Charernsuk 1 Teta Charernsuk English 3 Media Bias Essay June 03, 2013 Media Sells Lies Anorexic, obese,

bulimic just some of many hurtful words targeted at girls influenced from everyday media messages. Over the course of history the media has been responsible for developing the image of the perfect women; from the fuller girl in the days of Marilyn Monroe to the bone thin girl we all know as Twiggy Lawson. Nowadays people on average are exposed to at least seven hours of media a day , seven days a week. Over the past twenty years there have10 been numerous articles that have10 claimed that the thin female body portrayed by the media is linked to many psychological disorders like body dissatisfaction (Katzman 1). Most girls just want acceptance from the people around them. However, the media portrays ridiculously thin women, where most of the bodies come from digitally enhanced photographs, as the true image of beauty. Girls feel if they dont look like the girls on the front page of a magazine, they will not be seen as beautiful. This idea10 of beauty the media portrays to the world using billboards, magazines, television, etc. is full of unrealistic figures and the end result is thousands of girls feeling insecure about their image, causing physical and mental disorders. Insecure women tend to develop disorders after the exposure to the beautiful runway or celebrity girls.3/4/10 Elsevier journal supports that theory in several studies involving a group of female participants; where females exposed to thinner models showed lower10 selfesteem scores than the females who were exposed to average or plus sized models. They also felt less satisfied with their bodies and had a greater amount of emotional distress which10 lead to increased eating disorder and dieting feelings (Anschutz, Engles, and Becker 1-2). For

Charernsuk 2 instance Jennifer Derenne and Eugene Beresin of Academic Psychiatry stated that in a television show called The Swan, young women are separated from family and friends for several weeks to undergo an intensive diet and exercise plan. Hair stylists recommend hair extensions and highlights, and plastic surgeons perform breast augmentation, facelifts and botox and collagen injections (259). The Swan along with other numerous television shows have been criticized for promoting unhealthy body image, and giving the public false1`0 statements on what healthy really is. This was similar to a study that was conducted in Fiji, because in their culture healthy appetites and a rounder body signifies wealth and the ability to care for ones family. At first, when western television was introduced in 1995, results didnt have any negative effect, and the dieting rate was still at 0%, however, in 1998, rates of dieting skyrocketed from 0% to 69% according to Derenne and Beresin (259). The major jump in the rate demonstrates 4 that our western television is not only affecting the American society, but its also affecting people from all around the world, and even changing what they worship in their culture. Furthermore this10 dieting leads to anorexia or bulimia, major disorders that many girls suffer from. Kasey Serdar of Westminster College states that studies have shown that 3 to 10% of females from age 15 to 29 are10 considered anorexic or bulimic (2). There are two types of anorexia symptoms, restricting which is where people dont take in calories meaning they do not eat, and10 extreme dieting or purging also known as bulimia, where weight is lost from vomiting or taking a laxative.10 Bulimia is similar to purging but most of the time it is right after a binge10 where thousands of calories are taken in at once and out of guilt people either purge, have an extreme excess amount of exercise, or undergo10 crash diets like fasting. Both anorexia and bulimia cause a dramatic decrease in nutrients to the body, and many cases have shown that girls tend to show signs of both disorders. Major signs of eating disorders include

Charernsuk 3 visible bones, yellow skin, depression, missed periods, and much more. 10/3 A perfect example of a girl that suffered from these conditions is the well known model named Twiggy Lawson. She claimed she was naturally thin due to genes, but by just looking at her figure there were clear signs that she was dramatically influenced by the runway world to look even thinner, to the point where all her ribs and a majority of her bones were clearly visible. This shows that she was not treating her body the right way, and without a doubt was not healthy. However,4 the modeling society and media tends to have the10 vision that the thinner the model, the more beautiful she is. In10 another case, a survey claims that the number one wish of girls aged 1117 is to lose weight and keep it off, and in another survey more than half of middle-aged10 women claim that they would like to change their weight, if they could change anything in their life (Spettigue and Henderson 2). With regards to wishing and wanting to change their weight, some girls will turn10 to extremes like being an anorexic or bulimic to achieve what they believe to be their ideal body. Those who are constantly exposed to media are more prone to damage than those who are less exposed to media. Schooler et al,10 found that women who reported greater exposure to television programming during adolescence were more likely to experience high levels of body image disturbance than females that did not report such levels of exposure (Serdar 2). Being part of the technology age many women are constantly exposed to media all around from billboards to the magazine cart at the mall, showing the clear reason why such a large number10 of women are suffering dissatisfaction10 and disorders. Another study done Tiggemann and Slater, showed that women who watched music videos had a higher rate of negative mood and body dissatisfaction because in most cases the women on the videos are that of media standard. Women dont understand that these models are either digitally enhance with programs like

Charernsuk 4 Photoshop or have10 tons of makeup and/or airbrushed effects to create the illusion of the ideal woman standard. In a recent survey by Teen People magazine, 27% of the girls felt that the media pressures them to have a perfect body, and a poll conducted in 1996 by the international ad agency Saatchi and Saatchi found that ads made women fear being unattractive or old (Eating Disorders). Advertisers use the unreal models to tap into a womans sense of

vulnerability to raise their consumer rate, because it creates a feeling that if they buy this product they will look beautiful when in reality its not completely possible. Women constantly compare their bodies to other women, and those who are more exposed to the constant misapprehension the media is feeding to them have been shown to develop more physical and mental damage. The media spits out fake, unrealistic models to the world using the power of advertisements, producing harmful physical and mental disorders in girls who feel pressured into extremes to achieve the ideal look. Disorders include anorexia and/or bulimia, which both cause detrimental damage to the bodies of people all around, like that of Twiggy Lawson who was clearly an anorexic. Where in order to show off the perfect body artist either use Photoshop, or to create the flawless cover girl, airbrushed makeup, resulting in thousands of girls getting sucked into the trap of the advertisement, raising the companys consumer rate. On the other hand a popular example of the portrayal of an average fuller body is during the days of Marilyn Monroe. She changed the body image of society by being comfortable in her own skin; even if she was not skinny. She also kept the reality of body image realistic and all the girls during that time wanted to be like her. 10/3 In order to give a voice to the silent sufferers, people need to return to the confidence Marilyn Monroe had. People must learn to step up,

Charernsuk 5 educate, and be confident in their own skin to show the world that they are all beautiful and that they all can be that cover girl.

Charernsuk 6 Works Cited Derenne, J. L., and E. V. Beresin. Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders. Academic Psychiatry 30.3 (2006): 257-61. Web. 21 May 2013. <http://journals.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=50181>. Eating Disorders. HealthyPlace. 11 July 2012. 16 May 2013. <http://www.healthy place.com/eating-disorders/articles/eating-disorders-body-image-and-advertising/>. Katzman, Debra, and Morris, Anne. The Impact of the Media on Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents. Paediartr Child Health. May 20 2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792687/> Serdar, Kasey Female Body image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard. Westminster College. 16 May 2013. <http://www.westminstercollege.edu/myriad/index.cfm? parent=2514&detail=4475&content=4795>