Unrealistic Body Image

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Adolescents’ growing up in Western societies are constantly bombarded with society’s idea of a perfect body. Although, these images are an unrealistic depiction of the average man or woman, we still strive to be this idea of perfect to be accepted. We see these unrealistic images all over the country's media, including TV, social media, and magazine covers.
When young women see these magazine covers it makes them feel inadequate, or not up to societies standards. I examined five different women’s magazine covers to see what kind of harmful images are being exposed to adolescent girls. The first magazine was a Cosmopolitan with Nicki Minaj, a singer known for her unrealistic body type, in a revealing one piece on the cover. The cover also …show more content…
For women, the message they are receiving from these magazines is that they aren’t skinny, curvy, or pretty enough. The average American woman is about 5’4” one-hundred forty pounds, while the average model is 6’0” one-hundred fifteen pounds. This staggering difference in BMI, or body mass index is frightening because young girls look at these model and aspire to look like them by any means necessary. Status among peers is another common reason for girls conforming. Adolescent females believe if they are beautiful like the girls in the magazines, they will be liked more by their peers and therefore, “popular”. Sociometric status becomes increasingly important to adolescents as they grow older. Magazine images of beauty could be a danger to adolescent girls and can greatly affect their self-esteem and cause depression. Because they do not see themselves as beautiful they can turn to eating problems and disorders to help them achieve ideal beauty. Anorexia and Bulimia are increasingly common among adolescents due to poor body image. These eating disorders can lead to severe health issues and even …show more content…
Believe it or not boys can also be negatively impacted by magazines in a slightly different way. The first two covers I examined were both Men’s Health magazine. One with a flexing Zac Efron, an actor, the other with a famous UK body builder. They both display captions such as “ Be built like Brad Pitt”..”17-day abs”..and “ How to get instant muscle” with diet powder and pill ads next to it. These captions teach young boys that they need to look a certain way and develop large muscle mass to be “attractive”. Boys, just as girls, often compare themselves to these photoshopped images and could make poor life choices because of it. The third magazine cover was on Gentleman’s Quarterly (GQ Magazine), with James Franco and the headline “ Why nobody uses condoms anymore!”. Magazines don’t only teach adolescents that they must look a certain way but can also affect their opinions and actions. This statement could teach boys unsafe sex practices, which can lead to STDs. On the cover of Men’s Fitness was Gerard Butler with yet again another article regarding gaining large amounts of muscle weight in a short amount of time. A final cover on Star magazine shows shirtless men with the title “They’ve let themselves go”. Two men on the cover due appear to be slightly overweight, but the other two are averaged sized men. These covers and articles read by young boys send many
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