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.