Body Image Research Paper

Overweight, underweight and imperfect all over. Body image is an issue that affects the way women view themselves. Young women are basing their desired appearance from photo-shopped photos of celebrities, fashion magazines and society's stereotypes about a woman's physique. There has been an extreme amount of pressure on young women to have their desired figure since the beginning of time, different eras in time have created a body image for women that has become the standard for women’s appearance. In today's society, there is too much pressure on young women to have a perfect physique because the media and entertainment place an idealistic image of what their body should be. Girls judge and envy each other on their body figure and are often …show more content…
Bullying is the one of the main factors on why girls feel so insecure about themselves. Zaslow in his article, young girls were asked why they were on a diet, they replied that they wanted to be skinny so they would not be teased at school. Another young girl’s response was that boys expect girls to be perfect, beautiful and skinny. These girls were only in the fourth grade when asked this question. A handful of young fourth grade girls were asked this question and the majority had the same response. The pressure to have their figure look a certain way began at an early age, as most girls do. These girls felt this way because they were being teased by other girls in their grade and boys as well. As you can see the pressure to have a perfect body begins at a young age and continues throughout a woman's life. Duenwald explains she has received countless of emails stating that today's culture holds up standards of thinness that does not make sense for the average woman. It is a never ending cycle to have an impeccable figure especially when these girls have other people teasing, and pressuring them about …show more content…
However, that perfect body does not exist, photo-shopped images do not show a perfect body. It just shows a picture of a model who has been altered by technology to make her body and face seem flawless. These models have clearly been placed under professional lighting and have spent hours getting their makeup done by a professional. There is too much pressure on girls to have a perfect body and there always has been. Throughout different ages in time women have created an idealistic image of what a perfect body should look like. However, much might disagree and say that there is not any pressure at all. Many campaigns have started to show a positive body image for young girls, showing them that it does not matter what they look like. We even have plus size models who break the typical model look. Nevertheless, even these plus size models are giving the illusion that plus size people look that way or should look that way, when in reality they do not. They state that we should love and accept our bodies the way they are, however, young women cannot help but feel under pressure. According to Weiner, the beauty culture has become more demanding. The truth of the matter is that there are multiple body types and we cannot all have that same physical image that many women desire, it is nearly impossible for the average teenage

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