Media Has Too Much Pressure On Girls - 1169 Words

When she was a young teenager she thought that she was fat and ugly. She decided that she needed to do something about it. When she started to lose weight her friends said that she was skinnier than anything they had ever seen before. She dieted and used the exercises from weight loss videos. She never felt any smaller so she continued with this unhealthy lifestyle. She became anorexic and weighed only about eighty pounds. What gave her and other young girls this idea that to be pretty you also have to be thin? Many believe it is the media (â€Å"Thought I Was Fat and Ugly†). That media could be television, advertising, or magazines. The media has put too much pressure on girls to have â€Å"perfect† bodies because of how much television we watch,†¦show more content†¦This gives advertisers they ability to greatly effect the body image of Americans. This advertising showcases what women and girls are considering a normal body. Even cartoons and children’ s shows put an importance on being attractive. This is why young children do not feel as if they are pretty enough. These are shows that were thought to be innocent and to send good messages to children. The second most common place to see magazine advertisements with women and girls being sexually objectified is in magazines directed at teenage girls (â€Å"The Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders†). This is making girls feel like they have to look a certain way. With our culture being so centered around media and watching so much television we are becoming obsessed with how we look. This media centered society is seriously effecting how women and girls feel about their sizes and body types. The average American woman is a size twelve to a size fourteen, but the models that are seen in these companies’ advertisements are between a size two and a size four (â€Å"The Media and Body Image†). When women see these models they think that they are supposed to loo k like that when, in reality, that size is hard to obtain. These women starve themselves to the point of anorexia. The former editor of Australian Vogue, Kirstie Clements, writes that, â€Å"It cannot be denied that visually, clothes fall better on a slimmer frame, but there is slim and there is scary skinny.† Clements talks about