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Homeier Md, Barbara P. "Eating Disorders." KidsHealth For Parents. June 2005. 16 Feb. 2006 .
The way the media is portraying every day life, it makes a nearly impossible body type seem like the only acceptable look to have. The men and women they show have perfectly sculpted bodys, with a nice even tan, and perfectly smooth, hairless skin. But who on this earth truly looks that way? not even the models themselfs. In the demanding busniess of modeling and acting, employers are constantly pressuring the models and actors to lose weight, gain muscle, and other tiney details about theire appearence. After they've dieted and worked out to get the perfect body, they hire professional makeup artists to go in and paint their bodys, for what could be hours, to further perfection. Even after all of that, after the photoshoot or whatever they were hired for, photographers will go into the pictures and airbrush much of the photo, making them look even thinner, defining their muscles even more, basically manipulating anything they want to in the picture to make them seem even more perfect. By the time the photographs get printed, not even the person in the picture looks that beautiful in real life. Men and women all over the world are then exposed to these photographs, planting that image in their head as what beauty is. The picture sets their standard as what is good enough to be concidered pretty, when in reality it would be impossible to look like that. The companies who own the pictures could come back and say that everyone knows that photographs are manipulated in that way, and that they should know its just a picture and that they're not saying you have to look like that, but that is the idea that gets planted in the publics head.
The depictions of the falsly perfect bodies have also been known to create self esteem issuses in many people, especially in young girls. They see Jessica Simpson or Paris Hilton in an ad for pizza, or something else completely unrelated to sex at all, with strong emphasis on their tiney waists and long legs, those girls wonder why they don't look like that. It even goes down to first-graders, in an article on eating disorders they explained how reasurch showed that "42% of first to third-grade girls want to be thinner, and 81% of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat" (citation). Those are children that shouldn't have to worry about their body shape, they're comparing themselfs to bodies that they won't develop into for years. Then there are the teenagers who see this ads, to them they are old enough that they think they should be looking like an airbrushed Jessica Simpson. They need to learn that not even she looks like the final product in the pictures, but even if they know its not all real, they cant help but compare themselfs and feel like others are comparing them. Poor self image like this can cause serious self esteem issues, and even eating disorders. As the article on eating disorders put it "Frequently a child who develops an eating disorder has a low self-esteem and often the focus on weight is an attempt to regain a sense of control" (citation). These girls think their bodies dont measure up to Jessica Simpsons and can even develop eating disorders trying to control it. Of course the media doesn't want to think that they cause anyone any pain, to them they're simply giving them what they want. Sure it is easier on the eyes to look at a gorgoues person than someone you find ugly, but to the extent that the media is going to in order to make already beautiful people into some kind of fantasy perfection of human form just isnt right.
You just had a beautiful baby girl, Jenna. She's your pride and joy. As she grows up she's always running around the front yard playing with your new puppy, and playing tag with the neighborhood kids. Now shes starting school, shes in second grade and drawing beautiful family portraits of four stick figures. That's when you find out she wants to be thinner, she doesnt like her body compared to the girls on the latest cover of a magazine. Now shes turning ten, and you find out that shes afraid that she's going to be fat. Jenna is one of many kids who havn't even gotten through elementry school without severly comaring themselfs to the 30 year olds they see in magazines or on tv. For all they know, at such a young age, what they see in the media is what your supposed to be, and if they're body doesnt look like that, they have failed. Our media should portray a more realistic model of beauty and values. Jenna should be looking at pictures of the average person. She should learn to value more important things than what the scale says.
CONCLUSION:
We need to embrace tiney imperfections, thats what makes us human, thats what makes us beautiful. we need to see people in theire natural glory, see them for who they really are. how can we use an ad for clothing when its on a body thats pretty much physically impossible, or how can we by an excersize video when its garenteed that you wont get the body on the cover. The media has turned our deffinition of beauty to how well you can doctor a photograph. They need to learn that everyone is beautiful they way they naturally are, that there are more important things to value over how perfect you can make a body look. As Jenna sits in her room, looking through her moms magazines, she sees these 30 year old womens perfect curves and tight abs, looks down at her ten year old body, and frowns.