Media

Nowadays, as the media and social networking has advanced, it has also highly influenced peoples to conform with the ideal body shape by advertising photo shopped images of unrealistic bodies. This adds tremendous amounts of pressure on adolescents growing up wanting to look like the people in the advertisement (Wykes and Gunter, 2005).

Based on the findings of Grabe, Ward and Hyde (2008) it can be argued how constant exposure to media content can potentially lead viewers in believing that the media portrayals of body image are the representations of reality. Adopting this reality could lead to decreased satisfaction with one’s own body and influence them into unusual/ distinctive behaviours such as bingeing or purging and skipping meals.

Thomas and Smolak (2011) wrote that the media presents the ideal women body image as tall, slender and with at least moderately large breasts. For men it is more variable however the ideal is also tall and lean. With features such as being well groomed and expensively, fashionably dress and some muscle definition.

“Many studies have indicated that young women today see models, actors and centrefolds who are thinner and far less curvaceous role models than those seen by their mothers and grandmothers. This trend has been illustrated by research showing that the body measurements of models and even beauty contest finalists, for the past several decades, have gradually become less hour-glass like, more boyish or more androgynous (Garner et al., 1980; Levine et al.,1994; Silverstein et al., 1986)” (Wykes and Gunter, 2005, P. 192).

“According to Ferguson, women’s magazines may actually change a woman’s view of herself by teaching her socially acceptable ways in which to behave” (Grogan, 1999, P. 96). This is beneficial in many ways that the individual can use the magazines as motivation to keep fit or slim, as opposed to the people who are dissatisfied with their body image and have a negative impact on their self-esteem.

Magazines targeted at females in their adolescence to young adult years usually have appealing photos of women with a slender, toned body. There has been

concerns in regards to the unrealistic female images portrayed by the media. The watch manufacture, Omega, withdrew their advertisement from Vogue magazine as they complained that the models were too skinny and appeared anorexic (Grogan, 1999). The media should be setting an example by having healthier looking women on their front covers as this will increase women’s self-esteem.

According to [Body Image in the Media – A Documentary], Stedman says that “The weight issues, I worry that have effected the younger generations and increased issue with eating behaviour. And just, a basic unhappiness with one’s self and a lot of kids and I think that relates back to the media again”. In the same way [Body Image in the Media – A Documentary], Lasker expresses her opinion “Our perception of beauty is based on what we are seeing being advertised in the media”.

“Negative information can potentially be received from a variety of sources, including family members or peers, but the most likely source is the mass media, a major transmitter of sociocultural messages regarding unattainable standards of appearance, in particular the thin ideal (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008)” (Andrew, Tiggemann, and Clark, 2015, P. 1).

Evidence has demonstrated that with the exposure of television commercials which casts the non realistic average body image, has increased women’s body dissatisfaction and instigated an eating disorder (Grabe, Ward, and Hyde, 2008).