The Impact of Model's Body Size on Women's Body-Focused Anxiety and Advertising Effectiveness - Coursework Example

The Impact of Models Body Size on Womens Body-Focused Anxiety and Advertising Effectiveness Academic Term Paper 11th June, Introduction Women especially young girls are obsessed about losing weight and become what the new trend is called “SIZE ZERO”. World has become a global village, the trends are followed everywhere and they are followed because everything is about “Image” today. Everyone wants to have the ideal appearance (Anonymous, 2010). Girls all around the world follow the latest fashions trends, they are obsessed with fashion and it is driving them to become size zero, and if models and girls have achieved size zero they are striving hard to maintain it. The world is becoming obsessed with this new fashion of becoming thin. Media and advertisements have a major role to play in creating an image conscious person; all ads are about becoming thin and beautiful to acquire whatever you want in life, it could be getting a good job, or an eligible bachelor or the worst that the entire world is your biggest fan. Fashion designer deliberately take women who are size zero in their catwalk and other ads which create an impression in the minds of young girls that they will have to achieve the same size to be a star. There are women who are naturally thing but it creates more pressures on girls who are overweight, when these young girls start to compare themselves with those who are size zero they start to lose self-esteem (Mahmood, 2012). They start to believe that they are not attractive or wanted, and to overcome they undergo different cosmetic surgeries. It is not the surgeries but also the young girls who want to be a part of entertainment world let their body go through a lot of stress and anxiety and they start to starve themselves. These surgeries and starvation leads to many other body disorders that the young women is not aware of, and they are so obsessed with weight loss that they don’t even consider these side effects. Women Body Image The unlimited urge to fix everything in your body using knives, needles or laser and if these are not as helpful we than fix them with the help of technology such as Photoshop and other soft-wares is driving every girl to an imaginary perfect body image. Oprah in her magazine conducted a survey which divided the female population into two age groups one which represented the teen and other which represented the 60s. When inquired how you feel about your body 52.2% of the old age women said grateful whereas 50% of the teen population said self-conscious (Oprah, 2012). 59.1% of the teen females as against 8% old females stated that they use photo altering soft-wares on their pictures, 45.5% of the teen population have thought about using cosmetic surgery on their bodies, and 33.3% of the young females exercise because they want to lose weight as compared to 65% of old age women who stated that they exercise to stay healthy. 80% of the females state that they are most insecure from the model that appear on television through different mediums such as movies, drama, advertisements, fashion shows and magazines (Sources, Body Image Stats). The ideal image of beauty is tyrannical, a message is floated everywhere that the girls need to have an attractive and hot body in addition to being flawlessly beautiful (Kilbourne, 2012). Female body is used to sell all kinds of goods (shampoos to chainsaw), everything is about marketing these day and they have portrayed women as a symbol used to sell items. There are social and cultural factors that are effecting the definition of a women body image, and unfortunately it is not a positive one. These social and cultural factors are further driven by different media and other sources (Sources, Body Image, 2014). The horizon is how the body image of a girl is linked to the body image of an actress on film or television, in advertising and magazines, in music videos to the extent that they are also used in video games and toys. 80% of the population has time to watch television daily for average of 3 hours, and the media use is increasing day by day due to the availability of internet, through phones and laptops. 18 years old are engaged in watching television for an average of 8 hours per day (NEDA, 2014). Body image is how you see yourself, and what you want to look like when you see yourself in a mirror. Image is what you believe about yourself and your appearance, it is how confident are you about yourself which includes your body height, shape and weight. The most important of all factors is how you carry your body when you move in public. Instead of educating the young girls about the actual and true meaning of beauty, the people have changed the meaning of beauty itself, a model image has been generated in the hearts and minds of all humans including girls and boys. Their self-consciousness is drifting them away from the real ideologies of life. “You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won’t discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself” (Roth, 2010) Eating Disorder Eating Disorder is an addition, and if not treated on time can lead to several physical and emotional problems. Eating order includes different range of obsession with food, weight and appearance of a person. It is most commonly found in young women, it is calculated that 10 Million women in US face this problem (Denvor, 2014). The symptoms resulting in eating disorder are restrain from any edibles, compulsively overeats and/or excessively exercising. There are five different types of disorders that can be categorizes, these include Anorexia Nervosa (self-imposed starvation), Bulimia Nervosa (serious eating disorder), Compulsive Eating Disorder (uncontrolled eating), Binge Eating Disorder (recurrent episode of consuming abnormally large amount of foods) and obesity (overweight issues). The media and girls representing them have created a great sense of insecurity in the minds of young girls and that is why they would even trade their lives for mere achieving of body weight (Sources, The Effects of Thin Models in Advertising , 2010). Even the children think that obese children are less attractive, girls feel better when they feel if they are following a particular diet and losing weight. Eating disorder is a mental state, they do not occur when a person is satisfied, productive and emotionally sound, these only occur in people who are struggling with themselves and their body image. The physiological factors that contribute to eating disorder are low self-esteem, lack of control, anxiety, problems in personal relationships, cannot express emotionally, history of being overweight and history of sexual harassment. Whereas, the social factors that contribute toe eating disorder are the value placed with the “thinness” and “perfect body image”, beauty definition has be redefined, and appearance has become a source for many cultural norms. Women Stories Women around the world have constantly trying to lose weight, have eating disorders, and go under plastic surgeries. These stories are related to real women who went crazy in order to lose weight. The story of Holly who was a young student and was the victim of anorexia, she lost tons of weight in one year and instead of feeling good about it she was hospitalized with unkempt hair fragile limbs and sunken face (Sources, Eating Disorder Stories, 2014). Portia de Rossi shared her eating disorder story where she would only eat 300 calories a day, and would survive on Jell-O only. Along with eating less she was also doing heavy exercise including weight-training, circuit training and treadmill. She had to undergo a lot of body and mind trauma to recover, her family and work life were being affected deeply. There are so many celebrities that underwent cosmetic surgeries and came out to be worse than before. These include stories of Tara Reid, she underwent liposuction and breast implants and none of the two left them with any success. Daryl Hannah, who was considered as a beauty symbol once and after her surgery of eye lifts; she is left in the zone where her fans can hardly recognize her (Myrid). Priyanka Chopra has undergone a nose surgery and she is also gone through skin lightening treatment and these have given an obvious difference to her appearance and looks (Sources, Bollywood Trends, 2014). We can go through so many real lives and on screen celebrities’ stories which have undergone intense dieting or surgery to look different, thinner and more attractive. After having a look at these different stories we can conclude that artificial change of body can never be beneficial in the longer run. Ads that Change the Beauty Image There are reputable companies who are coming up with ads to promote the true meaning of beauty; one of these ads is by Dove called the Campaign for Real Beauty (Sources, The Dove® Campaign for Real Beauty, 2010). The ad included females with appearances outside the stereotypical norms of beauty. The ad became a symbol of beauty within days; it included all races, color and sizes and left the idea of beauty in the minds of the customers. The ad was a source of inspiration to many females around the world, the ad also became a source of change in the media industry for some time; the ad was introduced to the market in 2004 and till date has been one of the pioneers in setting the main and true idea of beauty. Conclusion One can deal with wishes but cannot deal with obsession, although efforts were made to bring back the true idea of beauty but the truth of the matter remains that size zero is still in fashion and all girls want to achieve the same to look the best in appearance and to be accepted by the society. To build an image which is not that they think of themselves but what people think of them. Ideals when set of images is hard to fight, everyone wants to be a model, wants to fit in clothes that model wear and want to look exactly like them and in the race of doing so they are eradicating the concept of self-image and self-beauty Women especially young female should start to trust themselves, their bodies and their looks and should accept the way they are. “Just Be Yourself, let people see the real imperfect, flawed, quirky, weird, beautiful and magical person that you are” (Several, Quotes About Body Image, 2014) Bibliography Anonymous. (2010). Size Zero – The Obsession of a Model. Retrieved 2014, from Love Panky: http://www.lovepanky.com/women/fashion-and-beauty-guide-and-tips/size-zero-the-obsession-of-a-model Denvor. (2014). About Eating Disorder. Retrieved 2014, from The Eating Disorder Foundation: http://www.eatingdisorderfoundation.org/EatingDisorders.htm Emma Halliwell, H. D. (2002). The impact of advertisements featuring ultra‐thin or average‐size models on women with a history of eating disorders. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 406-413. Kilbourne, J. (2012). Women’s Bodies in Advertising. Retrieved 2014, from Our Bodies: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/health-info/womens-bodies-in-advertising/ Mahmood, I. (2012, Jan). Discursive Essay - Size Zero. Retrieved June 2014, from Study Mode: http://www.studymode.com/essays/Discursive-Essay-Size-Zero-887752.html Myrid. (n.d.). Female Body Image and the Mass Media. Retrieved 2014, from Westminster: http://www.westminstercollege.edu/myriad/index.cfm?parent=...&detail=4475&content=4795 NEDA. (2014). Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders. Retrieved 2014, from National Eating Disorder: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/media-body-image-and-eating-disorders NIMF. (n.d.). Medias Effect on Body Image. Retrieved 2014, from Teen Health and Media: http://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/view.cgi?section=bodyimage&page=fastfacts Oprah. (2012). How Do Women Really Feel About How They Look? Retrieved 2014, from Oprah: http://www.oprah.com/style/Body-Image-Statistics-How-Women-Feel-About-Their-Looks Roth, G. (2010). Women Food and God. In G. Roth, An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything (p. 84). hardcover. Several. (2014). Body Image Quotes. Retrieved 2014, from piniterest: http://www.pinterest.com/explore/body-image-quotes/ Several. (2014). Quotes About Body Image. Retrieved 2014, from Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/body-image Sources. (2010). The Dove® Campaign for Real Beauty. Retrieved 2014, from Dove: http://www.dove.us/Social-Mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx Sources. (2010). The Effects of Thin Models in Advertising . Retrieved 2014, from Medias Portrayal on Women: https://sites.google.com/site/mediasportrayalonwomen/Home/bulimia Sources. (2014). Retrieved 2014, from Bollywood Trends: http://www.bollywoodtrends.net/2010/10/bollywood-celebrities-plastic-surgery.html Sources. (2014). Body Image. Retrieved 2014, from Media Smart: http://mediasmarts.ca/body-image Sources. (2014). Eating Disorder Stories. Retrieved 2014, from Caring Online: http://www.caringonline.com/feelings/byvictims/ Sources. (n.d.). Body Image Stats. Retrieved 2014, from Visual: http://visual.ly/body-image-statistics Sources. (n.d.). HOW WOMEN ARE PORTRAYED. Retrieved 2014, from weebly: http://womeninads.weebly.com/statistics.html Read More