Young women today grew up with certain items in their childhood, including dresses, jewelry, and makeup.  Little girls were encouraged to dress up as princesses and to always look their best when guests arrived at the house or just to impress a boy.  As girls matured in age, they were more than likely to not focus on education or their future endeavors, but to spend more time and energy on their appearance.  Who is to blame for this outlook and lifestyle? Society.  However, because the world is evolving, slowly but surely, many people have seen the flaws in this situation.   Back in the 1950’s, women were classified as housewives and usually did not leave the house very often.  In today’s generation, young adults are encouraged to become more than a housewife, but still a face of beauty (Duenwald).  More women are being brought up into this world with determination to work hard and focus to accomplish their goals. Despite this newly found determination, the media has a large impact on this matter.  The media today portrays women as an object of desire, objectifying the body and making it seem as though appearance is the only achievement to strive for in one’s life (Weber).  

Today, social media can affect adolescents in a negative way because of the lack of self-confidence that emits from viewing the images of models with extremely low body fat and the eating disorders that result from believing that they have to look like celebrities. The media has a way to make young women feel unwanted.  The modern-day media has a role in the lives of young women in a negative way, by affecting self-confidence and body-image.  Most girls either have a negative, distorted view of her physical appearance or they feel positive about the way they look and is comfortable in their own body’s.  There is a middle ground of enjoying your body but still working on the little factors; however, most young adults have the fear of not fitting in the standards of the ideal beauty image.  The most common perspective young women have of their body is, unfortunately, negative. In his studies of social media theories, Richard M. Perloff found that young women tend to think that the bodies of celebrities, models, and television stars are the only way that they should appear (Perloff).  These magazine photos set unattainable expectations for a young woman’s physical appearance.  100% of magazine photos are retouched before printing (2012).  The harsh reality is that it is physically impossible to become a look in a magazine naturally; thus, there must be modifications being done to the pictures.  The ongoing exposure to an unrealistic body image can and will deceive a young women’s mindset.  Some people believe that these adolescents get the standards of “beautiful” from their peers, friends, and family, but the girls get these standards from the media.  Nowadays, the social media can affect adolescents in a negative way because of the lack of self-confidence that emits from viewing the images, the eating disorders that come into playing in the long-term effect, and because the media has a way to make young women feel unwanted.  

There are many factors that come in to play regarding the side effects of maintaining the ideal body image.  Young women are always looking up to images of celebrities in advertisements and commercials and, therefore, struggle with body expectations and self-confidence.  The media is a huge factor that weighs in different perspectives of models and celebrities that young women across the globe are apparently supposed to mirror.  In today’s society, mass media creates unrealistic body images of women, telling these women that they are never thin or flawless enough.  Advertising companies overly edit and photo shop images of women to create the so-called perfection that is the norm in the advertising world.  These images of the assumed perfect body send negative messages and creates insecurities amongst many women.  As the media uses unrealistic models to advertise its products and services, this sets the idea that the ideal women must be “unhealthily thin and blemish free” (Dakanalis).  Fashion magazines and body image research indicates that exposure to thin ideal images in women’s magazines is associated with heightened concerns for body shape and size in several young women (Dankanalis).

In the novel Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women’s Lives, the author, Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, states that the beauty and body advertisements can help women. The idea of having a healthy and strong body can set goals for women and assist them with achieving their body image targets.  Looking at those images of models can ultimately represent inspiration for the eye of the beholder (Whitefield-Madrano 147).  Yet, this could still potentially become a problem when the viewer starts to doubt themselves and ends up discouraged and/or overwhelmed.  When one looks at a model, the first instinct is to compare; it is a natural thing to do.  However, many eventually look past the first looks, and can identify that they differ from the image in many ways.  The more the reader views and reads the images and articles in the fashion magazines, the more likely it is for them to start picking out their own flaws.  As tragic as it sounds, this is what the media wants.  The media wants viewers to think that they need to perfect certain features in order to fit the beauty standard of today and be desirable.

Whitefield-Madrano also indicated that the media can “help us know what is going on in the world, decide on places to go, where we should eat, and even for some, what and how much we eat”.  Today, there are many ways to be informed via social media.  As the media keeps evolving, there will always be new platforms of social media that young adults will want to take part in and use in their everyday life.  The media has come too far and is now affecting the way adolescents view themselves.  The way the media is doing this is sometimes subtle and other times blatantly obvious.  People commonly say things such as, “Looks do not matter; beauty is only skin-deep” or “It is what is on the inside that counts, not the outside”, yet the people live in a society that contradicts this statement every day.  If appearances do not matter, then why are so many women poking and beating at themselves with make-up brushes, paying for expensive procedures, and plucking out every body hair possibly seen by the human eye, if they are actually satisfied with how they look?  It all depends on personal preference of course; however, if looks do not matter, then why is the media using airbrushing to hide the flaws of celebrities and models (Spurr, et al)? 

Today, women are infatuated with being thin and petite.  It seems like women all want to reach a certain size, size zero.  Becoming a size zero is not an accomplishment, however, it can be dangerous if women are starving themselves just to reach a number.  With obtaining a size zero, many who are not born with fast metabolisms or even people who do not have a small body frame, will have an abundance of health risks to watch out for.  These side effects and health concerns include organ dysfunction, anorexia and bulimia, reproductive system failures, osteoporosis, and brain reduction (Treasure).    People must realize that happiness is not a number and that they are absolutely not a number.  In Antonios Dakanalis’ study about eating disorders, he took 718 adolescents between the ages of fourteen and fifteen and interviewed them.  He asked questions regarding their weight, height, and if they felt comfortable in their own body.  He later calculated the numbers he was given and concluded, with all the responses recorded and documented, that there was a problem with body shaming (Dakanalis).  These adolescents admitted to wanting to change the way they looked and wanting to look like a different person at times.  Dakanalis also had results indicating thought patterns that lead to eating disorders.  While there is correlation between body shaming, depression, and anxiety, there is no legitimate evidence that developing eating disorders is also connected.  During this study, however, many of the adolescents did develop bulimia or anorexia.  With average weights, most of the adolescents admitted to not eating regular meals or portions, or, on the other hand, not being able to stop eating due to depression and anxiety. 

No one really thinks about it, but the media can affect the school system as well.  Kelsey Hibberd, founder of Loud Education, has had her fair share of media mishaps.  Growing up, Hibberd was not the prettiest of her classmates, and that bothered her.  She told the interviewer, Philippa Roxby, “I intentionally kept my Facebook friends to a minimum because I knew they were the ones who wouldn't pick on me” (Roxby).  Even though her pain was not always formed by the media, her classmates labeled her as a burden.  She eventually gave into the peer pressure and started to change her look; cutting and dying her hair, dressing more up-to-date with the help of fashion magazines, and began going on diets.  Because Hibberd gave into the media’s and her peers expectations, she degraded herself without giving it another thought.  Even though she changed her physical appearance, she was the same person, however, once one changes a big part of their body, even if it is the outside only, it also chances their personality as well.  Hibberd has learned from her mistakes and has now overcome that part of her life, and is now running a program that helps adolescents with the same problems she had.  

With this program, Loud Education, Hibberd goes into several schools and holds discussions with students and teachers about what body confidence is and how they can deal with issues pertaining to self-confidence.  Hibberd also explains that when helping the students, she voices, “You put forward your best self, and that can be a bit dangerous, because you naturally compare yourself to others; but you must overcome that urge and just be yourself” (Roxby).  Hibberd’s goal is to train teachers on how to react to these body issues in the classroom.  Hibberd recalls that, “Everyone has been affected by the media in some way, shape or form, so my end goal is to educate the children to make them more cynical about the images they see and admire, and to work with retailers and businesses to encourage them to be more responsible in their advertising” (Roxby). 

When dealing with the young women in society, most spectators discuss the short term.  Many believe that the media can only effect a person for short periods of time; however, that is not the case.  In many circumstances, the media has long-term negative effects as well.  Eating disorders can come and go with time; however, in most cases, there is a high chance that eating disorders never go away without therapy.  Researchers Eaaron Henderson-King and Donna Henderson-King noticed from their study that “Overhearing such negative conversations precedes exposure to ideal media images, viewers should be even more susceptible to the negative effects of ideal images” (Henderson-King, et al 402).  Women believe that if they do not look as thin or pretty as others, they do not have value.  When people discuss weight gain or loss, many start evaluating themselves.  This leads to either excessive weight gain or excessive weight loss if one is self-conscious about the way they look around their peers.

Cameron Russell, an American fashion model, performed a TED Talk on the topic of beauty.  From the looks of an average person, it is common to want to become a model because of the benefits.  These benefits may include free items, free passes to important events, or just the fact that one will always be beautiful to the eyes of the public.  Russell automatically shuts down this idea.  She states that even though she may get free things in life, she will never be herself because of her job (Russell).  She goes further and explains that that is, in fact, not her body on the front cover of a Vogue magazine.  Instead, it is a reconstructed image.  Usually, every single image in a magazine or advertisement is retouched by photo shop.  Russell says, “Even though you may think I am confident about my body because I am featured on many covers on magazines, but as funny as that is, I am very insecure about the way I look” (Russell).  Because an abundance of people know this fact already, there should not be any surprise when this is said.  It amazes researchers when adolescents want to look just like those “models” on the cover of magazines.  Researchers Inbal Gurari, John J. Hetts, and Michael J. Strube, stated in their study that “many women want to become models just for the looks aspect, however, it is highly unattainable” (Gurari, et al).  Many corrections go into a picture and by that point it does not look natural anymore.  It is impossible for young adults not to have flaws, big or small; therefore, the pictures in the advertisements are not real images of people.

Now that society is evolving, there have been improvements to the modeling world.  They are featuring plus size models.  In Russell’s speech, she brought up the topic of changing the way people viewed models.  She preached that “You do not know me for who I am, you know me by the way I appear on magazines” (Russell).  She showcased at the beginning of her speech that she could change the audience’s opinion of her in the matter of six seconds by simply changing her clothes.  Image is a very powerful ordeal, and because society’s perspective can change within six seconds because of a wardrobe change is frightening to discover.  These researchers are trying to find out why adolescents want to look like the models on magazines and advertisements, and Russell uncovers for her audience that society and the media are working together to make people fit a description, and sometimes that is not possible for the individual.  People are now realizing that “pretty” comes in different looks, structures, and sizes.  Some media has begun to take a stand with this movement and it makes their audience more likely to buy their products or services.  

There are many ways to become beautiful and there are many ways to be beautiful.  In many countries, beautiful can be different looks and colors.  In each country, city, or town, beauty is based on its culture, and every culture is diverse.  For some cultures, beauty is having a pale complexion, or having tattoos that cover certain parts of the body.  In some parts of the world, beauty is defined by how much or how little body hair one has (Smith).  But, it is up to the individual to decide what beautiful is.  Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes; each individual will never look the same.  So, why does everyone make a big commotion over the way they look?  The media is slowly becoming aware of how they make others feel about their bodies and is changing.  Society is also changing the way they look at women, and now is the time for everyone to change the way they look at women.  The media is deceitful; therefore, people should look within themselves to find the perfect version of them.
