Body Image

The nonfiction article, "Here's to Looking at You: Is Body Image Being Taken Too Seriously?" by Annie Rispin, is about the struggles of body image of both women and men in college and how current media plays a large part in the issue. Rispin suggests that the pressure college students have to look affects them, especially in our culture of cell phones and media. Many college students are affected by the problems of body image. Body image is how people now judge, interact, and categorize you as a person. Rispin conveys through numerous studies that people associate body types with personality, jobs, and more, and now negative body image is what is common. The models, actors, and celebrities seen in mainstream media are all intelligent, gorgeous, and popular. With these people as society's role models, many college students strive to achieve that perfect mind, body, and status. That is causing the self-confidence of many to drop, resulting in eating disorders, negative body image, and more. Rispin claims that even though we focus most of our energy and resources battling poor body image in women, it also occurs in men and athletes, people who are often overlooked. Men experience
I believe she should have directed her article at a wider audience, not just college aged students. I believe that not only college students are experiencing negative body images. She focuses only on college students in the article, and I believe that many, both younger, in grade school or high school, as well as older people are affected by the mainstream media. Even toddlers and small children are seeing characters in books and TV shows unrealistically skinny and perfect. They are taught to look a certain way since a young age. Also, past college, many people continue to struggle with body image. Women with children frown at their stretch marks and larger bellies and are encouraged by the media to work out and lose the