Reflecting Body Images from American Culture
Sara Brown
12-7-05
Eng 101 MW
Isbell J
Reflecting Body Images from American Culture
Currently in America Culture there is a prevailing desire to become thin. "Between five per cent and ten per cent of girls and women (i.e. five-ten million people) and one million boys and men suffer from eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, or other associated dietary conditions." (http://www.annecollins.com/eating-disorders/statistics.htm) So many people are influenced by the media that it transforms their own self image into unrealistic ideas leading many adolescent females and some males to eating disorders. Our society is driven for individual control thus forming the judgment that fatness is a loss of self-control which is a social value and a personal moral in our culture that is a boundless failure and the most feared among women. The definition of self control within the body image has changed throughout the last century, in the early eighteen hundred's corpulence was seen as strong and beautiful whereas now it is looked down upon. This desire to be thin contributes to eating disorders, low self esteem and continues the battle of acceptance into society. Beauty is acceptance which is defined by the time period and is enforced by the media. The culture standards' of beauty has changed throughout the course of history. Visual art in eighteenth Century America lead to the ideal women which was plump, flesh and full-figured ( Wykes & Gunter Pg. 154) This was a time period were a women's size represented strength, power and successful motherhood. The fertility was important because the more children she could bear, the more helpers the family would have to work the land. The acceptance to be corpulence in the eighteen hundreds had changed drastically by the early nineteen hundreds. In the nineteen hundreds consumption of more elaborate products was becoming popular. The array of goods seeped into fashion, rich furniture and even
12-7-05
Eng 101 MW
Isbell J
Reflecting Body Images from American Culture
Currently in America Culture there is a prevailing desire to become thin. "Between five per cent and ten per cent of girls and women (i.e. five-ten million people) and one million boys and men suffer from eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, or other associated dietary conditions." (http://www.annecollins.com/eating-disorders/statistics.htm) So many people are influenced by the media that it transforms their own self image into unrealistic ideas leading many adolescent females and some males to eating disorders. Our society is driven for individual control thus forming the judgment that fatness is a loss of self-control which is a social value and a personal moral in our culture that is a boundless failure and the most feared among women. The definition of self control within the body image has changed throughout the last century, in the early eighteen hundred's corpulence was seen as strong and beautiful whereas now it is looked down upon. This desire to be thin contributes to eating disorders, low self esteem and continues the battle of acceptance into society. Beauty is acceptance which is defined by the time period and is enforced by the media. The culture standards' of beauty has changed throughout the course of history. Visual art in eighteenth Century America lead to the ideal women which was plump, flesh and full-figured ( Wykes & Gunter Pg. 154) This was a time period were a women's size represented strength, power and successful motherhood. The fertility was important because the more children she could bear, the more helpers the family would have to work the land. The acceptance to be corpulence in the eighteen hundreds had changed drastically by the early nineteen hundreds. In the nineteen hundreds consumption of more elaborate products was becoming popular. The array of goods seeped into fashion, rich furniture and even