The Effects that Media Has on Women's Body Image Today - Essay Example

Their self-esteem goes down and eventually they become depressed. This essay will discuss in detail the effects media has on women’s body. Women also tend to believe that men only like women who are thin and beautiful. Men like to look at the models in magazines and admire the thin, beautiful actresses in movies. The women of today would like to look like those in magazines and movies, so as to be attractive to men (Dennis & Howard 38). Hence, the women turn to the media so as to find ways of making themselves attractive to the men.

Women also have to compete against the other women to get the male attention. This considerably puts pressure on women to attain the standards of beauty portrayed by the media. Most women are not aware that the mere same models that are thin are considered being below the healthy body weight (Dennis & Howard 40). Images of women portrayed by the media Women tend to watch soap operas, movies and reality TV shows. The lead actresses in the soap operas and movies are usually thin and beautiful. Some of the reality shows are about extreme makeovers (Dennis & Howard 43).

This show involves a woman initially presented to the audience with wrinkled skin and pimples on her face. She is also overweight and generally looks aged. During the makeover, she undergoes plastic surgery to remove the wrinkles, they apply cosmetic creams to get rid of the pimples, and she gets a facelift. She puts on makeup, a beautiful dress and hair extension to make her hair look long. When other women see the results they would immediately plan to undergo the same procedures. These procedures will help to make them as beautiful as the woman who underwent the extreme makeover.

Other reality shows include America’s next top model. Women watch the models competing to become America’s next top model. Women admire the models’ bodies. They aspire to have a body similar to that of a model. The young women in music videos influence many teenage girls. The women in the music videos are thin and attractive. This leads to body image disturbance in the teenage girls. Women also read magazines a lot. Those working in the advertisement industry prefer to use women that are thin to promote products be it cosmetics, clothes or even a car (Terry & Monica 49).

All the women who appear in magazines are usually tall, slim and beautiful. Magazines are using thin women to advertise beauty products, hair styles and clothes. The models in magazines and the lead actresses in movies are mainly white women who are thin and beautiful. Some of the black women go to the lengths of applying certain cosmetic products that lighten their skin color. Black women apply these cosmetic products so as to resemble the white women. These products may be harmful and cause skin cancer in the long run.

The media have influenced women in many ways as to how their bodies should look. This has affected women in many ways. Some women have resulted to going on diets so as to lose weight and hence become slim. Others find that going on a diet does not achieve the results quick enough. So they result to skipping meals and eventually they have anorexia nervosa or even bulimia nervosa (Terry & Monica 49). Bulimia nervosa may result in dehydration, hallucinations, epileptic seizures and even cardiac arrhythmias.

Anorexia nervosa may result in one becoming dangerously underweight. The person becomes weak and could easily faint at any time. These eating disorders if not taken care of could easily be fatal eventually. The media such as