A Literature Review on Media and Its Influence on Teenage Body Image
Khadijah Ricks
Teens and Tweens
11 December 2014
“Media and its influence on teenage Body Image”
Introduction
Looking beautiful and having a thin body has become a standard today, which everyone wants to achieve today. People are bombarded with amazing beautiful images from watching television, surfing the internet and reading magazines, which forces people emotionally to become like them. People today, especially women, believe that perfect beauty and thinness is a norm and it is achievable by wearing beautiful clothes, applying makeup and by reshaping the body. Media has taken over people mind by pressurizing them to look like celebrities and one of those images sticking on those beauty and health relates magazines and ads. Media has made beauty business a huge hype. Showing white faces, selling different kinds of creams and serums, is just making women self-esteem decrease. Women become insecure about their beauty and bodies, which makes them to buy clothes and diet products to reform to their satisfaction. The media is supposed to portray what is considered to be normal; therefore, affects what society considers normal. The media's portrayal of body image affects teens negatively through using stereotypes, encouraging sexual behavior, and promoting unnecessary products. Teens are very gullible during the difficult and already confusing part of their development. Thus what the media tells them is "normal" affects them more so than adults. My Hypothesis is that I expect to find that the media is the leading cause of negative body image issues , regarding teenage girls. My first source is an article, written by a college student, called “Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard”. This article explains how the media and the way it portrays how women should look compared to what women look now. It also describes how and when females have body image and
Teens and Tweens
11 December 2014
“Media and its influence on teenage Body Image”
Introduction
Looking beautiful and having a thin body has become a standard today, which everyone wants to achieve today. People are bombarded with amazing beautiful images from watching television, surfing the internet and reading magazines, which forces people emotionally to become like them. People today, especially women, believe that perfect beauty and thinness is a norm and it is achievable by wearing beautiful clothes, applying makeup and by reshaping the body. Media has taken over people mind by pressurizing them to look like celebrities and one of those images sticking on those beauty and health relates magazines and ads. Media has made beauty business a huge hype. Showing white faces, selling different kinds of creams and serums, is just making women self-esteem decrease. Women become insecure about their beauty and bodies, which makes them to buy clothes and diet products to reform to their satisfaction. The media is supposed to portray what is considered to be normal; therefore, affects what society considers normal. The media's portrayal of body image affects teens negatively through using stereotypes, encouraging sexual behavior, and promoting unnecessary products. Teens are very gullible during the difficult and already confusing part of their development. Thus what the media tells them is "normal" affects them more so than adults. My Hypothesis is that I expect to find that the media is the leading cause of negative body image issues , regarding teenage girls. My first source is an article, written by a college student, called “Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard”. This article explains how the media and the way it portrays how women should look compared to what women look now. It also describes how and when females have body image and