The Media's Impact on Society's Perception of the Perfect Body Image

The media has had a strong impact on the percentage of women and men who have eating disorders, depression, or hate how their body looks, Body image is in magazines, movies, modeling, celebrities, and much more. Parents and medical doctors are concerned because of the way that the media affects teenagers and adults, not only mentally, but physically. Media has the most effect on body image and eating disorders. Since the mid-20s, the media has created photoshopped images of the “perfect body image”.

These fake pictures place an unrealistic image in, not only women‘s heads, but men’s, too. These images make them believe that their body isn’t good enough. They tend to focus on african and caucasian females. 80 percent of women are unhappy with their appearance. The average woman in America is five foot four inches tall and 140 pounds, while the average model in America is five foot eleven inches tall and 117 pounds. However, most models are thinner than 98% of the women living in America, the Media isn’t the only cause of eating disorders and portrays an unrealistic image.

One cause of eating disorders are genetics it is said that most people who have eating disorders have another family member somewhere along the lines that has also had an eating disorder, eating disorders are not new. They have been around before the media‘s view on body image consumer advertising plays a large role as well. Some women have a hard time finding clothes that fit and are still fashionable because most clothing lines tend to make clothes mostly for skinny girls that have large breasts.

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Ever since the mid-205, the media‘s “perfect body image” has increased eating disorders, and low self-esteem. and depression. Healthy women who are not suffering from an eating disorder or depression can still hate her body, so it’s not entirely based off of genetics. Consumer advertising does play a role in the View of body image. However, there are still fashionable clothing for women and men who do not have the “perfect body image“ and advertisement that uses average-sized people.

The ”perfect body image” for females is extremely thin, thigh-gap, large breasts, and flawless skin. This image causes women and teens wear a large amount of makeup, feel insecure, and leads them to change how their body looks in a surgical procedure, celebrities are also influenced by the media’s perfect body image. Many actresses begin to rapidly lose weight once they begin their acting career, because of Hollywood’s obsession with thinness. Females are not the only victims of the Media’s view of body image, men are as well. The “perfect body image” for males is more muscular, bigger, and more aggressive. In today’s society, if a male does not have the perfect body image, they are viewed as weak and not masculine media’s perfect body image is unhealthy and damaging to society media leads people to want an unrealistic body image. This causes people to develop eating disorders, anxiety, or depression and has increased the number of people who do. Women are not the only victims in this situation but men, too. Many people will do anything to change how their body looks and make it more like the media‘s body image by excessively working out, drug use such as steroids, Plastic surgery, Anorexia, bulimia, and excessive dieting, therefore, media has the most effect on body image and eating disorders.