Women And Societies Views On Weight
...ones. Some women hate and want to get rid of everything that makes them female; a pear shaped body and curves (Keresey). Many eating disorder specialists agree that chronic dieting is a direct consequence of the social pressure on American females to achieve a nearly impossible thinness. Women are taught from childhood to judge the worth of their bodies looking at an emaciated standard of beauty, which the media has been blamed for upholding and possibly even creating (Schneider). To explore the broader context of this controversial issue, this paper draws upon several aspects on how common body dissatisfaction in adolescent females is, and also reflects upon research that presents several important ideas regarding the connection between the mass media and body dissatisfaction.
"Body image is the subjective sense people have of their own appearance and their body"(Body). "Body dissatisfaction is defined as a subject's satisfaction with their bodies" (Lewis). People tend to have a distorted sense of their own body (Body). Perceptions about body images are shaped from a variety of experiences and begin to develop in early childhood. It has been shown that children learn to favor thin body shapes by the time they enter school. "By the age of 10, most girls are afraid of becoming fat (Body)." Overall body size and image concerns have been reported to be more prevalent among females than males. Gender related differences in acceptable body size are shaped from a variety of societal definitions of appealing shapes for males and females. Girls are taught to focus on the external aspects of themselves. "Learning to do their hair, polish their nails and paint their faces, is virtually a rite of passage into womanhood in the American culture"(Body). "Boy's, on the other hand are taught to focus on their athletic abilities rather than there looks" (Body). Many...
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