Body Image and Beauty
The Media's Negative Influence on Self Esteem

Feb 11, 2009 by Jared Ploykin

In today's world, building and maintaining a healthy body image can be extremely difficult. Here are some tips as to why this is the case, and how to resist it.

The common perception of beauty is an artificially created impossible standard, driven by the so called "beauty industry," principally to sell products to women (and men) who feel insecure about their looks. This standard is extremely unhealthy and drives unhealthy behaviour, such as anorexia, bulimia, and just plain unhappiness. Here are tips to recognize resist this war on self-esteem and understand how it operates.

Media and Body Image

The media is currently at war with women's body image. This war generally takes on two fronts. The first is the media's portrayal of only one type of woman in magazines, leading film roles, modelling circuits, and television. Often, these women are airbrushed, digitally altered, surgically altered, or suffering from eating disorders. Through this constant portrayal of only one kind of woman as the way women ought to look if they want to be beautiful, a powerful concept is burned into the minds of impressionable men and women. The second front is the constant encouragement for women to lose weight if they wish to be seen as beautiful, coupled with the media and society in general's general disdain for any women who is even a few pounds "overweight."

Plotkin, Jared. (2009) Body Image and Beauty: The Media’s Negative Influence on Self Esteem [online]. Available from http://www.suite101.com/content/body-image-and-beauty-a95673 [Accessed 11 November 2011]

I found this article interesting because it discusses how the media can influence a woman and man to feel a certain way about their image and self esteem.  This is because in the article it describes how the media portrays ‘only one type of women in magazines’ (Plotkin).  This relates to what I am trying to show in my project, that women may be strongly influences by what they read and see in magazines and may feel the need to change or alter themselves (appearance).