Professional athletes and celebrities as role models - Essay Example

1). As contended by Shaw, Whitehead and Giles, “celebrities are meaningful figures in the lives of young people in particular, and elicit a much more complex set of responses than simple imitation (577). In this regard, one is firmly convinced that people are able to discern who among the professional athletes and celebrities could be good models and who are anti-role models whose influence could lead those emulating them into significantly disastrous consequences; as such, not all professional athletes and celebrities are good role models who must be imitated and revered.

In a study conducted by Read, the author focused on “ways in which the gendered social construction of the ‘popular girl’ infuses girls’ ideas as to their role models: those representing who they would like to be when they ‘grow up’” (Read 1). Apparently, Read discovered that “young boys were not likely to consider either their male or female teachers to be role models – favouring instead sports or TV stars or male relatives and friends of their family” (Read 5). . The reasons for selecting these personalities as role models vary.

For girls, the reasons range from appearance, accomplishments, and personality (Read). “Many of the girls who cited aspects of appearance as reasons for choosing particular role models chose celebrities, especially pop singers, as their role models, often (but not always) choosing singers of the same ethnicity as themselves” (Read 7). Likewise, it was contended that the disparities between selecting professional athletes for boys and celebrities for girls stem from this theoretical framework: “boys have traditionally displayed an active posture and girls, a passive one … girls’ behaviour has historically included a focus on relational and intimacy work, nurturance and emotional supportiveness, and a concern with developing feminine allure” (Adler, Kless, and Adler 170).

Regrettably, at very young ages, the development of role models was recognizably premised on external appearances and the image that is projected on the outer facade. There could be danger of emulating celebrities with hidden vices and unconventional behavior. In an article written by Shaw, Whitehead and Giles, the authors explored the contention that “negative roles models, celebrated in the press, lead to the heightened risk that young people will themselves engage in health risk behaviours such as drug use” (Shaw, Whitehead and Giles 575).

Their study focused specifically on Amy Winehouse, a talented singer-songwriter with publicly known image of drug abuse (Shaw, Whitehead and Giles). The authors cited a study written by Boon and Lomore study which disclosed that “the majority of participants claimed that their idols had a