Paper 2

Addie Hansen 

University of Iowa

Body Image Issues Today

Introduction

Imagine scrolling through Instagram feed and stopping at a picture. That picture is of a beautiful person that everyone thinks is perfect. You see all the likes and comments they are getting on their picture. Then you look at yourself. Do you feel as confident as you did before? Or did that picture bring out insecurities in you? That’s what happens to many people around the world. Throughout history, there has always been an image of perfection that both men and women are trying to achieve and become. Seeing other people obtain those perfections that we don’t believe we have created a negative body image and self-confidence. Something that many people struggle with including myself. I looked through research asking the question about how social media and the world around us effects negative body image in both men and women. Research showed that body image negativity comes from those we surround ourselves with and the media. It impacts women in a more severe way than it does men, and it causes many dangerous eating disorders. 

Changes in Body Image

Today, body image today in the United States is a body type that is almost close to unachievable. The models are size 00 and a height of over 5’10. That is what is considered to be perfect. It wasn’t always like this, however. Throughout history and especially in women, there are different body types that are considered to be beautiful. These changes happen over time and are given off by the media and by people’s reaction. It has never stayed the same, and it is likely to continue changing to what body type is the ideal model and “sex symbol” at that time.

Women Over Time

Women are often looked at as sex symbols by men. There is always one that every guy wants to be with, and every girl wants to be. That person represents what women want to try to look like and what is considered to be the body perfection. Back in the day, it was considered to be Marilyn Monroe who would be equivalent now to a size eight. She was the person to look like and to strive to be. Research shows that the average size American woman wears a size 14 today. Reaching that Marilyn Monroe size from a size 14 is difficult work. But that isn’t enough. Today the “most beautiful” women are not size 8, but size 00. The media portrays these people who are so skinny to all of these people to show that this is now who men want to be with and who women want to be. The size in these images of perfection change as time does. Within just a few decades, sizes can change that much. This leaves women to feel more insecure as people want and expect women to change as the media’s image of them does. Women continually try to reach this body size because it is what they believe they need to have in order to be pretty. 

Women Around the World 

While body images change throughout time, they also change depending on the country as well. When you move throughout the world, what is considered to be pretty is not considered that in other countries. For example, in the U.S. having a tan is part of the image perfection. Being pale is not what people think of when they think of beauty, but that is like that in China. Women who are extremely pale in China are considered to be extremely beautiful. Another example is the height in models. The average model height in India is 5’5, while in the U.S. most model companies will not take you for runway shows unless you are at least 5’10. Each part of the world has their different view on what is beautiful, and women all around the world are still trying to reach that goal no matter what. 

Reasons for Dissatisfaction

Women and even men are often dissatisfied with their appearance in some way. There is flaw about them that they want to change and something they believe is wrong with the way they look. Why? What makes people think that they are not pretty enough or that some part of them isn’t how it is supposed to look? Who makes the rules of what is pretty and what is not? That would be family/peers, and the media. These people and things show off images and talk about things that in their mind because of the way they were raised and what they are being told shaped their minds into what is beautiful and what isn’t. 

Family/Peers

Family and peers are a big influence In how someone looks at themselves. When people are younger, the biggest influence is the person’s parents. The parents have this idea in their head about how their kid needs to look and how much they should weigh, and they can have access to all of that because of the doctor appointments and things like that. Pavica Sheldon explains the research that dads are actually the most difficult on their teenage daughters because of the image they think they should look like as a woman and are very upfront with the fact that they need to have a change in their weight. This is especially hard when the people who are closest to you and telling you that something is wrong with your body. It creates this negative body image that not only do you now have about yourself, but others do as well. When you grow older, it is the peers who now have the biggest influence on you. When kids go to college, they are now surrounded by other people their ideas and thoughts. They begin to get ideas based on what their friends think and what they are telling people that they should look like. At this point too, everyone is maturing in different ways but still people compare themselves to their friends creating a negative body image about themselves thinking that they are the fat friends or that all of their friends are prettier than them. All of these things and the influence of peers can create a negative mindset for young kids and teens that will affect them for a long time. 

Media

 The media is a huge factor today in why people are dissatisfied with their body image. Kendyl Klein does a lot of research on the effects of media on the body image of women. From fashion magazines to social media, the impact is severe. People now have the ability from magazines and social media to see these people who are photoshopped to be as close to society’s level of perfect as they can, which other people see, and think is normal. Klein talks about how people now the ability have to pick out what they want to look like, and they can do anything to get there because of the easy access. Looking through social media and coming across images of others can create insecurity. The thought come into many people’s minds about how they’re skinnier than me, they’re tanner than me, or even they’re getting more likes than me. Rochelle L. Bergstrom, Clayton Neighbors, and Jeremy E. Manheim did research about women and social media habits. They found out that certain women use social media to get affirmation after they experience some self-doubt and insecurities after they are looking through social media. Social media is both a place that can cause insecurities to come out, and to help them go away for a short amount of time. 

Media’s Role in Body Image Issues

Like mentioned in the previous paragraph, media causes a lot of issues. It gives the access to women to be able to pick out things wrong with themselves and how they believe they need to improve in order to achieve their goal. It causes many issues as the models and people portrayed in the media become the idolized body type that they feel they need to be in order to be pretty, and to be happy. 

Social Media

Social media gives access to themselves v others. It allows people to compare how some people look, and then back to how they look. It allows others to compare every little detail about themselves to others until the self confidence is gone. Another thing about social media is that it is always there. Everyone has access to it all the time, so they have the ability to continually go back and compare themselves to not just their friends to but to people around the world, celebrities, and even supermodels. Charles Wagner and Ester Aguirre explain research done about mass media and the way they represent people. Mass media represents people in ways that are unachievable by others. Mass media shows images of women to the public that are extremely edited and photoshopped to the point where there is not one freckle left on their bodies. They show people this image of a fake body image, and that is what people use to strive to look like. Social media creates this ability to photoshop leaving people to try to achieve this perfection that doesn’t exist. 

Magazines 

Magazines have been used for a long time, and are still being used today to broadcast the image and message of perfection. Kendyl Klein did a lot of research on magazines and the negative impact it has on body image. The fashion magazines that you pick up at the store all have the same type of layout to them. They have a beautiful model on the front and a headline for what is inside. They all say things like “How to burn fat fast” and “Flatten out that belly fat” and all about how to lose fat. It is rare to see a woman who is not photoshopped and has curves or something like that on the cover of a magazines. Klein talked to her therapist about this and she advised her to never pick up another magazine in her life because of the negative body image that it gives people. Reading a fashion magazine has the ability to influence people to continue to diet, workout, and do each thing they advise you to do to look like the person on the cover. It makes insecurities when that body image isn’t obtainable, and each article only talks about how to be skinny and rarely how to be healthy and fit. 

Difference between men and women in body dissatisfaction 

Men and women are very different in the way that they think about their bodies, the way the work, and the entire body image issue topic. Women are more likely to be affected by body dissatisfaction, but that doesn’t mean that men do not experience it either. It comes in different ways and from different people.

Men

Like women, men can face body dissatisfaction as well. Adrian Furnham and others looked at research into what affects does body image have on men that is different than women. When looking at the research they found that men are more likely to get their body dissatisfaction from peers and family than from mass media. They face peer and family pressure to have a better body and they often worry about failure to meet the standards of the people close to them rather than dealing with societies standards. A misconception about body image issues is that it does not always need to be bigger people wanting to be skinny, it can be people trying to weigh more. That is exactly what research shows in men. Men are likely to want to be heavier than lighter because of the typical muscular standard that society creates for men. Men still face the body image dissatisfaction, but it is not near as much as women face it. 

Women

Women face more body image issues more than men because of the pressure from both those around them and society. Charles Wagner and Ester Aguirre talk about how half of American girls aged 11-16 are unhappy with their body image. Due to the influence on these kids, at such a young and youthful age, 50% of them are already facing body image issues. It is much worse for women than men because of the high number of people who are unhappy with how they look. They look further into the research to see why. They found out that because throughout history women are seen of as physical and sexual objects. Their social value they have is most of the time indicated through the way that they look and how they present themselves in their appearance. It is more important for the way a woman looks and presents themselves than a man, causing more women to have body image issues and to deal with the lack of confidence in their body. Many times, the only way people think they can achieve this is through eating disorders. 

Eating Disorders

Women and men all around the world are subject to eating disorders. Eating disorders start when someone is trying to achieve a certain look, so they begin changing the way that they eat so they can achieve that body image. Pavica Sheldon does research on the amount of people in America who experience eating disorders. She found out that 1 out of 100 adolescents are starving themselves, sometimes to death and 4 out of 100 binge and purge or use laxatives to help them lose or maintain a certain weight. That is a lot of American kids who have decided they need to use extremely dangerous methods in order to achieve a certain goal look to themselves. Due to all of the influences that I explained before this, kids think they need to put themselves in danger in order to show society that they are pretty enough or skinny enough. The eating disorders in the U.S. are statistically shown to be increasing, and there needs to be a way were kids do not think that eating like this is the only way to achieve their goal weight, and that being stick thin doesn’t mean perfection. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, I found out that many people struggle with body image issues from mass media and family/peer influences, and that many struggle with eating disorders. The influence all of these things have make people believe that they need to achieve a certain perfection image that society has because of the image they are putting out there. No one knows what perfect is, but through influence, they are forced to believe what is shown to them. What research doesn’t show however is if the eating disorders in the U.S. are increasing and there is a correlation between eating disorders and media, why continue to post pictures of stick thin models? 

Sample Paper Grades

Sample Paper 1- B

• Weakness
• Doesn't always define specific research used 
• No Subtopics
• Strengths
• Very detailed
• Correct References 

Sample Paper 2- D

• Weakness
• No hook for the reader in the introduction 
• No topics or subtopics just one big paper 
• Strengths
• Clearly states what the topic is 
• Introduces sources in the introduction 

Sample Paper 3- C

• Weakness 
• No introduction of sources and the main points of the paper in the introduction 
• No subtopics 
• Strengths
• Detailed 
• Uses research they found from sources 

Sample Paper 4- C-

• Weakness
• Just a big paragraph 
• No flow to the paper 
• Strengths 
• States clear topic 
• Hook in the beginning 

Sample Paper 5- A
Sample Paper 6- A

Outline

Open up with the interest in the topic. I felt connected to the topic because I know I am always trying to achieve perfection in my body which seems like an almost impossible task. Perfect is never actually defined but it is in what the media wants us to think is perfection based on the models they use to promote their products. How the influence of others and media made me feel insecure in myself as never having been skinny. I have lost 35 pounds and I still don’t think it is enough… INTRODUCE THE SOURCES BEFORE

Changes in Body Image

·      Explain that the changes in body image happen both over time and moving from place to place

o   Image change of women over time

§  The change in women happens overtime and you can see the change through the ads

§  The average woman model and considered beautiful is a size 00 when back in the day when Marilyn Monroe was considered perfect, she was a size 8

§  The size changes based on what people show in the media whether it be a girl who is a size 16 or a size 00

o   Women in the U.S. and in other parts of the west are always stick thin. There are many other parts of the world that models are not always 5’10 and 110 pounds. In India the average model is 5’5. It all depends on where you are

Reasons for dissatisfaction

·      One reason for body image issues are family and peer influences

o   Family

§  Families spend a lot of time telling kids what they should and shouldn’t eat and they notice their weight gain and get concerned about it as they are growing when they should not be. Parents a lot of times, especially fathers with daughters, are concerned and very upfront with their weight telling them they need to make changes causing issues in their self-esteem.

o   The big one for college kids are peers. People see their peers and get ideas from them on what is beautiful and what is not. They are being told that this is what you should look like and are getting that from them.

o   They also compare themselves to their friends. The ones that are skinny and getting boyfriends and told they are pretty are who people then try to become because they feel they aren’t good enough with the weight they are at.

o   Also, peers can say things and bully people into thinking they are fat. They tell people they are big, and they need to lose weight to look a certain way just because they don’t fit the mold that society tells you that everyone should look like.

·      Media plays the largest role in body image issues

o   Social media plays a role in how people look at themselves vs others. They see pictures of certain girls online and how pretty and skinny they are and the amount of likes that they are getting, and they begin to feel self-conscious. In social media people use it to feel better about themselves

§  “results confirmed that certain women engage in affirmation on processes after a media-induced threat to self”

§  People feel that other’s Instagram pictures are a threat to self because they feel they are not skinny or pretty enough like the person in the picture they are seeing, and they seek that affirmation through their followers

o   Magazines

§  One girl’s therapist told her not to look at magazines ever again because of the negative role that they play. They tell people we need to look a certain way based on who is on the cover

§  People use airbrushes to get rid of the imperfections on a person’s body showing them as perfect without even a freckle on their entire body. They edit them to seem more perfect

·      “It is rare to see imperfect women with disproportionate curves, unwarranted flaws, or even excessive freckles”

§  There are also always ads in the media telling you how to lose weight, get abs fast, and so much more. They are all promoting getting skinnier and losing the weight never anything about good exercise for being fit and happy, it’s all about fat loss.

o   Advertisements

§  People use skinny people to sell their products. They take the fact that women’s self-esteem is low and use the products to try to tell them that if they buy their product, they will look like the small thin girl who is selling them.

Eating Disorders

·      The amount of people that gain eating disorders trying to be perfect is way more than it should be. Girls are beginning to lose weight in order to achieve the standard that the media and people tell them they should be. The author in the one article talks about how she counted calories and starved herself just so she could be thin to the point where you could see her bones. It is unhealthy for teen girls to think that this is an okay way to go about weight loss.

o   “According to research statistics, 1 out of every 100 American adolescents are starving themselves, sometimes to death, and 4 out of 100 binge and purge or use laxatives to help maintain their ‘normal’ weight”

Difference between men and women in body dissatisfaction

·      Men

o   Men face body dissatisfaction as well. They are more likely to face it based off of family and peer influence rather than media. They are unlike women in the fact that most college men would like to weigh more, while most college women would like to weight less.

§  “Body image is important to both men and women but research shows that women are more likely to be seen as physical and sexual objects whose social value can be inferred from bodily appearance” 

·      Men are less faced with the fact that they have to be perfect to others they feel it more to themselves

·      Women

o   Women face body image issues a lot more than men. Because of the media, family, peer, and audience influences they feel the need to be perfect no matter what. They go through certain lengths and experience it much more than men do. It is much more common for women to be displayed in the media as tiny than it is for men to be a certain weight. Women become exposes to this when they are in college especially while their body finished up fully maturing into an actual adult

§  “College aged women are exceptionally vulnerable to the impact that social media can have on their body image as they develop an outlook on their bodies and accept the developmental changes that occurred during puberty” 

o   Women face it much worse than men do to the extent of the influences telling them to change, and the lengths they put themselves through to change like talked about in the paragraph before.

Chart

Article Summaries

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/246f/ba670608533ce08b97dcf6cf32b7418c7762.pdf

This article is titled "Why Don't I Look Like Her? The impact of Social Media on Female Body Image" The purpose of this article is talking about how social media networking and the way that these networks portray females leads to body image issues and eating disorders with women, especially in college aged women. It explains how magazine articles, Instagram feeds, etc. all show images of women who are extremely skinny, have large breasts, and have perfect skin. You never see any average size women in advertisements when the average American woman is a size 14. When college aged girls see this and begin comparing themselves with these girls more and more around the same time their body changes into being more adult like. It causes extreme eating disorders that has begin to increase as social media increases. Girls begin to look at their body in ways that they could improve and point out the flaws rather than what they like about themselves because they think they should look like these women who are considered beautiful and sexy when most phots are extremely edited. Social media has given people the constant ability to critique parts of yourself because of the amount of people who are considered smaller and prettier than another person. Due to this, there has been an increase in eating disorders trying to obtain perfection.

https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6390/5620

This article is called "The relationship between Instagram Selfies and body image in young adult women" This article states that actual body size was positively related to body dissatisfaction and negatively related to the number of selfies taken. The "ideal" body image for women has changed over time in the "thickness" and has now become extremely thin as the perfect size for millennial women. This is because of social media and how they use extremely below average sized women and use airbrushing techniques to get rid of any imperfections on them. Women have always tried to live up to these perfect standards but it has gotten more personal with social media networks because of the people trying to build relationships and reputations online. That is where instagram selfies come in because they allow people to see the face but not the body and takes away the perception of body image. Someone who is  more content with their body image is more likely to post a selfie than someone who is not out of fear that they will be judged the public eye.

https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/jscp.2009.28.2.264

This article is called "Media Comparisons and Threats to Body Image: Seeking Evidence of Self-Affirmation" because of the media women are constantly seeing the thin models that are all over magazine covers and wearing the new clothes and on TV ads. They then start to compare themselves to them because those are the people that are considered beautiful at that time. People then begin eating disorders and maintaining a negative self image after they see a post involving someone extremely thin. They call this media-induced body image disturbance.


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00223980209604820

This article is called "Body Image Dissatisfaction: Gender Differences in Eating Attitudes, Self-Esteem, and Reasons for Exercise." This was about how when asking both men and women what they would prefer to be most men said they wanted to be heavier and almost all women said they wanted to be lighter. Girls experience more body dissatisfaction when it comes to self-esteem. When it comes to exercise however both men and women participate in exercise to try to change how they look because of low self-esteem and eating disorders.


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10417940903026543

This article is called "Pressure to be Perfect: Influences on College Students' Body Esteem." The media portrays an image of the perfect woman to be 5'11 and 120 pounds when in reality the average woman is 5'4 and 140 pounds. High family and peer pressure are what influence men's body image. Women's body image comes from the photoshopped images with unreal body measurements in magazines because that is what they almost tell us we should look like. 88% of women think they need to lose weight where only 37% of men think they need to lose weight. Not only do media, peers, and family have an influence but so does people's need for perfection which can cause eating disorders to have the perfect body in their mind. Model comparison is a main source of women having body esteem issue because they compare themselves to models who have abnormal bodies that are extremely hard to achieve. Not only this but people use the social standards that they see online to judge others. They use the perception of what the media think that people should look like to judge whether someone is pretty enough or thin enough which causes eating disorders.


https://academic.oup.com/her/article/21/6/770/608683

This article is called "Prevention of obesity and eating disorders: a consideration of shared risk factors." All the previous articles talked about how media, people we know, and social standards lead to not only low self esteem with body but also eating disorders. This article talks about the negative effects of eating disorders. It is a very unhealthy dieting practice that is common in young kids that affects a good chunk of both men and women. With the media, there are more kids that are beginning to adopt eating disorders as well. Not eating enough can cause malnutrition in the body with serious effects. Vomiting can cause rotting of the teeth, and the list goes on. It is mostly common in those overweight to get skinny due to the images in the media and bullying. It goes on to explain the issues of dieting and dieting with obesity, more eating disorders, etc. Then it goes and talks about how the media and the advertisements are mostly for sugary and unhealthy foods which means that more people are likely to eat those foods even if they are bad for them. Then they are likely to try to exercise, not eat, or vomit that food because of the impact it has on their body while the impact of maintaining this eating disorder is much worse.

Topic

My topic I chose is "how has social media changed the body image for women?" I started off with social media marketing and found a source that talked about this instead. I found this a lot more interesting because being a girl I know how images on social media can affect the perception of our body images when seeing other girls online. The "ideal" body image has changed throughout the years and led to people trying to achieve this image of perfection. Why do people need the affirmation of being perfect? Why does it influence people so much? How does it actually affect people? Is there an increase in eating disorders because of it?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00223980209604820
https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6390/5620
https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/jscp.2009.28.2.264
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/246f/ba670608533ce08b97dcf6cf32b7418c7762.pdf

Topics

1. The academic journals that I found was about social media in marketing.

2. The research topic is social media in marketing with questions about how it has become more prominent in businesses and the influence it has on businesses.

3.
- why the sudden increase is social media technology?
- what are the benefits of social media marketing?
- is social media beneficial?
- what is social media?
- what are the trends in marketing?

4. I think the topic in general interests me. I want to know the influence social media has on business.

5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814039202#bbib0005
this article is one that I found stating the foundations of social media marketing. This is going back to the basics of the start of social media marketing and why it is important and the influence it has.