Pressure in The Media Today on Women
In the media today, models are getting thinner and thinner. The average U.S. model now weighs 117 lbs and is 5�11, while the average U.S. woman is 5�4 and weighs 140 lbs. That means the average model is about 23% underweight and has a BMI of 16.3 which is 2.2 under weight on the BMI scale. The majority of models are considered to be underweight on the BMI scale. The media is showing
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| Gisele Bundchen Image from; Flickr jingdianmein |
I think that media is definitely affecting the health of teen girls today especially since media has had thinner and thinner women on front pages. For example, plus sized models ten years ago averaged between a size 12 and 18 while now days plus size models average between a size 6 and 14. Also, Vogue�s magazine model of the year, Gisele Bundchen, is actually 25% underweight. This is causing an extreme backlash in the mental stability of girls and in the health of girls. Media�s affect on girls today shows in the facts.
It is not okay for the media to be portraying these kind of thoughts and bodies into the media which will then leave girls thinking that is the normal and to be normal and successful we all must be extremely thin, under our ideal weight.
- 79% of teen girls today who self purge frequently read women�s fitness and health magazines.
- About 50% girls ages three to six already concerned about their weight.
- 50% of girls who are thirteen are unhappy about their bodies, when they reach the age of 17 that number jumps up to 78%.
- Messages to adolescent girls to be thin, ambitious, caring and glamourous have led to depression, eating disorders, aggression and suicide.
- 81% of ten-year-old girls already have an intense fear of getting fat, while 42% of one through third grade girls already wish they were thinner.
- Anorexia has the largest death rate of any psychiatric disorder.
Those who may have different opinions on women�s pressure in the media may say that the media isn't what's leading to health issues in girls today. It could be the peer influence in schools and everywhere teens experience it today. Some say peer influence is greater than media�s pressure to not be fat, and therefor peer influence is leading to the health issues today in teens.
In response, the peer influence is definitely a factor in the mental and physical health of teens, but where do you think they get these ideas of women from? If you said media you are correct. If you think about it, the media and internet is where teens go for just about everything and if all of they are seeing is women with impossible standard to meet they are going to try to meet them in order to seek sameness. Which is in fact something your brain does automatically, try to seek sameness and not stand out. So therefore this teen health crisis is basically being shoved down our throats by the media.
I think the media today has definitely affected the way girls now think of their own bodies. All they see are flaws and that they can fix those flaws by becoming skinnier or using beauty products because that is all they see in the media and all they see all around them. And this is why medias pressure on girls is threatening to their health. In the past models used to be curvier and women used to not have as many health problems and not worry about their image as much. If we changed the way media looks at women, maybe women would change the way they view themselves.
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The pressure in the media today on achieving the perfect body is threatening the mental and physical health of women. This is important in the media and digital citizenship today because it is majorly affecting the health of girls as young as three on up. These blog comments really helped in clear my idea up to the readers. Although these comments brought out very good points and questions they did not change my mind about this subject. I still think the media is one of the biggest attributes in creating eating disorders and body dissatisfaction. I did further research on my topic when one of my fellow bloggers shared a link with me about banning too skinny of models from the catwalk. This process of blogging and my topic has really changed my opinion about the way we see women in the media and that it is not the normal. The blogging part of this whole assignment was much easier than I thought. I liked the way we wrote everything out then just copy and pasted our whole essay into blogger i thought that made everything much easier. I didn't like the process of commenting however, I tried a couple times on commenting and it said it posted then soon after got deleted so that was very frustrating. But over all blogging was a good experience because for the most part it was very easy to understand the website and publish my blog. I enjoyed learning and blogging on this very controversial topic and hope other people will have the same experiences that I did.
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