Media+Affects+Society

The media has greatly affected all different aspects of how people in our society view being //"beautiful"// or //"healthy"//. These stereotypes have somewhat brainwashed all Americans into believing that we should all look a certain way to be considered beautiful and thin. Further more in todays modern age of technology with the click of a mouse one can make teeth whiter, blemishes disappear, airbrush away imperfections, make curves curvier or one look skinnier. The public has an unhealthy obsession with the rich and famous's lifestyle, social status, and most of all their body shape and weight. The media is shoving in the world images of extrememly thin bodies. Models and Actors often appear on magazines and television as if they have not eaten in days. Models and actors are made to look like society's version of //"perfect"// and teenagers and adults are starving themselves and going to extremes to make themselves look like this when in reality not even these //"perfect"// models look like this. This issue with the media is an epidemic throughout the United States. The media most definite plays an important role in cultural ideal of physical perfection. 

Here are some interesting facts relating to the media and a person's self image:

 * In a survey of girls 9 and 10 years old, 40% have tried to lose weight, according to an ongoing study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (USA Today, 1996).
 * A 1996 study found that the amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos is associated with their degree of body dissatisfaction and desire to be thin (Tiggemann & Pickering, 1996).
 * One author reports that at age thirteen, 53% of American girls are "unhappy with their bodies." This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen (Brumberg, 1997).
 * In a study among undergraduates media consumption was positively associated with a strive for thinness among men and body dissatisfaction among women (Harrison & Cantor, 1997).
 * Teen-age girls who viewed commercials depicting women who modeled the unrealistically thin-ideal type of beauty caused adolescent girls to feel less confident, more angry and more dissatisfied with their weight and appearance (Hargreaves, 2002).
 * In a study on fifth graders, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show "Friends" (Mundell, 2002).
 * In another recent study on media's impact on adolescent body dissatisfaction, two researchers found that:
 * 1) Teens who watched soaps and TV shows that emphasized the ideal body typed reported higher sense of body dissatisfaction. This was also true for girls who watched music videos.
 * 2) Reading magazines for teen girls or women also correlated with body dissatisfaction for girls.
 * 3) Identification with television stars (for girls and boys), and models (girls) or athletes (boys), positively correlated with body dissatisfaction (Hofschire & Greenberg, 2002).
 * Over 50% of women say their body disgusts them (Dove Internal Study, 2002)
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; color: rgb(16, 0, 255);">The body fat of models and actresses portrayed in the media is at least 10% less than that of healthy women (British Medical Association, 2000)
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; color: rgb(16, 0, 255);">6 out of 10 girls think they'd "be happier if they were thinner" (UK Teen Body Image Survey, January 2004)
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; color: rgb(16, 0, 255);">While only 19% of teenage girls are "overweight," 67% think they "need to lose weight" (UK Teen Body Image Survey, January 2004)