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.