Rhetorical Analysis

Every day, thousands of teenage and college-aged girls flip through the pages of tabloids and fashion magazines, admiring the glossy images of models and celebrities. While this habit is seemingly casual and innocent, for many it becomes an obsession that is interlinked with a struggle to attain an ideal yet unrealistic body image. In their articles, Meredith Baker and Walter Vandereycken discuss the media’s influence on young women, agreeing that media exposure has a strong negative impact on young women’s self-esteem. In her article “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder; Body Image; Skinny on a Weighty Issue”, Meredith Baker points out that almost ten million Americans, mostly teenage and college-aged girls, are currently dealing with anorexia or bulimia. She blames the fashion and entertainment industries for contributing to the problem by showcasing celebrities and models that are unusually skinny. Baker then goes on to share her own experience with an eating disorder and how she overcame it. She believes the United States should follow France’s example and ban stick-thin models from all advertisements. She cites the fact that cultures that value full-figured women have fewer eating disorders and hopes that media outlets in the United States will also begin to provide more realistic role models in advertising. In Walter Vandereyckens article, “Media Influences and Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women”, he states that, “the influence of society and culture is putting young female adolescents at risk for developing an eating disorder”(Vandereycken 5). He discusses the cause-effect relationship between the idolization of celebrities with slim figures and low self-esteem and poor body images in teens. He emphasizes that with such unhealthy behavior, it is inevitable that adolescents would take necessary steps to achieve slim figures. Vandereycken argues that the mass media affects young adults differently based on sociocultural backgrounds and predisposed

Cited: * Baker, Meredith. "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder; Body Image; Skinny on a Weighty Issue." The Houston Chronicle 10 June 2008: 3-3. LexisNexis Academic. McKeldin Library, College Park. 9 June 2009 http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?risb=21_T6746998999&treeMax=false&sort=&docNo=1&format=GNBFULL&startDocNo=0&treeWidth=0&nodeDisplayName=&cisb=&reloadPage=false * Vandereycken, Walter. "Media Influences and Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women." Eating Disorders Review 17 (2006): 5-5. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. McKeldin Library, College Park. 16 June 2009 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=5&sid=07206899-55b5-4c12-a8e6-2568055c131a%40sessionmgr7>.