The Influence of the Media on people's Body Image

The media often portrays women in a degrading and objectifying way and therefore can, and gives to its viewers a distorted view of reality.We are daily bombarded by images of denuded, super skinny and fashionable women, which, without us being aware of it, leave a mark on our brainwork and us.

When making an impact on our brain and us the media does not pay attention regardless their age, race or religion, they attack whomever. They bombard the elderly with constant reminders of how to be younger therefore with various plastic surgeries, wrinkle creams, hair implants and much more. Younger people are constantly faced with thin, beautiful and at first sight flawless models, or with buffed and muscular men, which makes most of them feel inferior and unattractive.

Most people when you ask them to tell you five things they are confident in, it will either take them a really long while, or they will not know what to answer. The lack of confidence that most of us have, is the perfect target for the media to work their way into our heads without us being aware of it.

Since the media portrays happiness and satisfaction throughout physical appearance and material objects we desperately try to imitate them and in that way achieve self-confidence, the approval of others and happiness.However some people who choose this path, therefore ‘fighting with windmills’ (Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote) end up hurting themselves and their body image with starvation and malnutrition. This is Like Don Quixote’s fight, useless, since every one of us is unique and of a different body type.

http://momgrind.com/2009/01/28/women-body-image/