Media images always play a key role in everyday life, but the messages related to the young women beauty are sometimes harmful. A normal person is exposed to around 6,000 ads a day and this is only due to the type of consumer economy of today. The thin ideal refers to the concept of having a thin female body. A trend of increasing thinness in fashion models, actresses and beauty pageant contestants can be seen in the last few decades. Due to this, more and more individuals are suffering from negative effects of being exposed to ideal body images in the media. The media has portrayed a negative perception of a person’s body.
The thin body image shown in the media contributes to low self-esteem among young woman. This has also lead to negative mood, body dissatisfaction and increased levels of depression among people, especially women (Sheehan, 2013). Most of the advertisers focus on a special type of beauty image that use wardrobes and makeup to portray ideals of beauty. Young woman on seeing such ads believe them as true beauty. These ads also encourage the young woman to look beautiful in society in order to go along with the expectations of society, which is not seen in the real life (Sheehan, 2013).
The negative body image can lead to several eating disorders as well. Anorexia is one of the common eating disorder that encourages a person to follow wrong and harmful food habits in order to be thin (VARGAS, 2013). A number of websites exist that are promoting such types of eating, especially among women in the desire to be thinner. There are many celebrities as well who have been suffering from eating disorders. If media stops focusing on the ideal image and shows them as average sized, then the ideal body would be a healthy body, and not a thin body (VARGAS, 2013).
The value of appearances shown in the advertisements and media are increasing the negative effects such as wrong eating patterns, preoccupation of weight. These have also affected the emotional well-being of women in most of the western countries. Media has contributed largely to the development of eating disorders and prevention of these also includes media literacy. The media should focus on increasing the self-esteem among young woman by focusing on various ways to overcome the effects.
References
VARGAS, E. (2013). The Negative Effects of the Media on Body Image - Applied Social
Psychology (ASP). Personal.psu.edu. Retrieved 3 May 2016, from http://www.personal.psu.edu/bfr3/blogs/asp/2013/06/the-negative-effects-of-the-media-on-body-image.html
Sheehan, M. (2013). The Effects of Advertising and the Media’s Portrayal of the “Thin
Ideal” on College Women’s Self-Image. Digitalcommons.providence.edu. Retrieved 3 May 2016, from http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=socialwrk_students
