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Paul Vu

Professor Rodricks

English 115

27 September 2018

The Effect of Media on Body Image

Is there one body type that everybody should have? According to the media, there is a

clear answer. Just taking a quick look at the media, one would find that there are certain body

types that are label as ideal or looked down upon. The media proposes that the ideal female body

should be an hourglass figure with big assets. On the other hand, the ideal male body should be

over six feet tall, tan and muscular. This in turn, affects the mentality of society as people always

want to mimic the appearance of their favorite model. This can influence people to make

dangerous choices just to achieve that certain look. The media has a negative influence on what

the ideal body should be, they project unrealistic body types that people unconsciously accept

and take any measure to achieve that body.

The media shows this fantasy world where everyone is the definition of perfection and if

you don’t fit the criteria then you must fix yourself rather than being comfortable in your own

skin. “I’m too fat” and “I wish I had a body like Cristiano Ronaldo” are just a couple of

comments that I hear from my friends and family every day. It is not hard to find women who

look in the mirror and wish that they could change something about their own bodies. The public

sees itself as undesirable, pathetic, and repulsive for the minor details most individuals don’t

even notice. Often enough they look up to celebrities and social media personalities like Kim

Kardashian, as the media constantly display pictures of her body on the internet and in

magazines. Some people look at Kim Kardashian’s body as a goal to reach, while others take this
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to the extreme the most noticeable example would be Jordan James Parke. Back in 2014, New

York Post reported that Parke had spent more than “one hundred fifty thousand dollars on plastic

surgery” to look like his favorite celebrity. I find that it is disturbing how people like Parke who

think if they mimic another person then they too will become more attractive. Parke also

comments, “She’s the most gorgeous woman ever. Her skin is perfect, her hair, everything about

her.” I feel that Parke saw his body in a bad light and felt that by getting all these procedures

done on him he would get attention from others. Parke is not the only example of a person who

takes to the extremes to change their body.

As people scroll through their feeds on Facebook or any other social media sites they are

often exposed to pictures of models and celebrities with perfect bodies making them want to

change the way they look. Some people are heavily affected by these images of the perfect body

that they often develop an unhealthy obsession to obtain it. Back in my junior year of high

school, I had a friend, whom I am naming “Mary”. Mary had lost an impressive amount of

weight over the span of two months and everybody was just commenting on how great she

looked. She would always claim that she was just exercising and dieting to achieve her new look

but it was weird seeing her always use the restroom right after lunch. I noticed this for a while

and didn’t think much about it at the time, but she was caught forcing herself to regurgitate her

lunch by a teacher. Mary had developed a mental illness called bulimia and according to Eating

Disorder Hope bulimia is a “psychological and severe life-threatening eating disorder described

by the ingestion of an abnormally large amount of food in short time period, followed by an

attempt to avoid gaining weight by purging what was consumed.” and after a couple of talks with

her, she had revealed that being exposed to these images of thin models just made her self-
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conscious about her weight. Dieting and exercising weren’t yielding results quick enough for her

and so she took an easy way to become thin.

Not all media images display perfect bodies as in this day and age, people are more

accepting of different body types. We often have seen thin models in the past but recently there

has a rise in all types of bodies being beautiful. Back in 2016, Dove had revealed their Real

Beauty Campaign depicting women of different colors and body types only wearing white

underwear to promote that beauty doesn’t have to mean you must be skinny or thin. In this case

Dove has advertised a more realistic view of what beauty truly looks like. Most would like to

think that Dove’s campaign was to influence a positive mindset on what is a beautiful body, but

the campaign’s main goal was to advertise their product name. Jennifer Pozner, executive

director of Women in Media & News has stated, “conversation leads to brand love, and brand

love leads to brand loyalty”(Bahadur). In essence, Dove’s campaign has increased their

popularity leading to a increase of product sales.

Overall, the media has been a negative influence on what is the ideal body type. This

body type has led some people to spend thousands of dollars to get their dream bodies via

surgeries and injections. While others like Mary have developed eating disorders after being led

to believing that their bodies were not adequate. Body image is a tool that companies like Dove

have used to increase their profits. It’s the media’s job to inform and influence the majority of

people who rely on them. In this case, they are telling people that their bodies are not desirable.
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Work Cited

“About Bulimia: Symptoms, Signs, Causes & Articles For Treatment Help.” Eating

Disorder Hope, 2018, www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/bulimia. Accessed

9/26/2018

Bahadur, Nina. “How Dove Tried To Change The Conversation About Female Beauty.”

The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 2017,

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/dove-real-beauty-campaign-turns-

10_n_4575940.html. Accessed 9/26/2018

Kearns, Claire. “Effects on Physical and Mental Health.” Mirror-Mirror, 2017,

www.mirror-mirror.org/social-media.htm. Accessed 9/25/2018

Lu, Agustus. “Low Self-Esteem vs High Self Esteem.” Youtube, 14 July 2017,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2eamTtJAn0.

News.com.au. “Man Spends $150K to Look like Kim Kardashian.” New York Post, New

York Post, 18 Dec. 2014, nypost.com/2014/12/18/man-spends-15000-to-look-like-kim-

kardashian/.

Accessed 9/25/2018

Pritchard, Mary, and Brooke Cramblitt. “Media Influence on Drive for Thinness and Drive for

Muscularity.” Sex Roles, 2014, link-

springercom.libproxy.csun.edu/article/10.1007/s11199-014-0397-1#. Accessed

9/24/2018.
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Dove. “A photograph of a group of diverse women in white undergarments”. TakePart, 5 Feb.

2014, http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/01/30/10-years-after-doves-real-beauty-

campaign-brands-are-fighting-female-form

Sronge, Samantha, et al. “ Facebook is Linked to Body Dissatisfaction: Comparing Users and

Non-Users.” Sex Roles, 2015, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-015-0517-

6 Accessed 9/24/2018