Advertising became a regular part of our lives a long time ago. Also, models and celebrities have been around for a long time. Nevertheless, it was just several years ago that people started to become so obsessed with them and when the fashion world became gradually ‘thinner and thinner’. It is impossible for this to not have an effect on ordinary women and men.
The woman portrayed in the media is no less than perfect. She has to be a good mother, successful business woman, does sports and looks beautiful in every situation. All of this in real time. Pressure on women has become very great in past years. The pressure is also on women who are not satisfied with their bodies. Famous people are becoming thinner every year and they set standards on what ‘pretty’ woman is. These sizes are mostly very hard to achieve by few selected women and almost impossible to achieve by average women. In several researches done during past years women view themselves as less attractive and heavier than men see them. Women have been fed the idea of beauty standards so much that they are losing self-esteem and are unhappy with the sizes that are within of healthy range of BMI. What is even more appalling is that young girls are starting to worry about their bodies from the shockingly young age of 5 or 6. About 70 % of young girls are unhappy with their bodies. They are also clearly shown by society that looks matter to a great extent. In media, most of the actresses are underweight and if they are overweight they are shown as unhappy characters or are even being made fun of. Thin people are more often shown to be successful.
The result of all of this is unhappiness, depression and in worst cases anorexia leading to death. The rising number of women suffering from anorexia is alarming. Not only models, but an increasing number of ordinary girls and women die from this disease, because they are being taught every day that being thin is the only right way.
Diet advertisements are a huge problem as well. It is a multi billion industry and even though most of these ‘magic pills’ never work, people keep spending money on them in a desperate desire to be thin. There have been many diet pills around, especially in last decade that were later found to be harmful and caused some permanent damage to many people.
Luckily lately there is a rising awareness of this problem and people are starting to take action against the ‘thin culture’. We can hear the talk about anorexia more often and several photographers started to take actions, for example advertising the real anorexic women for people to understand the seriousness and for girls to get scared from these images. However many women are still exposed to thin images and it leaves them with permanent depression and dissatisfaction about their body. The media developed the way that a woman should look and feel and it led to body image distortion.





Reference List
Keith, Misty, The Effects of Media on Woman’s Personal Identity, Articles Gratuits<http://www.en.articlesgratuits.com/the-effect-of-the-media-on-womens-personal-identity-id437.php>
Parbu, David, Juliann Cortese, Kaiyla Liu, Thin vs. Plus-Size Models: A Comparison of Body Image Ideas by Gender, All Academic, 2003<http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/1/2/0/5/pages112055/p112055-1.php>
McConnell, Marla, Media and Gender Stereotyping, Serendip, 2008<http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/local/scisoc/sports03/papers/mmcconnell.html>
Hitti, Miranda, Thin Ads + Low Body Image = Stress, Web MD, 2006, <http://www.webmd.com/skin-beauty/news/20061027/thin-ads-low-body-image-stress>