How I See It

Media’s portrayal of beauty as digitally altered appearance and skinny, unhealthy bodies contributes to a distortion of the concept of an ideal woman.

Media creates the beauty stereotypes based on the illogical true, that normal-weight women are considered to be fat and women whose BMIs (Body Mass Index) are underweight are described as ideal. Moreover, these portrayals are usually unrealistic and often edited and altered in Photoshop. However, many people believe in their authenticity therefore, they try to approach to the media’s beauty ideal and become a perfect person. Indeed, media develops a huge pressure to look as attractive and fabulous as the presented depictions of models, so women are becoming to be abnormally obsessed with the desire for thin body and flawless appearance.

In recent years, media has become the main indicator in assessing beauty. Almost in every magazine we can find pages dealing with the popular issue of How to lose weight, Best diet tips ever or How to be attractive and What to wear. Media basically teach women to feel guilty about food and be ashamed for eating (Harris 77). They propagate perfection and do not allow any flaws. Therefore many women, usually teenagers, feel inferior and compare themselves with magazines pictures, which could have catastrophically consequences in terms of increasing eating disorders. Unfortunately, the repeated perception of skeletal bodies and perfect faces, indeed, causes that women assume that it is normal and do not realize that these depictions were created for the marketing purpose, which means for the purpose to sell. The marketers and advertisers present these portrayals to confuse women and give them false promise “if they adhere to the instructions of following a prescribed diet and exercise regime, they can also achieve this 'ideal' (“Dissatisfaction with Our Bodies and Eating Disorders”)”.

On the other hand, our culture is surrounded by confusing messages. Billboards and commercial bombard us delicious looking food and sweet beverages. It seems that media forces us to eat, but do not gain weight! The reason is that obesity is not socially acceptable, and the typical depiction of obese person in the media is disgusting low achiever, just loser (“Conflicting Messages of a Media Monster”). It also has a negative effect on our society because the promotion of junk food show people “forbidden fruit” which means that its consummation has become embarrassing, and the obesity in recent years has been increased.

Real Beauty vs. Love My Body. Digital image. Life, Undefeated. WordPress.org. 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 12 May 2014.

Media affect our opinions and beliefs in many ways, even we are not fully aware of it. Hence, our society cannot let media to determine about beauty standards, we have to try to avoid the feelings of dissatisfaction with our bodies and physical appearance. Future media should be more human and let people to create their own ideal of beauty from real woman. Anyway, media promote their goods for people, for the consumers, so we can help with its challenging and try to transform the negative effects to the positive ones.

                                                                                                                                                          

Works Cited:  

“Conflicting Messages of a Media Monster.” University of Minnesota Duluth. Web. 12May 2014.

“Dissatisfaction with Our Bodies and Eating Disorders." University of Minnesota Duluth. Web. 12 May 2014.

Harris, Richard Jackson. A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication. 5th ed. NewYork: Routledge, 2009. 77. Print.