According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, it is reported that about 91% of women have once been or currently are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape (Kassoy).  However, only 5% of women naturally possess the body type often displayed in the media (Kassoy).  The media is always changing our thoughts on what the definition of beauty is, mainly because our society is allowing this to happen.  In today's society we allow the media to glamorize a very thin body for a woman ("How the Media Changes").  As we let the media influence and change this large part of our society, we notice that it mainly concentrates on the beauty of young girls and women.  This phenomenon has become something that gets over looked nowadays because seeing beautiful, skinny young girls and women everywhere is nothing new to our everyday eye.  What is new and what should not be over looked is what is happening in the lives of these young girls and women. The representations that idealize women's bodies in popular media outlets negatively affect women's mental and physical health.  As a society the definition of beauty should be changed to accommodate all female happiness. 

Beauty standards, mostly contrived in the media, have huge impacts on young women and their body images. As previously determined, societies definition of beauty is always changing; but what is the current definition of beauty? Simply put the current definition of beauty in American culture is thin (Ossola).  Society wasn't always this harsh, this recent "thin" trend is something new to many older generations.  Socio-cultural pressures or combining social and cultural factors, have been a major influence in the definition of beauty (Ossola).   Many many years ago, the ideal standard for beauty in a woman was someone that had a voluptuous body and curves. Curves in a woman suggested good health and fertility ("How the Media Changes"). Many years ago, the era of flappers blossomed and along with the beginning of society's changing beauty standards.  In this era, a woman should still have a full figure but not quite as full as her mother's era ("How the Media Changes").  Skipping ahead to the 1970's, the media's evolving role really begins; televisions are becoming a necessity rather than a privilege. Still encompassing the definition of beauty with her curvy body, Farrah Fawcett became the first standard of beauty represented in the media ("How the Media Changes").  Soon however, our definition of beauty changed with the television show Charlie's Angels ("How the Media Changes").  After becoming one of the highest rated television shows, the fascination and popularity of being slim begins to emerge and this is what we now refer to as the beginning of the thin-ideal trend.

Since the age of three, I can remember being placed in front of the television and sitting on my mother's lap looking at magazines, starting to form my soon to be love of main stream celebrity gossip.  Over the last couple of decades, body-dissatisfaction has been a common problem among young women (Cash).  Body-dissatisfaction has been defined as "a person's negative thoughts and feelings about his or her body" (Grogan p. 4).  Typically, the source of dissatisfaction reflects the prevailing gender specific body shape ideals; women want to be thinner and men want to increase their muscularity (McCreary and Sasse).  Socio-cultural ideas, or combining social and cultural factors, pressuring women into achieving the thin-ideal has been prominent over the last few decades.  Media images and toy dolls with unrealistically thin bodies are seen to play a central role in perpetuating and maintaining the "perfect body" thin-ideal among women (Grogan).   Despite the seemingly increased pressure on men to achieve the muscular-ideal, evidence suggests that the pressure on women to achieve the thin-ideal is still and will continue to be considerably stronger through society's changing definition of beauty and how the media sources portray it (Buote, Wilson, Strahan, Gazzola and Papps).  Recent studies show that body- dissatisfaction partly mediates the relationship between the internalization of the body-perfect ideal and the body-shaping behavior among adolescents (Flament, Hill, Buchholz, Henderson, Tasca and Goldfield).  When body-shaping behavior becomes excessive and no longer serves health promoting purposes it can potentially evolve into pathological issues (Parent).  Among women, internalization of the thin-ideal has been linked to dietary restraint that may precede eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder (Shroff and Thompson).  

At some point in one's life, they have looked into the mirror and had a self-degrading thought.  From "I hate this outfit," "I feel fat today," or "I am so ugly" but can you imagine waking up every day and having these thoughts, having such low self-esteem that it is hard to get out of bed and even walk downstairs to say good morning to your family?  Body image is how you feel about your body and what you do about those feelings.  "Body-image disturbance" is a relatively new historical development that mirrors the increasing tendency for media outlets to feature dieting information and images of extremely thin characters and models (Harrison).  Even when people have no interest in dieting or exercise, it has been proven that being exposed to thin-ideal media in one's daily life is related not only to body-image disturbances but also to eating disorders (Harrison).  Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are less common than body-image disturbances, but they too are increasing in prevalence.  Anorexia nervosa, an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat, and bulimia nervosa, an obsessive desire to lose weight, in which bouts of extreme overeating are followed by depression and self-induced vomiting, purging, or fasting, have become common eating disorders in young women today.  Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are united by a distinctive core psychopathology when patients over evaluate their shape and weight (Harrison).  

When looking through magazine advertisements and commercials on television we never have the ability to ask the model pictured how he or she feels at that current moment.  We usually end up making judgments or thinking up compliments in our heads. In a recent TED Talk titled "Looks aren't everything. Believe me, I'm a model" we have the ability to find out how the negative effects of the media and the ever changing standards of beauty are seen through a model's eyes. This TED Talk, given by model Cameron Russell, talks about the issue of how the modeling industry is changing the standard of beauty and affecting the lives of women is given from her point of view. Cameron Russell has been in the modeling industry since she was sixteen and says "I have had the opportunity to not only be able to watch how I get changed over the years but I get to see the industry change as a whole." Luckily Russell has never fallen into the negativity but has been close to others not so lucky. "It's sad to see the damage a picture can cause to someone who is already so beautiful." Russell states, "Modeling is not a career path and it is like winning the lottery, you do not get to choose," having modeling be something as rare as winning the lottery puts these models on a higher pedestal and creates unfair, inequality among women (Russell).  

In 1991, Anne E. Becker concluded a study that suggested that young, white, upper to middle class, college-educated women were at the highest risk for developing eating disorders.  However more recent research shows that eating disorders are quickly becoming an affliction of equal opportunity, affecting women of color, children, men, and older people (Harrison).  Becker also discovered that before outside countries began importing American media, they had little to no problem with eating disorders.  This finding proves that the way the American media is portraying beauty has major and serious effects worldwide.

The media's mass display of thin models has been proven to be one of the main sources of body- dissatisfaction in women after the completion of a study by Unnur Guonadottir and Ragna B. Garoarsdottir.  The Journal of Counseling Psychology stated that "when body-shaping behavior becomes excessive and no longer serves health promoting purposes it can potentially evolve into pathological issues." The material goods displayed in the media are now playing a part in the body- dissatisfaction in not only women but also men. However, when women see thin, wealthy looking models in the media the body- dissatisfaction becomes greater (Garoarsdottir and Guonadottir). Now researchers are saying the media effects men in a different way. When men see fit, wealthy men they are becoming motivated to engage in muscle building exercises and have the will power to excel in their work place (Garoarsdottir and Guonadottir). The article states "research on the antecedents of men's extreme body shaping behavior and pathologies such as muscle-dysmorphia would benefit from focusing on internalization of the muscular-ideal rather than on body-dissatisfaction." The way the media affects men is beneficial while in women's lives it is the complete opposite.  

Not only does the media have the ability to create physical harm in women's lives, the media is now effecting women's mental health through their judgments. "The Effect of Body Dissatisfaction on Women's Perceptions of Female Celebrities," states that once being emotionally and physically affected by the thin body style of women in the media, it will cloud the viewer's judgment and cause them to misinterpret the celebrities weight as well as their own."  A study completed by The International Journal of Eating Disorders found that women who are unconcerned about their body shape are proven to judge thin celebrities correctly but heavy celebrities as being heavier than they actually are (King, Touyz and Charles). Women who are concerned about their body shape are proven to judge thin celebrities thinner than they actually are as well as heavy celebrities being heavier than they really are, like the unconcerned women (King, Touyz and Charles). This also proves that women who are unhappy with their bodies are more strongly affected by media exposure because of the way in which they see the other women in the media (King, Touyz and Charles).  The clouding of judgment will not only negatively affect their life but also negatively affect, if not worse, the lives of these women in the media they are judging.  

Whether you are a big corporation, a local business or just a family trying to get by there is one thing that you all share in common: the never ending want for more money.  Businesses in today's world are now using society's thin-ideal of beauty to gain more money (Farrar).  Tabitha Farrar interviewed several companies that display the thin-ideal of beauty in their advertisements.  When these companies were asked why they chose the models they did they replied "beauty sells."   Not only are companies agreeing with the statement that beauty sells but people are also agreeing (Farrar).  The opposing side to the media negatively affecting the lives of women is that society should only be seeing thin, perfect faced women.  When someone agrees with what the media portrays for beauty as correct and non-influential in women's lives that person is creating an inequality for women.  A woman should not feel the need to want to change her body type just from looking at an advertisement or a photograph, a woman should be comfortable and have society think she is beautiful no matter what her size.

"Stop Blaming the Media for Our Body Image Issues," the title says it all.  In a recent article written by Lauren Berninger of the Huffington Post, she attempts to turn the high statistics of unhappy women due to the media into the faults of these women themselves.  "Statistics show that approximately 92 percent of women are unhappy with their bodies... only 5 percent of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media." These numbers aren't exactly shocking. In fact, it's what we've come to expect" (Berninger).  I cannot say that I expected to read these statistics and it seems hard to believe that most people expect to read them.  Berninger believes that society should stop blaming the media for our body image issues and instead "be looking to and encouraging parents, teachers, community leaders, clubs and curriculums to stand in the gap and provide the positive role models that the media has failed to produce" (Berninger).  Not every young girl has a positive role model in their life, but if they did, it may not be as easy as Berninger states. When confronting a teenage girl with low self-esteem, "a positive role model" could face the issue of not being able to relate to this girl, being too harsh when they are trying not to be or even making their self-esteem worse by bringing it up to them. Instead of demonizing the media, Berninger states that "you have the power to turn off the television, put down the magazine or stop shopping at that store" (Berninger). In today's society, technology is the number one priority in most people's lives and new technology is making it easier and easier to get access to the media anywhere one goes.  With technology being such a big part of people's daily lives it is easier said than done to put the magazine or phone down or turning off the television.  The media should be blamed for our women's body images because it is plastered in front of us and we should not be expected to have the ability to just ignore it.

"Approximately 50% of girls and undergraduate women report being dissatisfied with their bodies. These perceptions develop relatively early, emerging among children as young as age 7 years, and appear to exist across diverse levels of body size and race" (Grabe).  This eye-opening statistic says quite a lot.  Not only does one learn that over fifty percent of girls and undergraduate women are unhappy with their bodies but they also learn that these self-confidence issues could have started at the age of seven.  If you or I were raised in a different society would we still have self-confidence issues? As I question the images the media portrayed to me when I was younger, I see how much they have changed for the worse for the girls who are younger than me; but it is not too late for them.  Though one person cannot change a whole society's definition of beauty, one person can start to make a difference in their own community.  Through education programs provided to young children, these children can start gaining self-esteem and grow up having the ability to ignore what they see in the media.  Even though one person cannot change the whole society, companies like American Eagle's Aerie brand have launched a new campaign titled "Aerie Real."  Aerie Real has recently announced that their ads are  "challenging supermodel standards by featuring un retouched models in their latest collection of bras, undies and apparel" (Krupnick).  "Aerie's decision to show its models in all their real, un retouched glory makes an even stronger statement because of who its customers are" (Krupnick). The Aerie Real line was created for the 15-21 year-old demographic, specifically high school and college women. It is believed that young women's sense of "body confidence" is often influenced by the images of female beauty they see in media (Krupnick).  American Eagle's Aerie Real steps toward gaining women's self-confidence back and incorporating more diverse body types into their advertisements.  This is a great step to try and to help change society's definition of beauty for the better.

 The media's idea to idealize women's bodies affect women's mental and physical health negatively. As a society, the definition of beauty should slowly but surely head in the direction to accommodate all female happiness and present a positive, realistic idea of beauty.   Society's current definition of beauty has certainly come a long way since past times, from full and curvy to a little smaller than full, back to curvy and now society seems to be sticking with the thin-ideal.  This definition of beauty not only creates one to have negative thoughts and feelings about his or her body, but this definition of beauty has led to people harming themselves physically and forming serious eating disorders.  Though one rarely gets to choose to become a model, when they do they are put on a pedestal and used by most men and women to compare themselves.   Infrequently seen opposition to the media's negative influence on women, creates an inequality in society and supports the media's portrayal of beauty.  Many large companies are now disagreeing with what they are putting and with what they are seeing in the media and have started to take their part in helping to change society.  Communities should be becoming more connected in this technologically advancing world not being separated due to one's weight or beauty.  Do your part and start to see the real beauty in your life.  

