating disorders satisfy emotional needs, and provide women with some aspect of control over their lives, women with anorexia do not respond to reasonable arguments for weight gain. They are convinced that they will be happy only if they are very thin. Women with anorexia usually have a distorted body image. They look in the mirror and see fat where there is no fat.

They may see what they feel, as fat when they are depressed, acceptable when they are happy. (19) Unlike the anorexic girl who eats nothing or very little, one who is bulimic eats a substantial amount and then proceeds to throw it all back up. A bulimic girl sees herself as not being good enough as she is too fat too lumpy. Like the girl who is anorexic, she wants a perfect face, a perfect figure, a perfect body. She equates happiness (20) Another thing that can lead to eating disorders is sexual abuse; the influence of sexual abuse can be seen in women with eating disorders who are obsessively committed to the socially accepted perfect size. Looking good is all that is important to them.

Recent statistics show that 66% of women with eating disorders were sexually abused. Sexual abuse didn't cause eating disorders, but it may have been the root cause in these women's low self-esteem. (21) This can further lead to depression, which is just as harmful in my eyes mentally as an eating disorder. When people become depressed they remove themselves from all their surroundings, further alienating themselves.

Their life becomes pointless in their opinion which can lead to believing that they have nothing to live for, so they take their own life not realizing that people don't come back from the dead. Even if they don't go as far as suicide, many turn to self mutilation, such as cutting of the wrists, beating themselves up, excessive exercise, and popping pills as a means of expressing their inner depression. All of the above are atrocious consequences that result from the battle to reach society's ideals and they all affect you in their own ways. Teenage girls today must endure an on-going battle within society to attain the ideal body image. In this paper I covered four important aspects that are linked with the ideal body image. I stated what perfect is in these girls eyes, why they make perfection their goal, why they don't try and break away from this ideal and what happens when this battle for the impossible goes too far.

These girls need to start fighting for change. Women need to be committed to changing the present body image ideal to a new one that is tolerant of varied size and weight. They must form a new social group whose rules and codes for a body image ideal allow all women to be beautiful in her own way. (22) These women need to learn to accept who they are inside and out. If they can't do this on their own, then they need to seek professional help in order to get to the root of the problem. The most important thing is that they realize that they need help, and seek it as soon as possible.

They should see someone who can help them make a healthy eating and work out plan to follow. And if they don't feel comfortable talking to a professional, than they can talk to someone they trust. Another option that can help one get their life back on track is becoming involved in sports. Sports can help you make new friends and get into better physical shape, which will in turn brighten your mood and increase your self esteem. With increased self- esteem comes increased confidence, and that is key to accepting yourself mirror reflection included.