Essay 2: The Real Problems of False Beauty Advertising
This is my second and final essay of Junior year. For this essay we chose a topic about media, and then wrote a persuasive essay. Out of the entire list I decided to write about body image because it is such a big problem in our society today. The process of this essay was the same as the first (research responses, revising) but I think I did a better job writing this one. Because this was my second essay I was able to take the things I could have improved on in my first essay, and implemented them in my second essay. Because of that, I think this essay is better than my first. This semester my English final was a bit different. Instead of a traditional final, we had two days to revise our essays, explain why we changed things and prove to Pam why we should get a better grade on our essays.
This is what I had to revise:
-Conclusion
Reason: Originally, I didn't have a very well-rounded conclusion. I changed my essay so that my last few sentences would better wrap-up my essay.
-Examples
Reason: I added another example about men using steroids. I think this made my argument stronger.
Here is my final essay (everything that is bolded, except for the title, is what I revised):
This is what I had to revise:
-Conclusion
Reason: Originally, I didn't have a very well-rounded conclusion. I changed my essay so that my last few sentences would better wrap-up my essay.
-Examples
Reason: I added another example about men using steroids. I think this made my argument stronger.
Here is my final essay (everything that is bolded, except for the title, is what I revised):
The Real Problems of False Beauty Advertising
Imagine you are five years old, you look into a mirror, and one of the first thoughts that passes through your mind is, “I wish I were skinnier.” Sad, isn’t it? Unfortunately, this isn’t made up. It’s happening and is the result of the unnatural, unattainable, and unhealthy beauty ideal created by advertisements. Most people are aware of the negative impact of unrealistic beauty ideals in advertising on women, but what most people don’t realize is that it also has a major impact on men and children. While both women and men are affected, the negative effects appear in different ways. Much of the time, women and men feel the need to look exactly like the models in advertisements. Women try to achieve this through extreme dieting, which can lead to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia (Noveck 1). Men also want to look like the models in advertisements, but do so by using steroids or over-exercising (HealthyPlace.com 3). The reason for this is that, in male models, there has been an increase in muscle mass, while female models have become extremely skinny. What men and women don’t understand is that it is usually impossible to achieve these beauty standards in real life. That’s because it is standard procedure in the advertising industry to photoshop and airbrush photographs, making it impossible to achieve what advertising is making a “societal norm.”
Advertising has the greatest negative effect on women’s body image. Even advertisements that are not aimed directly at fashion or beauty products can have negative effects on women. Jo Swinson, a British member of Parliament in Scotland, quotes a recent study saying that, “almost a third of women say they would sacrifice a year of life to achieve the ideal body weight and shape” (1). It is a shocking sacrifice to be willing to make, especially because almost all of the women surveyed for this study were of normal weight or even underweight. However, when the amount of advertising women are exposed to is considered, it begins to make sense. HealthyPlace.com states in an article that the average woman sees 400 to 600 ads every day, and that when she reaches the age of seventeen, she will have seen more than 250,000 commercials (1). It’s easy to see how women would get the message that to be beautiful or thin is so desirable. To bombard women with that many messages about what a woman “should” look like seems to border on brainwashing. The other horrible thing about this kind of advertising is that it is biologically impossible to achieve the perfect body as created by advertisers. The reason it’s impossible is because advertisers alter photographs to make the models look a certain way. Jo Swinson notes, “From smoothing skin and erasing wrinkles to enlarging muscles and slimming waists, airbrushing, or ‘photoshopping’ men and women to so-called perfection is the norm in advertising” (1). It should be criminal for advertisers to do this because the models don’t reflect reality. This can result in low self-esteem and depression, and women going to extreme measures to lose weight, which can then result in eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. These effects can be long lasting and impact not only the individual, but her family and future. It is exceedingly sad that we have created advertising that affects women in such a significant way.
While the negative impact of false beauty advertising on women is clear, there is growing concern for the impact it has on men. One study shows that the main thing men care about when it comes to body image is what has been called “real body factors” (Noveck 1). These include body odor, sweat, and body hair. When men see advertisements and watch television, they are focusing on how real their own bodies are, and how they are not like the muscular, hairless bodies of the men on television. Mediascope, a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible depictions of health and social issues in the media, says that a rising number of men who want to look more muscular are starting to turn to steroids and eventually abuse them (1). It is shocking that men would use steroids just to look “good” considering the negative side effects of steroid use. Men who start to abuse steroids can become bald and infertile. Another study, done at the University of Central Florida by Daniel Agliata and Stacey Tantleff-Dun, found that exposure to advertising and an ideal male body image can have harmful effects on the mood and satisfaction of bodies among men (16). This is exactly the same thing women experience. Models of either sex, due to unrealistic, manmade changes, have the same negative effects on men and women. However, some say that advertisements featuring men who have muscular and sculpted bodies is actually good for men. Jocelyn Noveck from the Washington Post quotes the editor of Men’s Health Magazine who suggests that such an image is the picture of health (1). The thinking is that promoting this picture of health will encourage men to look that way and become leaner. But not all men have that motivation and if men constantly try to keep up with what an “ideal body” is, it creates unwanted and unneeded stress on the body and psyche, just as it has for women for decades.
Women and men may be most affected by advertising, but what is most concerning is the negative effects it has on children. When children play with dolls or action figures, or even see commercials advertising the sale of those toys, they can be significantly affected by them. HealthyPlace.com says, “An alarming trend in toy action figures’ increasing muscularity is setting unrealistic ideals for boys much in the same way Barbie dolls have been accused of giving an unrealistic ideal of thinness for girls” (3). Essentially, children see ads on TV for toy action figures or dolls they want, get them, and spend countless hours playing with them. This causes them to want to be like them, and due to the unrealistic proportions of the dolls, children then also end up with body insecurities. It is alarming how many commercials children and adolescents see on television. According to an article by Anne Moriss published in the US National Library of Medicine, the average child watches around five hours of television a day (1). I have observed that a typical hour of television contains about twenty minutes of commercials. That means that children are exposed to one hour and forty minutes of commercials every day! This is when they see the same type of unrealistic body image commercials that adults do, whether that is through ads for action figures or Barbie dolls on Saturday morning shows, or by watching family TV shows where airbrushed models are selling the latest beauty products. When children are exposed to this much, and this kind of advertising, it can cause them to feel insecure about their bodies, and go to extremes to try to fix them, just as adults do. As these children grow and mature, they start to develop the thought that they may be overweight. It has been found that boys ages nine to fourteen who thought they were overweight were more likely to try smoking to help them lose weight (HealthyPlace.com 3). This study shows us just how far reaching the effects of advertising can be: When a child gets a doll with an unrealistic body, and plays with it for years, it can end up creating shame about his own body, which can make him start smoking to lose weight. Such are the effects of false advertising created by Madison Avenue and Hollywood.
Advertising can have all sorts of negative effects on all types of people, including women, men, and children. It is a sad commentary on our culture that we don’t do more to change it and adopt a healthier body ideal. While the impact of false beauty advertising on women has received the most attention, more and more is being revealed on the equally damaging effects of unrealistic body image advertising on men and children. The biggest problem is the psychological pain it causes, which can lead to low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression for not looking “model perfect.” All of this can cause people to take extreme measures to achieve that unattainable look, including using steroids, smoking, radical dieting, and bingeing and purging. In order to save themselves from these eating and psychological disorders, people should realize that none of this kind of advertising is accurate or natural. Consumers would be wise to educate themselves about the routine photoshopping and airbrushing of models, male and female. If they did, they would come to the realization that they themselves are the “normal” ones, and that it is the models who are not normal or even real. As citizens concerned for the health of our country, people should spread the word about inaccurate advertising. By doing this, parents and adults can help save themselves and their children from a world of emotional pain and bodily stress. Real problems are created by unrealistic advertising for all types of people, and the only way to prevent them is to be informed of the negative effects they have on our society. When we are informed as citizens we can effectively address this growing problem by advocating for restrictions and laws against inaccurate advertising. Then we can create a new culture where even people who don’t look like Barbie or an action figure are appreciated and accepted.
Bibliography:
Agliata, Daniel and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn. “The Impact of Media Exposure on Males’ Body Image.” University of Central Florida. 2004. Journal of Social and Clinical
Psychology. 28 May 2013. <http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~scottd/image-1.pdf>.
“Eating Disorders: Body Image and Advertising.” Healthy Place. 11 Dec. 2008. Eating Disorders Community. 18 May 2013. <http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-disor
ders/articles/eating-disorders-body-image-and-advertising/>.
Mediascope. “Muscle Madness: The Ugly Connection between Body Image and Anabolic Steroid Use.” 2000. 12 Jun 2013.
<http://chatt.hdsb.ca/~dacostan/FOV1-00B6371/DrugStory_SD1.pdf>.
Morris, Anne. “The impact of the media on eating disorders in children and adolescents.” NCBI. May 2003. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health.
28 May 2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792687/>.
Noveck, Jocelyn. “Experts: Men have Body Image Worries Too.” The Washington Post. 6 Oct. 2006. The Associated Press. 15 May 2013. <http://www.washingtonpost.co
m/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100600913_pf.html>.
Swinson, Jo. “False Beauty in Advertising and the Pressure to look Good.” CNN. 10 Aug 2011. CNN Opinion. 22 May 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/08/
swinson.airbrushing.ads/index.html>.
Imagine you are five years old, you look into a mirror, and one of the first thoughts that passes through your mind is, “I wish I were skinnier.” Sad, isn’t it? Unfortunately, this isn’t made up. It’s happening and is the result of the unnatural, unattainable, and unhealthy beauty ideal created by advertisements. Most people are aware of the negative impact of unrealistic beauty ideals in advertising on women, but what most people don’t realize is that it also has a major impact on men and children. While both women and men are affected, the negative effects appear in different ways. Much of the time, women and men feel the need to look exactly like the models in advertisements. Women try to achieve this through extreme dieting, which can lead to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia (Noveck 1). Men also want to look like the models in advertisements, but do so by using steroids or over-exercising (HealthyPlace.com 3). The reason for this is that, in male models, there has been an increase in muscle mass, while female models have become extremely skinny. What men and women don’t understand is that it is usually impossible to achieve these beauty standards in real life. That’s because it is standard procedure in the advertising industry to photoshop and airbrush photographs, making it impossible to achieve what advertising is making a “societal norm.”
Advertising has the greatest negative effect on women’s body image. Even advertisements that are not aimed directly at fashion or beauty products can have negative effects on women. Jo Swinson, a British member of Parliament in Scotland, quotes a recent study saying that, “almost a third of women say they would sacrifice a year of life to achieve the ideal body weight and shape” (1). It is a shocking sacrifice to be willing to make, especially because almost all of the women surveyed for this study were of normal weight or even underweight. However, when the amount of advertising women are exposed to is considered, it begins to make sense. HealthyPlace.com states in an article that the average woman sees 400 to 600 ads every day, and that when she reaches the age of seventeen, she will have seen more than 250,000 commercials (1). It’s easy to see how women would get the message that to be beautiful or thin is so desirable. To bombard women with that many messages about what a woman “should” look like seems to border on brainwashing. The other horrible thing about this kind of advertising is that it is biologically impossible to achieve the perfect body as created by advertisers. The reason it’s impossible is because advertisers alter photographs to make the models look a certain way. Jo Swinson notes, “From smoothing skin and erasing wrinkles to enlarging muscles and slimming waists, airbrushing, or ‘photoshopping’ men and women to so-called perfection is the norm in advertising” (1). It should be criminal for advertisers to do this because the models don’t reflect reality. This can result in low self-esteem and depression, and women going to extreme measures to lose weight, which can then result in eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. These effects can be long lasting and impact not only the individual, but her family and future. It is exceedingly sad that we have created advertising that affects women in such a significant way.
While the negative impact of false beauty advertising on women is clear, there is growing concern for the impact it has on men. One study shows that the main thing men care about when it comes to body image is what has been called “real body factors” (Noveck 1). These include body odor, sweat, and body hair. When men see advertisements and watch television, they are focusing on how real their own bodies are, and how they are not like the muscular, hairless bodies of the men on television. Mediascope, a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible depictions of health and social issues in the media, says that a rising number of men who want to look more muscular are starting to turn to steroids and eventually abuse them (1). It is shocking that men would use steroids just to look “good” considering the negative side effects of steroid use. Men who start to abuse steroids can become bald and infertile. Another study, done at the University of Central Florida by Daniel Agliata and Stacey Tantleff-Dun, found that exposure to advertising and an ideal male body image can have harmful effects on the mood and satisfaction of bodies among men (16). This is exactly the same thing women experience. Models of either sex, due to unrealistic, manmade changes, have the same negative effects on men and women. However, some say that advertisements featuring men who have muscular and sculpted bodies is actually good for men. Jocelyn Noveck from the Washington Post quotes the editor of Men’s Health Magazine who suggests that such an image is the picture of health (1). The thinking is that promoting this picture of health will encourage men to look that way and become leaner. But not all men have that motivation and if men constantly try to keep up with what an “ideal body” is, it creates unwanted and unneeded stress on the body and psyche, just as it has for women for decades.
Women and men may be most affected by advertising, but what is most concerning is the negative effects it has on children. When children play with dolls or action figures, or even see commercials advertising the sale of those toys, they can be significantly affected by them. HealthyPlace.com says, “An alarming trend in toy action figures’ increasing muscularity is setting unrealistic ideals for boys much in the same way Barbie dolls have been accused of giving an unrealistic ideal of thinness for girls” (3). Essentially, children see ads on TV for toy action figures or dolls they want, get them, and spend countless hours playing with them. This causes them to want to be like them, and due to the unrealistic proportions of the dolls, children then also end up with body insecurities. It is alarming how many commercials children and adolescents see on television. According to an article by Anne Moriss published in the US National Library of Medicine, the average child watches around five hours of television a day (1). I have observed that a typical hour of television contains about twenty minutes of commercials. That means that children are exposed to one hour and forty minutes of commercials every day! This is when they see the same type of unrealistic body image commercials that adults do, whether that is through ads for action figures or Barbie dolls on Saturday morning shows, or by watching family TV shows where airbrushed models are selling the latest beauty products. When children are exposed to this much, and this kind of advertising, it can cause them to feel insecure about their bodies, and go to extremes to try to fix them, just as adults do. As these children grow and mature, they start to develop the thought that they may be overweight. It has been found that boys ages nine to fourteen who thought they were overweight were more likely to try smoking to help them lose weight (HealthyPlace.com 3). This study shows us just how far reaching the effects of advertising can be: When a child gets a doll with an unrealistic body, and plays with it for years, it can end up creating shame about his own body, which can make him start smoking to lose weight. Such are the effects of false advertising created by Madison Avenue and Hollywood.
Advertising can have all sorts of negative effects on all types of people, including women, men, and children. It is a sad commentary on our culture that we don’t do more to change it and adopt a healthier body ideal. While the impact of false beauty advertising on women has received the most attention, more and more is being revealed on the equally damaging effects of unrealistic body image advertising on men and children. The biggest problem is the psychological pain it causes, which can lead to low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression for not looking “model perfect.” All of this can cause people to take extreme measures to achieve that unattainable look, including using steroids, smoking, radical dieting, and bingeing and purging. In order to save themselves from these eating and psychological disorders, people should realize that none of this kind of advertising is accurate or natural. Consumers would be wise to educate themselves about the routine photoshopping and airbrushing of models, male and female. If they did, they would come to the realization that they themselves are the “normal” ones, and that it is the models who are not normal or even real. As citizens concerned for the health of our country, people should spread the word about inaccurate advertising. By doing this, parents and adults can help save themselves and their children from a world of emotional pain and bodily stress. Real problems are created by unrealistic advertising for all types of people, and the only way to prevent them is to be informed of the negative effects they have on our society. When we are informed as citizens we can effectively address this growing problem by advocating for restrictions and laws against inaccurate advertising. Then we can create a new culture where even people who don’t look like Barbie or an action figure are appreciated and accepted.
Bibliography:
Agliata, Daniel and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn. “The Impact of Media Exposure on Males’ Body Image.” University of Central Florida. 2004. Journal of Social and Clinical
Psychology. 28 May 2013. <http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~scottd/image-1.pdf>.
“Eating Disorders: Body Image and Advertising.” Healthy Place. 11 Dec. 2008. Eating Disorders Community. 18 May 2013. <http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-disor
ders/articles/eating-disorders-body-image-and-advertising/>.
Mediascope. “Muscle Madness: The Ugly Connection between Body Image and Anabolic Steroid Use.” 2000. 12 Jun 2013.
<http://chatt.hdsb.ca/~dacostan/FOV1-00B6371/DrugStory_SD1.pdf>.
Morris, Anne. “The impact of the media on eating disorders in children and adolescents.” NCBI. May 2003. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health.
28 May 2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792687/>.
Noveck, Jocelyn. “Experts: Men have Body Image Worries Too.” The Washington Post. 6 Oct. 2006. The Associated Press. 15 May 2013. <http://www.washingtonpost.co
m/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100600913_pf.html>.
Swinson, Jo. “False Beauty in Advertising and the Pressure to look Good.” CNN. 10 Aug 2011. CNN Opinion. 22 May 2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/08/
swinson.airbrushing.ads/index.html>.
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