O Girls And Women example essay topic

You and the Media... Did you ever stop and think about how much the Media (television, movies, magazines and newspapers) can affect our own body image and our own self-esteem? It can have a big play on how we perceive ourselves, without us even realizing. What is Media?

Media, according to Webster's Dictionary, is "the medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression", and is most readily referred to in the agencies of mass communication". We are constantly influenced, whether we know it or not, by mass communication. Some forms you may recognize are: o Television o Magazines and newspapers o Books o Radio o Video games o CDs and tapes o Internet o Billboards and posters o Movies and videos How does Media influence us? Have you ever been flipping through a magazine, and compared yourself to the models? Have you ever wanted to look like them? Most of us have at one point or another.

Media can affect us in many different ways. Have you ever wanted to look like someone on TV or in the movies? One of the things we have to be aware of, is how we let Media affect our Body Image and therefore affect our Self Esteem. Many people have come to have a distorted body image, based on what magazines and television tell us is acceptable. We are constantly told by media that we must be a certain size, weight, have a certain look, have a certain skin color, or wear certain clothes, in order to be "cool", or accepted in society. A friend told me that she was at the cinema with two teenage girls.

The film Pearl Harbor had three leading roles: The two male roles were played by actors of normal weight, while the actress playing the female role was extremely slim and this was frequently emphasised. Afterwards, both girls said how much they enjoyed the film and how beautiful the leading actress was. They wanted to look like her. The message society gives to those girls is full of contradictions. On one hand it emphasises an abnormally slim female figure as ideal and on the other they are tempted to eat unhealthy fattening junk food.

This media effect on the body image of women is dangerous. It is not surprising that some teenagers become ill when subjected to such contradictory propaganda. Even music has an impact in embracing these unattainable, unrealistic, violent and sometimes outright degrading images. "I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world'. Who wants to be bimbo with a gigantic head and legs up to her neck?

We are inundated with information and products trying to sell us happiness, security, self-image, we are the consumers. Did you know... o Girls and women who work as models weigh 23% less than the average female their age o If shop mannequins were real women, they would be too thin to menstruate o There are 3 billion women who don't look like supermodels and ONLY 8 WHO DO o Marilyn Monroe wore a SIZE 12 o One out of every 4 college aged women has an eating disorder o The models in the magazines are airbrushed. Sometimes the face of one model may be combined with the body of a second model and the legs of a third o A University of Toronto study in 1999 found that women who were shown ads of models in fashion magazines responded immediately with depression and hostility after being asked about their mood, body satisfaction and eating patterns Female body image has increasingly become one of the biggest issues facing young women. The way that we look at ourselves is the difference between a happy, confident lifestyle, and a life spent neurotically trying to live up to someone else's beauty standard. Body image is different from other causes, being extremely personal and likely to bring up a lot of trauma.

It goes back even farther than that. Since children emulate adult behavior, girls as young as six or seven will start counting calories and talking about diets, feeling all grown up because their mom is on a diet, and that's what women on TV do. Despite pre-weight obsession, they look at actresses and models and dreamily think that's what they " ll look like when they hit puberty, the body blooming like a flower. Man, talk about a crash landing! Is it any wonder teenage girls are so damn moody?

If society can successfully limit smoking by legislation, it should be possible to use the same method in the area of eating disorders. Self-control is insufficient. Legislation or some other action by society is essential if we are to prevent generations of young women destroying their lives by eating disorders. The idealization of unhealthily slim women in the mass media must be discussed.

We may not be all over our body insecurities, but we should not let them take over the way that we look at ourselves. If this is the only life you get, why on earth would you choose to spend it thinking that you " re ugly? Because in reality, we all have beautiful and ugly sides to ourselves, just like we have good and bad sides, pure and sullied, yin and yang, battling each other out into infinity.