I chose this research question because it is a very prominent issue in today's society. The media is portraying an unrealistic body image to teenagers. As a teenage girl myself, I understand this issue and the effects that it can have. I am very passionate about this topic and can easily relate to it. The research that I have done for the ILP's so far have somewhat changed the direction I was planning on going in. I knew that this issue could very well lead to eating disorders but I wasn't planning on making that a focal point of my essay until I started doing my research. I found a lot of information on how this unrealistic body image that the media portrays can directly lead to eating disorders. The information that I found regarding this was good evidence for my argument and I decided it would be useful to redirect my main points and include some this information. 

I have not personally struggled with an eating disorder, but I do understand the negative influence that the media has and how it can make you feel. It is hard to ignore the extremely thin models and celebrities whose clothes and makeup always seem to be perfect. These women are whom are generation seem to focus on and look up to. It is even harder to ignore in today's society because teenagers are exposed to pictures of perfect and thin models constantly through social media. The pictures that we see every day are almost impossible to live up to. Of course some of these images are photo shopped, but a lot of these models are actually that thin which makes it even harder not to think, why am I not that skinny? What do I have to do to get that skinny? What we see in the media raises questions like these in every girl's brain and we begin to feel bad about ourselves. Our self-esteem is lowered and we sometimes do drastic things to try and be as thin as that one model we saw in that one picture on social media this morning. It's clearly not the norm to be that thin, but the fact that the media is showing us all these girls who really are that thin, we begin to doubt ourselves and think that we are the ones who are not normal, not them.

I think the fact that I am a teenage girl who is exposed to the media every day and that I personally understand how it can have a strong effect on your self-esteem definitely makes me a stake holder in this topic. I am one of the countless teenagers who are affected by the media's portrayal of body image. I am very interested in this topic and can personally relate to the effects it has. My empathy adds ethos and pathos and my interest and curiosity on this issue allows me to be open-minded in my research. My personal experiences with this issue could be seen as bias but I think they add credibility and passion to my argument. My opinion is clearly that the media's portrayal of body image has a negative affect on teenage girls, but I am also aware that some people may not think that the media is affecting teenage girls at all. I can see and understand both sides of the argument and still have my own opinion, which is what will make my argument even stronger. I believe that the media's portrayal of body image does have an affect on teenage girls, but I hope that I can find specific studies and statistics in my research. These studies will add to the logos of my argument and provide evidence to back it up. 

In my research paper, I hope to effectively address how the media is specifically portraying a false sense of reality on body image and how this is affecting teenage girls. I will state my argument and then provide evidence to back it up. I believe if I give a lot of specific evidence then I will be able to write eight to ten pages on it. I plan to talk about how models are abnormally thin, and support this with what the average weight really is for someone at that height. I also want to discuss the term "plus size" and how it is not really considered to be plus size these days. Also, I want to bring up the point that most of these models/celebrities have people who do their hair and make up every single day, something that most people don't have available to them. It would be important to state that some of these images are photo shopped as well. Regardless of the professional make up artists and photo-shopped images, we are still exposed to these pictures. Not everyone can convince themselves not to feel bad about their own body simply because an image is photo shopped or that a professional did their make up for them. This would lead into my main argument: these images are negatively affecting the teenage girls who look at them. Their self-esteem is shattered and they feel bad about themselves, which can lead to drastic measures such as eating disorders just to achieve the "perfect body" that the media is portraying. 

I might need to revise my research question so that it is more specific and I can narrow in on one aspect of it. I also might want to reword it so that I can discuss more of the cause and effect of the media portrayal of body image than just simply how it affects it. I think the scope is broad and I can touch on a lot of different aspects of this topic that I want to by keeping it broader. It is a topic that has a lot of different angles but I don't think it is one that gets confusing or that a reader can get lost in because it is all so closely related and it flows together as solid evidence.
