Sarah is a young, smart girl who just turned thirteen years old. She just recently started reading CosmoGirl and Seventeen magazines because other girls in her class were reading them. While looking through these magazines, she realizes that the models look very skinny. Sarah looking at herself in the mirror thinking maybe she should lose a few pounds so that she can look like the girls in Cosmo. She recently had a checkup at the hospital and was told her weight was fine the way it was now. Sarah decides that the doctor is right, but then she started watching TV shows on Nick like Victorious where almost all the girls are extremely thin and are the only girls who are considered attractive to the main male characters. She decides that maybe she could lose ten to fifteen pounds, so others will find her as pretty as the celebrities in the media, but after Sarah lost fifteen pounds, she decided that she was still not as thin as the models the magazines shows. It finally got to the point where she collapsed and was taken to the hospital, and was told she has an eating disorder and could die if she did not gain enough weight to be considered healthy again. Teenage girls have a very bad problem with negative body image and it can lead to very unfortunate consequences later in life.
What is Body Image?
Teenage girls around the world are all dealing with a poor body image. Body image is person’s idea of how his or her own appearance based off how he or she see themselves. The media is a major factor for teen girls body image and most teens look up to these people the most. For example, Model’s were not always as thin as they are today; if think about famous model’s in the 1960s’ ,like Marilyn Monroe, then you can see that this was a trend that developed over the years. According to Health Trek, “The current media ideal of thinness is achieved by less than 5% of the female population.”
Effects
There are many effects from the negative influence of media’s body image, but it usually starts with low self-esteem. I’m sure it sounds familiar: “I’m too fat.” and “I’m not tall enough.” These are the classic comments people say about themselves when they have low self-esteem. These comments may start out very small, but over time this can develop to something more serious. Teens may go through this at different times due to their bodies changing constantly, and they start judging their bodies based off what the media shows as a teen girl’s appearance even though most of the time they may be older or younger than the age that they are perceived. For example, when looking at Teen Vogue most of the models are in their 20s and Teen Vogue is supposed to be directed towards girls between the ages 13 to 18 years old. Why do we put model’s in a magazine that are not even the same age as the girls that are reading it?
Low self-esteem if left untreated can lead to depression for teen girl’s when influenced by the media. Depression develops overtime and if left untreated can cause major problems physically and emotional to a teens health. They are constantly sad or feel that they don’t look good enough. Girls over time will feel hopeless, lack energy, and not do any of the things they used to enjoy. Depression can go on for weeks, months, or years, depends on the person and if he or she have someone supporting them or not. Depression can create emotional and physical effects to a person and the effects only get worse over time if left untreated.
Eating Disorders result from depression and low self-esteem. The National Eating Disorder Association said, “It is estimated that five to ten percent of all women have some form of an eating disorder.” There are three different types of classifications for eating disorder: Anorexia, Bulimia, and Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Anorexia is when a person refuse to eat to lose weight; it can also be a loss of appetite to eat any food. Bulimia is when a person overeats in a short amount of time then followed by vomiting, purging or fasting. Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified is just a default category that does not really have a definition, usually used when an eating disorder is not able to fit specifically in Anorexia or Bulimia. All of these eating disorders are harmful to anybody who develops them, and starting at a young age when the body is still developing can create major medical problems in the future. Eating Disorders, if left untreated can lead to death and unfortunately many girl’s are acquiring these disorders cause they think it will help them look like the people in the media. Even though all the eating disorders are doing is slowly hurting their bodies.
Causes
You know the effects of media’s negative influence, but now let’s talk about one of the causes, which are magazine advertisements. Girl’s magazines are filled with all different types of ads for fashion and beauty products. If you look more closely at the magazines, you will realize that the majority of the models are extremely thin and that there are very few who resemble most teenage girls. These magazine ads are what causes girls to develop low self-esteem, depression, and eating disorders. Also, most of the models in the magazine ads are airbrushed and photoshopped to make them look even smaller than they already are. The sad thing is that most adults realize this and often agree, saying, “The media bombards us and our children with airbrushed pictures and images of models and celebrities who are waif-like thin, and too skinny for their own good and look more like wire hangers than human beings.” This just shows that these ads girls see are not the real pictures of the models and that the so called people in the magazines are not perfect either, so why should we let these girls look at them?
Magazine ads are just one cause, another is runway models. Runway models are on the cover of a popular fashion magazine, in videos, and in the newspaper. They are often extremely underweight to make the clothes that they show look exactly like how the mannequin looked with them on. The bad thing is that most mannequins are is smaller than majority of the people in the population. Runway models in the past have been fired just because they gained a few pounds and could no longer wear size zero clothes anymore.
Runway models are a bad enough cause, but then we have the celebrities, who can make things even worse. They are constantly ridiculed in the media for being too fat, too skinny, or any other cruel thing the media can say to make them insecure about their bodies. For example, Jessica Simpson was ridiculed on the cover off magazines when wearing daisy duke shorts in the movie, Dukes of Hazard because they considered her too fat to wear the shorts. Teen girls they look up to these celebrities and when they see that the celebrity gained five pounds and is now considered overweight it makes them think that they must be overweight too. In the New York Post, there was a list of fifty fat celebrities it just shows how there is a constant battle in the media over weight, and the teen girls are the ones who sit there and read it.
We Got to Do Something!
Things are not getting better with media’s influence on girl’s body image; it’s only going to get worse if we do not try to fix this problem that has been growing for years all around the world. Just look at the causes and effects if we can change at least one then we could save so many girls from constantly feeling like they are not good enough and let them focus on school work and things that should be more important rather than worrying about how they look. We all need to get together and fix this problem for good, so that the future generations can enjoy life without the media’s negative influence.Solutions
The best way to fix the problem is to use a combination of solutions to fix teen girls negative body image. First start with counseling to help girls get awareness about body image and to see what is actually healthy and what is not. The idea is to start the solution by making girls think positive instead of negatively that way they can improve their emotional health. Davis says, “it’s very important to learn how to handle stress, anger, and frustration without taking it out on your body.” Davis makes a good point; we need to help them find another way to deal with their stress than taking it out on themselves and counseling is a good way to start.
Some people say that it costs too much to get counseling for these girls. Yes, it may cost a lot depending on the situation, but most people have some type of insurance to help cover the cost of each session. If you really think about it, it costs less to get one girl counseling than it will if you let the problem continue and the child dies, then we will have to worry about paying for counseling not only for the family, but her friends at school. So does it really cost us that much? Not really if a family has good insurance and now everyone has to have insurance or they have to pay a fine.
Counseling is just part one of the solution, another one is creating a law. We could create a law that does not allow underweight models to be in magazines or on the runway. This could give girls a better example of body image instead of a negative one. Most magazine advertisements now also include a statement about their models or their products if they have been photshopped or altered in any way. This is a good start, although just creating a law to ban underweight models would keep the stress off not only teen girls, but the models who are forced to go through such extremes to keep their body a certain way. Tracey Lomrantz Lester said in Glamour magazine, “Any model who wants to work in Israel must have a Body Mass Index of at least 18.5 and present a medical record no older than three months that states they're not malnourished by World Health Organization standards.” This is a law that was just passed in Israel; I think the rest of the world should follow what they are doing so we can fix this problem.
Other people would disagree saying that the government should stay out of the modeling business. I disagree, so far without their help this issue is getting worse and when it affects our lives on such a huge scale then the government should be able to step in and take action. Creating a law would be the easiest way to ensure that underweight models are not influencing girls to be the same as them. Plus, if we have a law that bans models under a certain Body Mass Index then when a company does not listen, we can action have a way to punish them so this problem can go away.
Counseling and creating a law are a great start, but the final piece to the solution is get magazines to use ads that include models the same age as the girls that are reading it. “The media sells millions of dollars in ads focused on youth” and the bad thing is that most of the advertisements that you see should be in an adult magazine and not one for teens. Looking at Teen Vogue, all the models I see in the advertisements are people that are in their early to mid-20s’ when the girls reading this magazine are 13 to 18 years old. Why are we having adults’ model clothes for teens? It just does not make any sense to have an adult modeling clothes to teens when most of them are not even physically developed like them yet. We should us girls that are actually their age, so they know how they should look and not how an underweight adult looks. This can help relieve both emotional and physical effects on teen girls.
Teen girls negative body images are not going to disappear on it’s on, but we can help them slowly go away overtime. The best way to fix this is to providing counseling, create a law, and make company’s use models that are the same age as the people who are reading them. If we do these things, then we will see a huge difference in the amount of teen girls with low self-esteem, depression, and eating disorders. Let’s fix this problem, so the future generation will not have to deal with the stress and effects of a negative body image and instead let them focus on their academics and sports.
