The Affects of the Media

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The media affects many people nowadays, more so women and young girls than men. Growing up, many kids are active and therefore, they stay thin that way. As time goes on, more and more people get involved in sports. Parents now think it’d be great if their kids could be in every single sport and accel in each. For young boys, they can start off with football, baseball, wrestling, basketball, etc. at a young age and could be a great athlete on a varsity team when they hit high school. For young girls, they might participate in ballet, dance, swimming, etc. There are some more challenging sports that girls participate in at a young age but not all participate in challenging sports at a young age. Girls as they start growing older, they see magazines and idols they look up to and see how they look and want to look up to them. Overall, the media plays a big role in many girls lives and affects them as well.  

When girls get into their teenage years, they worry more about how they look and become more self-conscious. Amanda Von Schlegel’s article, “How the Media Affects the Self Esteem and Body Image of Young Girls,” states many points on the media and also uses other authors’ work to help establish their credibility. Schlegel comments “The media puts such an intense pressure on young girls today to look like the “ideal” image. The medias harmful affect on the self body image and self esteem of young girls has brought about some of these three damaging effects: eating disorders, mental depression, and physical depression.” This suggests that girls that get too involved in what they eat can have negative effects with it. At such a young age, I think it’s important that girls think they don’t have to look exactly like a model or as skinny as the girl on magazine covers. There’s too much pressure on girls themselves and how they look and how they can make themselves look “better.” It only takes a few words of a headline involving being skinnier for girls to completely change their outlook on how they eat and what they look like. She also argues “the twigs we see on TV are unrealistic and unhealthy America; we ourselves are the true ideal of the human body.” The media doesn’t physically show us how these girls become skinny, they just show the end results. Therefore, what people caption on models, can impact how girls think of themselves, as well as boys but more so girls. The media can make us change how we think of ourselves in an instant for the better or for the worse.

Future research question: What’s the real difference between organic and non-organic?