I believe - and you can disagree - that the media has a big influence on female and male body image. Although you cannot blame everything on the media, I think it definitely has played a role.
According to the butterfly foundation (a foundation for eating disorders), "After obesity and asthma, anorexia is the most common disease in females aged 15-24[2]. It is generally estimated that in Australia 2-3% of adolescent and adult females satisfy the DSM IV diagnostic criteria for anorexia and bulimia nervosa[3]. 10% of young adults and approximately 25% of children diagnosed with anorexia nervosa are male[4]. Average duration of anorexia is 5 years[5].
Onset of anorexia is generally in adolescence, with bulimia and binge eating more likely to first occur in late adolescence or early adulthood. The long-term nature of these disorders means that many people carry these conditions well into adulthood."
How are females and males meant to have positive body image and get past anorexia when they see pictures like this in magazines?
You can't really see this woman's face that well but she has probably been in hair and makeup for hours and has been working out for 2 hours everyday. I do feel it is important to exercise and be healthy but having stick figures like this in magazines and movies is not going to help women.
Not all women even have the body to look like that. Some women are just meant to be beautifully curvy!
Another statistic done recently (which was discussed on the Gruen Transfer) showed that only 1% of women think they are truly beautiful and perfect. How is that good? Every woman should think they are beautiful. Once again, I think the media has played a part in this. The media needs to take some action! Magazines need to try a bit harder. I am constantly reading comments from the public saying, "put different women in your magazine" or "do an article on healthy body image", yet nothing happens! Recently in Cosmopolitan magazine they put a young woman who was about a size 10 naked in one of their articles. The article involved 3 or 4 people (male and female) and got them to judge her body out of 10. This to me is horrible. It seem the only way to get noticed is to be gorgeous and skinny. No one gets recognized for anything else apart from their appearance.
Hollywood needs to change as well. Once again you can't blame it completely on Hollywood, but I know a lot of females (and males) that look up to people in the public eye. I realise how hard it is for celebrities to be good role models when the media is constantly on their backs and pressuring them into being even thinner or getting that nose job. I guess, just like we need to realise that we are only human, we also have to realise they are only human. Celebrities need to realise they do not need to look like they are just bones (Nicole Ritchie, Lindsay Lohan to name a few) and realise they are human beings and cannot be perfect! Once they have realised this, then Hollywood may be able to change and then celebrities can be good role models. I don't think celebrities realise what an influence they have on millions of girls and boys. To them being an actor or singer etc. may 'just be a job' but to the public they are who we look up to and what we think is normal or beautiful. The public likes to follow in their footsteps with trends, diets, hair cuts, clothes etc.
I do realise the pressure they are under to succeed but the world needs to change! In Obama style, I believe that "Yes we can change".
Please comment on your thoughts or suggestions :)
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See, this blog is explaining how media and hollywood affect normal teenagers, and how destructive it becomes.
ReplyDeletethe hardest part about the media truely disregarding the celebs and putting real and normal weighted woman on the front cover magazines, will be almost as difficult as having gay marriages legalised within Australia. Companys hold a big part in what goes on as they pay to have their product used.
I like this blog millie. It has given now both sides of the question. What is it that girls try to look like, how they become this weight and how dangerous it can become :) good work.
Aww. Thanks Emma :)
ReplyDeleteX
I love the idea of the media portraying women as perfect just the way they are, however, I don't know if its possible.
ReplyDeleteLike through all ages there has been different 'perfect bodies'. Like ages ago, centuries even, being a plump woman was the in thing. Then figures like was the hour glass figure. Now we have sticks. It's always going to change. And like you said, the media says they are going to portray women without being retouched, but it never happens. But this is mainly main stream media that does this, like Dolly, or Cosmo. Other smaller magazines seem to be more realistic.
I don't know, think I'm kind of rambling now.
But again, good blog. Really sticking it too the man.
I love this blog. Just going off what Bridget said - like through the ages, the image of a perfect body is constantly evolving. I found it really interesting when I found out that Marilyn Monroe was considered the most beautiful woman of her era, yet today she would be considered a plus-size model which would not be acceptable or admired by anyone in the strict constraints of our media, which is sad, really. And how Barbie would quite literally snap in half if she was a real person, because her waist is so skinny and her boobs are far too large. ARGH! How ridiculous is that.
ReplyDeleteSorry, rambling - but yes I totally agree with you, what kind of teenage girls don't admire these beautiful, tanned, stick figure women? There's not many around, I don't think. But, yet again, how can society change what our perception and image of beauty really is? The media simply feeds to us what it thinks we want to hear and see, regardless of whether it is good for us or not . . which is, yet again, quite depressing !
good blog :)
emma x
It really is a crying shame that there is so much pressure put on women to fit the popualr definition of beautiful. Why is it that people don't feel that a healthy woman (person?) is beautiful, even if she is a plus-size model? To recycle an example, Marilyn Monroe was hot. She was definitely not little though. I think this all comes down to Twiggy. Curse that little mod. I'm enjoying your blog Millie.
ReplyDeleteWow. I had no idea people actually read my blog!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with all of those comments. I am happy that everyone is understanding where I am coming from. I just hope that the media and socities point of view will evolve into realising that everyone is beautiful in their own way!
Since there has been a lot of mention of Marilyn Monroe, people tend to forget that she was obviously very insecure because of all the fame she got. Which is going back to one of my other points made in another blog that media really hurts people and celebrities. Marilyn Monroe was beautiful, sexy and hot and a size 12(another thing people forget) and even though everyone loved her she was in the media so much and had so much controversy(Mr president!) in her life that she was unhappy anyway.
Maybe it has nothing to do with being perfect and skinny and hot.. but having people who care about us! Now I am rambling again!
And I don't like twiggy. She was a twig and I don't think she is that nice. She use to be a judge on America's next top model and had an opinion towards every poor girl that walked up to her. She was very critical. I suspect this had something to do with also being in the media.
Damn you Media!
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i think it is all media's fault! they put this image in front of us and what are we supposed to do with it? ignore it? no, we all wish we look like that we just don't all take action and go on a crazy diet. the media needs to put more realisic weight people in magazines not just the ones that wear a zero for jeans
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