According to research, approximately 91% of women of all ages are unhappy with their body. 58% of teenage girls believe that they need to be a certain weight, and unfortunately only 5% of women actually have the desired body portrayed by the media. Body image dissatisfaction is a growing concern in today's society due to many reasons. Today so many young women are affected by societies standards of the perfect women, that is portrayed by different forms of media. Many people are wondering to what extent media and social media affect a teenage girls body image. These affects may snowball into eating disorders or psychological problems. Media's influence on body image satisfaction can be decreased if people take the right measures. Media and social media have large influences on us today, that it can change our perception of our own appearance, and this is very unheatlhy. 

Body image dissatisfaction can be defined as one person's negative thoughts about their body type. This problem is normally caused by the person's difference between their current view of their body and their ideal body. The ideal body has become a standardized idea among western culture due to the obsession with beauty in today's society. Over time, the ideal body has become thinner while women are now tending to be larger than before. Women used to idolize Marylyn Monroe as a sex icon and the definition of beauty with a busty hourglass figure and long legs; now women idolize Victoria Secret models who are tall, thin, toned and have big breasts. As the ideal body continues to get smaller, the body image satisfaction in todays society continues to drop, causing larger problems. Some researchers even predict that women are beginning to attempt to change the way they look so that men may find them more attractive. 

The media has begun to portray their image of the thin ideal. The thin ideal has transformed into a slender, feminine physique, a small waist, and little body fat.  This has caused women to desire the body of models and actors. Statistics show that the average women are 5'4" and weighs 140 pounds, while the average model is 5'11" and weighs 117 pounds. This shows that the thin ideal is unrealistic in comparison to average American citizens. The media portrays women who are thin and beautiful to have a happy and wonderful life, this causes average women to feel the need to be thin to be happy. Many marketing companies will do anything that is needed to sell a product, and many people will buy products that appeal to their sense of beauty. Because of this, many ads on television or in magazines have become more oriented with appearance and sexual appeal. The media has turned to the 'thin ideal' to gain popularity by appealing to viewers since of beauty. One example given by "The Effects of Media on Body Image" was the children's movie Shrek. The producers of this movie portray the "ugly" princess as overweight, green, and ugly, while the "Beautiful princess is thin and feminine looking. This proves that the media is even showing to children that you are are only beautiful if you are thin and girly. The media has begun to portray women that are below the healthy body weight, over exposure to these women and bodies have caused many women to feel uncomfortable with their own bodies. As the media begins to do this, teenagers and average citizen's begin to idolize models and celebrities, some who are only famous for their looks, just because they are what people find to be perfect. Because of this people are not turning from media and its harsh affects, but instead they are turning towards it and focusing more on the celebrities. 

Social Media usage has grown tremendously in recent years. Teenagers, parents, and companies are all using social media to portray their life or product to others around them. Companies are looking to make their product look glamourous and reach to a different audience on social media. Teens now days are beginning to show every aspect of their life on social media to gain acceptance from acquaintances. The rise of Instagram, Twitter, VSCO, and Tumblr have lead to larger problems because young women are altering pictures in attempt to gain gratification from others. Social media has become a problem because people are constantly connected with others at any second of the day, causing us to worry about our appearance at all times. Social media has caused young women to do anything to gain more likes or followers, some activities they partake in to do this may be harmful to them or others. People are looking for positive comments from friends on their pictures and they are desiring for other people to idolize them just as people do celebrities. Now, cyberbullying is becoming a problem when people are commenting negative things on pictures, or uploading items on social media that can be aimed negatively towards one person in particular. This is causing young girls to have an even smaller self esteem because they are being made fun of or attacked for how they look, talk, or act. 

Negative body image and low self esteem can be very detrimental to one's health. Negative body image may lead young women to dieting in order to lose weight, and can eventually lead to eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Low self esteem can also lead to drugs and alcohol usage and sex addictions. Anorexia is classified as a distorted body image by a fear of being over weight that includes a persistent obsession to avoid weight gain. Bulimia is classified as binge eating, followed by purging to avoid weight gain. Bulimia also can involve excessive exercise, and fasting. There is now an entire community of followers supporting 'Pro-Ana' which means pro anorexia. Although low self esteem and negative body image can not directly lead to having anorexia and bulimia, teenage girls are turning to these larger problems to solve the problem of their dissatisfaction with their body. These people are turning to anorexia to make them feel beautiful. Young women have begun to turn to fad diets and cosmetic surgery as well to make them look like the ideal women they see in the media. When women are getting cosmetic surgery, they believe they need to change their body so much that they are willing to pay thousands of dollars just to change the way they look so that they can fit in to societies standards of beautiful. Negative body image can also cause psychological problems in their victims. Because are society is so focused on appearance, these young women are beginning to believe that they do not fit in to society because they do not look like they think they should. This is causing girls to feel sad and believe they are an outcast and they begin to hate themselves. 

The media has caused a large problem because now, women in magazines and photos on the internet of models are frozen. This allows women to sit and stare at a picture for a long time and compare the body in the picture to their own body. The Media is using an unrealistic, and unobtainable body which has created a larger gap between an individual's actual appearance and their ideal appearance. Many researchers are referring to female's current thoughts of their body as 'normative-discontent.' This shows that teenage girls being dissatisfied with their bodies and their looks is becoming normal. 

Some researchers believe that the young girls friends and family have the largest effect on her, instead of social media. They claim that this is because we live in an appearance based culture, therefore everyone is focused so much on how their appearance, as well as the appearance of others. Because of this, many mothers and fathers are beginning to comment on and influence the actions of their children, because they do not want their children to be unattractive or over weight. According to research, mothers have a larger influence on their daughters eating habits because the mother's actions are models for their daughters. Fathers influence their daughters view of their own body by making small comments and teasing. Some researchers believe that these small comments from the mother and father about their daughter's weight may show actual concern of their child's health, while teasing can only have negative affects on the daughter. Researcher Annette Kluck performed an entire experiment to find out how a young girls family influences her perception of her own body. Kluck found "The relationship between the mother's encouragement to control weight/size through dieting, exercise, and other weight control behaviors and body dissatisfaction was stronger than the relationship between any other type of commentary and body image dissatisfaction" (Kluck, 12).

"Body image, Media Effect on" states that "as women are beginning to gain power, the ideal female is becoming thinner and thinner because the American society is uncomfortable with heavier women in power." 

Problems with negative body image and low self esteem can also occur in boys, but the problem is statistically less significant. Studies have shown that boys now feel that they need to form to societies idea of "hot." Although boys believe that they need to gain muscle and gain weight to be attractive, they also believe that they media only shows men that have the ideal muscular body. It is statistically shown that boys are more affected by television and advertisements than they are by social media. Boys do not look for validation from their friends as much as girls do. Many people only focus on girls being affected by low self esteem and negative body image, but satisfaction levels in boys are decreasing. 

Some researchers say that beauty pageants are just as detrimental as the media and social media. They say this because young women are working for a very long time to look, walk, and think a certain way. These women are then being judged on how well they can transform into societies standard of beauty. When women and young girls participate in beauty pageants, people other than the judges are sitting and watching them as they are all done up for the purpose of winning money and impressing judges. This process not only negatively affects the participants in the contest, but it affects the bystanders as well. The participants can become upset over this process because if they don't get the score they want, they may begin to think that it is because they are not pretty enough or not good enough. The bystanders are affected because they see these beautiful women who win prizes for their looks and they begin to believe that they need to look and act like them in order to be beautiful. 

One of the biggest causes for negative body image in today's society is the media and social media usage. This needs to be stopped because it is causing major health problems in young women. Most people understand that this is a large problem, but no one is doing anything about it. Instead, everyone is just praising celebrities and people's appearance more and more. Social media constantly connects us to people in our surroundings and because of this we are constantly looking for validation from others. This is a problem because people are no longer satisfied with themselves unless someone else tells them that they should be proud of themselves. This extends to people looking for someone to tell them that did a good job on an activity, or that they look good on that particular day, etc. This large problem is causing the overall happiness level in our society to decrease. Happiness now days is decreasing because as people are looking for validation from others, people are also being more judgmental towards others, which is causing people to give out less compliments and radiate less happiness. 

It would be very easy for the media to switch to showing off realistic body types of women. If only 5% of women look like the women that the media portrays, then is should be very easy for producers and advertisers to find the other 95% of people that have an average body type. If the media showed these women, the gap between ideal body types and realistic body types would shrink. People would begin to understand that the women that are projected on your TV and photographed in magazines are below your healthy weight, and are taller than your average women. 

The relationship between social media and body image satisfaction is negative. This problem will be much harder to solve than the problem with entertainment media and displaying bodies that are not average. Social media usage is only going to grow in future years. Companies are now switching to social media as their main form of advertisement, where they are showing the most beautiful women that they can find for their product advertisements. Many people believe that social media is a great thing because they can share their life with others and can see what everyone else is doing all the time. But in reality, this can cause problems because people normally only show the good things going on with their life. Therefore, people are beginning to compare their life with others based on what they see on social media, although they are only seeing the wonderful things that happens in other peoples lives. We can solve this problem by everyone spreading encouragement and love to others. Another way to improve this problem would be to have people show parts of their life that are not so wonderful.

According to research, body image issues develop during puberty and only grow larger throughout the person's life. As the media is showing to young viewers that you are not beautiful unless you are 'Ultra thin' the age where body discontent begins is starting to go lower and lower. This is causing problems in the long run to be larger. "Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard" gives three theories on how negative body image develops; social comparison, cultivation, and self-schema. "Social comparison shows how women compare themselves in relation to peers, groups, and/or social categories. Cultivation argues that image that portray women who match the sociocultural ideal of beauty are extremely prevalent in popular media. this influences women's abilities to understand that such standards are unrealistic. Self- schema theory uses the objective body, the internalized ideal body, and the represented ideal body" (Serder). 

Body image dissatisfaction is a horrible problem that anyone can have when they are dissatisfied with their current bodies and desire a body that they deem ideal. When we solve the problem of the influence of social media and media on young women, our society as a whole will grow. There will be less judgment and comparisons. There will also be less people who are unhealthy due to eating disorders and psychological problems. Hopefully other people will understand the significance of this problem and work towards an end to it. The media influences young women's thoughts because we are constantly staring at picture's of people that society declares to be beautiful. In recent years, social media has taken over medias influence and has created an even bigger problem. Now we are faced with women constantly looking for validation from everyone around them. These problems need to be ended to help encourage women to love themselves. 


