In today’s society we have created an impossible standard of beauty; the perfection of the body. The media has turned ordinary people with displeasure of their very own body image this displeasure may result in drastic measures such as disorders of behavior and low self esteem. In order to remove these thoughts of what an unachievable body should look like it is best for society to stop labeling perfections and imperfections. It is best for people to accept themselves and be glad with what they have. We need to stop viewing ourselves for what the media wants us to look like and start viewing ourselves for who we are.
With a view of educating everyone what body image is and the harm it leads to it may reduce the amount of body image going around the world and its side effects. As humans we all want to live a happy and successful life , but to live a happy life it means loving yourself first. In order to live a successful life you must have confidence in yourself, “People with high self esteem know themselves well, they’re realistic and find friends that like and appreciate them for who they are, people with high self esteem usually feel more in control of their lives and know their own strengths and weaknesses” (D’arcy Lyness ,PHD).
D’arcy Lyness shows that those with a higher self esteem in themselves tend to live a much better happy and successful life . Not only does D’arcy Lyness shows a successful happy life ,but that the more confidence you have you may discover who you are as a person when you discover who you are and are confident with the body you are in you can find your purpose and be more outgoing. When body image begins, a trigger must have been pulled to lower our self esteem.
One day we view our body as nothing to be considered about and with acceptance for who we are, but the next day we may notice or hear something that begins to make us question ourselves such as “what’s wrong with me? “,”why don’t I have what he/she has? “, or “whats going on with my body? ” ,so who pulls the trigger for a person to question themselves with their very own body? “Some people struggle with their self esteem and body image when they begin puberty, because it’s a time when the body goes through many changes… anting to feel accepted by our friends means it can be tempting to compare ourselves with others”(D’arcy Lyness,PHD) now who pulls the trigger? At times it us as D’arcy Lyness says as we grow puberty hits us and those around us as well. Some may grow more than us and we begin comparing one another lowering our self esteem leading to body image, but if we teach children while their young that as we grow puberty hits and we all change differently from one another it could reduce any body image conflicts in the future because children will know that it’s just part of a cycle and nothing is wrong with them nor their bodies.
Growing up not only do we pay attention to those near us, but to the famous people who are glorified by their beauty. Viewing a famous celebrity and comparing ourselves with them is a bullet straight to the eyes of the body,”our tweens and early teens are at a time when we become more aware of celebrities and media images…. ll of this can affect how we feel about ourselves and our bodies even as we grow “(D’arcy Lyness ,PHD) as D’arcy Lyness explains the older we get the the more it seems we become aware , but mostly in teens as they grow they notice and begin viewing these glorified bodies of famous celebrities it may lead one to excessive workouts or into eating disorders just to achieve a body that is made of plastic,photoshopped,or genes that could be running in the family, and that’s a thing that these tweens and teens must know that not every glorified body is the real deal.
A celebrity could have the most perfect body created by a plastic surgeon and a teen could be trying so hard to achieve this body by starving themselves. Showing our teenage children that not every single body they view on the red carpet is the actual thing could prevent a child from starvation or going into extreme workouts. In topic of growing up most people will want a child to begin looking a certain way to play the role of an image that a child is not , parents or coaches might be focused on having a child look a certain way or making weight for a sports team.
As a parent or coach will want a child to look a certain way it will lead pressure to the child. Both parent and coach will brag on to a child to look a certain way and lead a child to look at themselves and wonder what’s so wrong with them and the way they look . Forcing a child to look a certain way at a young age can be the start of a lifetime of body images and questions. Having low self esteem on your body may shut a person out the world, and lose opportunities due to not being comfortable in your own body, but having a high positive self esteem may lead to better advantages.
Parents must know that their child is not a build bear they can not just create their child into something they are not such as pressuring them to wear certain type of clothing or to be a certain weight. It is best to let a child be a child and let them discover who they are themselves and what they wanna be they may gain plenty of confidence by figuring out what they want to look like by them first. When we are born we are placed into a society full of labels and expectations, and within the society that we are placed they want us to meet these expectations placed on us if not we are judged for how we look.
The women are to be thin,tall,with a full set of hair,and a perfect face and the men are to be muscular,tall,with a perfect proportional face these are just a few standards of what a woman and a man are expected to look like, but besides society throwing these standards there is also the industry of beauty throwing standards and labels at us on what we should change about ourselves, “someone living in a city sees up to 5,000 ads per day…
Ads often feature models:men and women selling products their bodies held up as the implicit standards of beauty in modern culture”(Kristen Haglund) As Kirsten Haglund says a person may see 5,000 ads per day. With 5,000 ads per day a person views a model with the “ideal body” it is a model who is slim, tall, with perfect skin, and must have been digitally modified to impossible proportions of the body.
This model with the ideal body is seen next to the product that is wanting to be sold by the viewers, “The comparison that occurs between consumers and the images we see on a daily basis is bound to have have a major impact-and often does in the form of low self-worth, negative body image and eating disorder”(Kristen Haglund). Viewing the model next to the the product may lead a person to wonder whether they need these products or if they need to change anything about their body, but the problem is not what is being sold, what is being sold may help a person with a problem such as removing scars or stretch marks.
The actual problem is the model,there could be a chance that the model could have been digitally modified or that what is being sold does not work,see what I am saying is that those who makes these products to lose weight to achieve this perfect body that everyone is striving for could be false advertising what the product is suppose to do.
Think of it like this an advertiser will have a pill and say “this pill will make you thin or muscular guarantee” and call it the thin/muscular pill and with that pill have this beautiful picture of a model who is already thin or muscular and has not taken the pill, but the thing is the pill does not work the pill is just a pill is has no ability to make a person thin nor muscular, but because a person sees this beautiful thin/ muscular model next to a “thin/muscular pill” this person will buy this pill over and over but the pill will not do what it is suppose to,and the person will stay large along with questions or low self esteem wondering why the pill isn’t doing what is supposed to, they will wonder what is wrong with their body,and why they don’t have the body as the model in the picture this type of problem may lead one person into a lifetime of body image.
A person who is willing to buy a pill to lose weight or gain muscle must not know that they should be aware that not everything could be as it seems, and must know that the best way to achieve these things could be achieved by a healthy diet nd workout not only will the person gain what they are trying to achieve by a healthy diet and workout, but they will have the satisfaction that they achieved this goal by themselves in a healthy way,and if they could achieve one thing that seemed impossible for them they could achieve anything else. The media contributes a major part of body image no doubt in that especially in a society such as today.
The media gives us the unrealistic body types to view and glorify and tell us we are not okay with the way we look, an amount of women will be displeased with their very own body ,but say they are satisfied with themselves, beginning a battle with themselves, but could this battle also affect the women that we so much desire to be ? I’ve worked with models whose name you’d know based on how popular they are, and they’ve had to lie in bed for 20 minutes in the morning repeating themselves,” I am worthy to get up” because they think they’re ugly and they’re depressed and suicidal”(Tamar Anderson).
The women that we so much desire to look like go through the same battles as any other person the beauty we see in a model the model does not see in herself in fact the model could be depressed and suicidal as everyone else because we are all human who once in our life have battled with body image it is not just a certain person not race,religion, or gender we are all affected by body image.
