The Medias Influence on Today's Woman - Term Paper Example

April 11, The Medias Influence on Today’s Woman Introduction The media through advertising is effective in convincing women that they need products to solve certain problems for example their body image. The body image is most of the times portrayed as undesirable or unacceptable for example, obese or big bodies. In America, the media has convinced millions of women that the bodies they possess are abnormal and undesirably big contrary to medical evaluations, which put the bodies as quite normal; these areas also include hair and facial lines. Studies have shown that there is a correlation between the self-esteem of a person or her confidence and the influences of the media. Most women contend that the media especially the television influence their image. This influence has a direct effect in the lifestyles of the woman especially the kind of food she takes and the dieting regime. Women with low levels of self-confidence resort to dieting and weight loss programs that in most cases lead them to eating disorders and Anorexia Nervosa. It is not in doubt that the media always reach their target audience. For a woman, glossy and beauty magazines have been the major influence in negatively determining the image of a woman. They do this through the promotion of the undesirable and unrealistically but dangerous thin girl as the ideal body shape. Most teenage girls and older women spend considerable amounts of hours going through magazines for beauty tips and fitness information where the ideal teenage girl as described by magazines as 5’7’’, 100 pounds, and size 5 with flowing blonde hair and blue eyes. For most women, reaching such a figure is a difficult task as the body mass index of such a person will be in the range of a person suffering from anorexia; studies indicate that the mass media directly affects in the promotion of cultural thinness and beauty in women as a way of improving image. Nearly a quarter of women contend that television celebrities as depicted by movies influence them and television programs, a similar percentage derived their influence from fashion magazines. When women see media personalities glorified for their body sizes, they take the opportunity to evaluate their own bodies. They do this without realizing that most of the television commercials and the choice of characters in the movies are edited to give image to the advert. This is the reason why most women contend that they either lose or gain weight to fit into the figures or the images they see in the media. Women believe that being underweight and skinny is beautiful and sexually appealing that directly translates to success. This explains the skinnier standard as a body image that women try to attain in their course of daily lives. There is a close relation between what women see in the television media and how they correlate with the eating disorders in young adult women. Wang (204) says that media is the key cause of eating disorders experienced in young women. This is lent credence by other studies on integrative model for change in behavior that provide that the media can influence the behavior of any person through the airing or publishing of what type of lifestyles and personalities are destined for rewards and successes. This is because when a person gets to believe that his actions will satisfy others, he gets to act in that prescribed manner. This is the easiest way to confirm that a person will likely be influenced by what he sees or reads in the media, the media plays this role by influencing traits and norms of the women. One area in which the media has had a direct impact on women is diet and unhealthy trends in dieting. This is especially through the television programs and magazines that will make the woman try to emulate the images that are presented as presentable and desirable. For example, most magazines would put on the covers of the particular magazine, pictures of skinny and emancipated women who are seen by the women fraternity as sexy with desirable body figures. By doing this, the subconscious mind of the woman is interfered with or influenced to continue spending in order to attain the image that they see on advertising in the media. Prime time television and commercials use the physical appearance of a woman to create an appeal for their products, in achieving this; overweight women are given a wide berth in choosing of the characters that star in these commercials. Thus, the continued trend in the media industry as a whole is to create characters that are in most instances are younger and skinnier women as compared to the average woman. (Comstock 92). Therefore, women are likely to use eating that is disordered to fit in the society or a woman’s social life and remove the feelings of shame (Reel 441). The woman is likely to try to fit in this kind of society by following the standards of thinness or skinny as a standard of beauty. The ideal female body is becoming thinner and skinnier as the media targets young women in their teens encouraging thinness and having a flawless body as the epitome of being beautiful. Body image is how a person thinks about himself, perceive hi image or feel about one’s own body, this is not necessarily to mean that it is the actual appearance of a person, but it is how the mind says a person is from his own point of view. For example, most women in Western Europe, Northern America and South America especially Brazil believe that they are fatter and larger in appearance than they are actually. This is the reason why in every five women, one is not satisfied with the image and weight that they possess or they are in. It is also true that only half of women with normal weight are satisfied with their weight, the other half tend to overestimate their size and shape. The media tends to portray an idea that women can be skinny and achieve what is known as the model figure and beauty with sustained effort. The media will therefore fail to educate the woman that being underweight or suffering from Anorexia Nervosa is tantamount to sickness. This gap that the media intentionally puts forth in advertisements by failing to educate the women on weight and health matters often lead them to epidemic of eating disorders. Therefore, it is important to note that an abnormal or distorted body image will in most instances lead to self-destructive lifestyle or behavior like dieting or disorders related to eating. Research has found that at least nine out of ten Australians has been under a dieting regime in the last twelve months. This is attributed largely to the sustained media campaign that promotes woman beauty as slim or skinny with high cheekbones. To achieve the preferred figure as put forward by the media as beautiful, women of all ages peruse either through magazines or glossy newspapers, watch television programs and movies; go through other forms of media that show the skinny woman as the ideal beauty. This greatly influences the woman to try to ape such kind as beautiful. To achieve the look that is projected to the woman in whichever media, most women tend to practice dieting or go through excessive and abnormal dieting trends. This leads to diseases such as Anorexia nervosa where patients avoid or refuse to have their weight at what is nominally the commensurate height and age or weigh less than 85% of expected weight. Bulimia Nervosa on the other hand occurs when a person has numerous moments of binge eating. This occurs when a person eats a lot at discrete times of the day compared to others or the lack of control on what amount of food to take. This causes vomiting and indiscriminate use of diuretics; the aforementioned are jut but a few of the eating disorders. Most women frown at big figures or voluminous women as evidenced by the continued desire by today’s woman to be skinny and slim. This explains by new statistics, which indicate that twenty years ago, an average model weighed 8 per cent than an average woman compared to today’s model who weighs 23 per cent less. This reduction in thickness is because of advertisers’ belief that skinny or thin models enable products to sell faster thus increased returns. This is illustrated by, for example, an Australian magazine the New Woman which published a photo of a big and voluptuous woman model on its cover, but instead of good sales due to the move praised by its readers, the advertisers pulled out. This led to the magazine pulling out the big models for skinny ones as a means of attracting more readers. The main reason for the skinny woman is majorly economic in nature bringing forth a relationship between the media and the sponsors. Most of the times the woman will strive to achieve a look that is in tandem with the ones portrayed in the media. This will require the woman to purchase expensive cosmetic and dieting products in order to look slim thus assuring manufacturers and traders sustained profits and growth. This is supported by statistics that show that the diet industry in the United States is valued at US $ 100 billion. This is largely attributed to media as a source of inspiration, persuasion and information to today’s woman and her desire to be skinny. (Hennessy 100). The consequences of this skinny woman as influenced by the media are numerous. Women who feel uncomfortable with their bodies will rush to buy the beauty products, clothes and dieting pills to achieve the slim or skinny model look. The disadvantage of this is that exposure to skinny body leads to depression, loss of self-esteem and growth of unhealthy eating habits in both young and older women, eating disorders that come because of media exposure include anorexia and bulimia. Estimates show that around 5 per cent of women have eating disorders while about 15 per cent are in the process of distortion of feeding habits that are likely to lead to eating disorders (Cash 1916). Suggestions to Improve The Image the Woman There are numerous suggestions on how to improve the body image of a woman without being influenced by the media. As a woman, I would change my aim form weight loss as influenced by the media and result to improvement of health. The woman should focus on the beauty from within through improvement of self-esteem and self-confidence. This can be achieved by reading book on body image improvement and self-esteem books. Avoid reading or going through magazines and other forms of mass media that may make the woman susceptible to false perceptions just to change image. I would advise individuals to be discriminative in the uptake of mass media information that encourages beauty as skinny or thin. To achieve this, strategies should be put in place to reduce the comparison of women in the society according to their body size. Other interventions have been developed that target female children and adolescents that focus on nutrition, dieting and body esteem as opposed to thinning caused by eating disorders. There is need to challenge the images portrayed by the media and challenge and reconsider demands that are unrealistic. This will enable the woman to develop self-esteems and develop oneself independent of media influences. Media messages should be identified and challenged in preventive programs that include that discouraging the notion that beauty is a woman’s main aim in achieving success and happiness and that a woman should be ashamed of her body size. I would, therefore, put positive redefinition of the image of woman as composed of many factors including self-acceptance that will help the woman resist attempts for thinness or being skinny. Some questions are provided to be considered by an individual including women when evaluating media messages, one question is whether real women look like the models in the specific adverts portrayed in the media and whether buying the product being advertised will make the woman look like the model. It is also important to ask yourself whether the model looks like the picture portrayed because of the product. I would also ask myself whether the thinness would guarantee happiness and success. I would also advocate for media activism that will involve either protesting or praising media messages and advertisements when they run unhealthy or healthy adverts respectively. Women may boycott products that encourage unhealthy eating habits or write letters of complaint to the offending companies when faced with such situations. I would also pursue social marketing that encourage women to present images that address the right of a woman to be safe from harassment. This is the requirement for need to have adverts that are non-body related as a way of success as related to dieting and eating disorders (Levine and Smolak 46). Studies should be conducted to go into the root cause of the influence of the media on the image of women especially the young ones. Studies must also delve into finding out the effect of the images portrayed in the media and their influence on the woman. Education is a key tool in effecting change in discouraging the women from engaging in activities that will result into eating disorders and Anorexia Nervosa. (Payne 11) Conclusion The connection between eating disorders and exposure of women to different forms of media like television and magazines cannot be gainsaid. Women especially those between the ages of 18-25 years are more likely to be influenced by the media as the different forms of media are readily available to them. The urge to please or flaunt their bodies to their peers also makes the woman strive to improve their physical appearance. The media becomes the tool for seeking on how to improve the image, as it is more persuasive to the woman who in most instances wants to improve on a pre-existing confidence problem. In the achievement of the desirable body shape or figure, the women will in most instances fall into the trap of eating disorders It is quite clear that the print media and television has the effect of determining how women portray themselves in terms of body image. Creating too much attention to magazines and television programs or movies lead to body image dissatisfaction, which often lead the woman to eating disorders. As a conclusion, the media has a serious impact on the image of women in terms of the body, which is likely to affect their mental and physical health in a negative manner. The only way to stop such kind of influence is proper education of women not to take or judge themselves according to the beauty standards set by the industry and avoid comparisons with glamorous skinny models as portrayed on the cover of magazines. I would also promote healthy lifestyle that focuses on the internal beauty of the woman rather than the outer beauty of the woman who uses the media for improvement of image. This will lead in the improvement of self-esteem and individual confidence. Works Cited Cash, Thomas F. Encyclopedia of Body Image and Human Appearance. Amsterdam: Academic Press, 2012. Print Comstock, George A, Erica Scharrer, and George A. Comstock. Media and the American Child. Burlington, MA: Elsevier, 2007. Print. Hennessy, Tim, and Jeff Riggenbach. Recalled to Health: Free Yourself from a Self-Imposed Prison of Bad Habits. Ashland, Or: Blackstone Audio, Inc, 2011. Print. Levine, Michael P., and Smolak, Linda. “The media and disordered eating: Implications for primary prevention”. In G. Van Noordenbos & W. vandereycken (Eds). The Prevention of eating disorders. London. Athlone. 1998. Print. Payne, Alison, and Sophie Nesbitt. Hunger for Understanding: A Workbook for Helping Young People to Understand and Overcome Anorexia Nervosa. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 2005. Print. Reel, Justine J. Eating Disorders: An Encyclopedia of Causes, Treatment, and Prevention. Santa Barbara, Calif: Greenwood, 2013. Print. Read More