Body Image Stereotypes

Have you ever look in the mirror and wondered, why am I so ugly compared to this girl on Instagram? Or wonder why your body doesn’t look like one of the Victoria Secret Models? If you have, you are comparing yourself and your body to someone else. Who either had surgery on themselves or has an eating disorder. While giving yourself negative comments.

Everyday females are exposed to how media views the female body, whether in a work place, television ads, and magazines. Women tend to judge themselves on how they look just to make sure there keeping up with what society see as an idyllic women, when women are exposed to this idea that they have to keep a perfect image just to keep up with media, it teaches women that they do not have the right look because they feel as if they don’t add up to societies expectations of what women should look like, it makes them thing there not acceptable to society. This can cause huge impacts on a women self-appearance and self-respect dramatically. Women who become obsessed about their body image can be at high risk of developing anorexia or already have

According to dosomething.org about 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies in the world today. In the world today many people struggle with the way their body looks, and bullies that often degrade people for the way they look. Being bullied, or having a negative body image can effect a persons life in many ways. Many people have a negative body image, even girls that appear to be "pretty and popular". Physical effects of bullying, and a negative body image could include anorexia, cutting, or purging.

In today’s modern culture, almost all forms of popular media play a significant role in bombarding young people, particularly young females, with what happens to be society’s idea of the “ideal body”. This ideal is displayed all throughout different media platforms such as magazine adds, television and social media – the idea of feminine beauty being strictly a flawless thin model. The images the media displays send a distinct message that in order to be beautiful you must look a certain way. This ideal creates and puts pressure on the young female population viewing these images to attempt and be obsessed with obtaining this “ideal body”. In the process of doing so this unrealistic image causes body dissatisfaction, lack of self-confidence

Obesity has become this huge problem in the world and no one wants to do anything about it. Martha Holmes captures women’s constant struggle obesity in her photograph “Two Girls at a Diner”. It shows how women have tackled obesity since cavemen discovered food. The image portrays that the thicker woman, drinking a diet lemonade, is jealous of the skinnier woman, who is drinking a milkshake, since she has struggled with her body image and having to contain herself.

Marilyn Monroe once said, “To all the girls that think you are fat because you are not a size zero, you’re the beautiful one, it’s society that is ugly.” Marilyn was a famous sex symbol in the 1950’s. Her body wasn’t like the bodies of girls we see in the media today. But to her, it didn’t matter. She knew she was beautiful and that was all that mattered.

These physical appearances create a society that makes other individuals feel like they should have that body too. Having these physical characteristics allows individuals to exist in a community however it can also make someone feel insecure about their body. Butler describes how “[our] body is and is not [ours]” (Butler 117). Meaning that yes it is our body but at the same time, it isn’t because it's controversial to what our body should look like. This relates to the “perfect body” because someone who is overweight is criticized as someone who eats unhealthy and doesn’t exercise.

Boys began to develop their body image at a young age. Parents contribute to this by certain hints of what their sons should do or how they should act. (Lawler & Nixon, 2011) Unfortunately, unrealistic body image can continue into manhood. Men can develop or continue having a poor body image if they are easily influenced by others or what they see in magazines or on television.

According to a survey done by Jesse Fox, Ph.D., 80% of women feel bad about themselves just by looking in the mirror (Dreisbach). This has happened because of social media being changed to make girls feel like they need to have a certain body shape. Models and celebrities in magazines and media show unrealistic beauty and it contributes to eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and much more (Seventeen magazine). Media has put lots of stress on women throughout history with changing body shapes. A survey done by Dove found results that 9 out of 10 women want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance.

Society as a whole and the media has shaped our thoughts on how we feel about our bodies. Images that are put out by the media whether it be on television, in magazines, on social media, etc. make people strive to become someone else’s so called idea of

Men and women nowadays are starting to lose self-confidence in themselves and their body shape, which is negatively impacting the definition of how beauty and body shape are portrayed. “...97% of all women who had participated in a recent poll by Glamour magazine were self-deprecating about their body image at least once during their lives”(Lin 102). Studies have shown that women who occupy most of their time worrying about body image tend to have an eating disorder and distress which impairs the quality of life. Body image issues have recently started to become a problem in today’s society because of social media, magazines, and television.

As we all know already the issue with body image has spread to every woman in today society. Stated within the article “Searching Out the Ideal: Awareness of Ideal Body Standards Predicts Lower Global Self-esteem in Women” was,

The author discusses how the modern society objectifies the female body, and how females have come to view their body from the eyes of society by living through the standards set by society. The chapter also talks about the negative effects associated with self-objectification such as body shame, appearance anxiety, and depression. The book also discusses recent research developments on self-objectification of women and various scales for measuring self-objectification. The researches carried out showed evidence for and the causes of self- objectification including psychological consequences , and associated mental health

“Body dissatisfaction, negative body image, concern with body size, and shape represent attitudes of body image. ”(Dixit 1), women are so obsessed with looking good that they are missing out on enjoying

Body shaming is one of the biggest problems in today’s generation. It is the practice of making critical, potentially humiliating comments about a person’s body, size or weight. It is obvious that all of us come in different shapes and sizes but society and the media puts a lot of pressure on us with beauty stereotypes and standards to deem some as healthy and some not. Recently, there has been a lot of controversy recently about body image and body shaming, especially among teenagers. Body shaming is an extremely personal concept and can take a negative toll on a person.