Lauren Schroepfer English 1102 Final Draft Effects of Societys Standards of Beauty on Young Adults In todays society, beauty

is held at a high standard, but young adults find that hard to believe. Teens, specifically girls, look at models and think that their body needs to look like a models body, but that is far from the truth. Kasey Sedar, from Westminister College, writes Such standards of beauty are almost completely unattainable for most women; a majority of the models displayed on television and in advertisements are well below what is considered healthy body weightStudies have found music television to be a powerful instigator of the social comparison process in young females. If only girls paid attention to some real role models for beauty, maybe they would stop being so concerned with their body image. There are plenty of people that try to help show women and teens what real beauty is, but often teens look over them because they think the real beauty is what is being displayed by society on billboards and television shows and magazines. In the United States extreme thinness is a social and cultural ideal, and women partially define themselves by how physically attractive they are. (Body Image) With societys standards for beauty being so high, it becomes detrimental to womens health. Regardless of the actual size of their bodies, more than half of American female between ages ten and thirty are dieting says Jane Sprague Jones. That is a high percentage and especially with females starting at age ten. The office of Womens Health in the government states that the average American woman is 5 foot 4 inches tall and 140 pounds, and the average American model is five foot eleven inches tall and 117 pounds. The average American model is seven inches taller, but still twenty three pounds lighter! With society portraying model-like

images to be what is normal and beautiful, the health of American women is doing to decrease. The office of Womens Health says that society associates thin with hard-working, beautiful, and self-disciplined, and fat with lazy ugly and weak. The associations made by society are what pressure women to feel like they are not good enough and that they need to be thinner and maintain that image. Women who feel this kind of pressure sometimes go to extremes and end up hurting their bodies more than they think. People who starve themselves, or throw up after they eat begin to get into the habit of doing it all the time, and it becomes an eating disorder that is hard to stop. Womens Health says females are more likely than males to develop an eating disorder. Food is used to gain a feeling of control. With throwing up and even restraining oneself to eat, it is easier to feel more in control of your life because you are controlling your body. Although there is no single known cause of eating disorders, things like culture, personal characteristics, emotional disorders, stress, biology, and family can all contribute to the development of these disorders. (Body Image) Eating disorders have a huge impact on young girls. Some specific eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Symptoms of anorexia nervosa are inadequate food intake leading to weight that is too low, self-esteem overly related to body image, and intense fear of weight gain (Types & Symptoms). Bulimia nervosa has similar symptoms of frequent episodes of consuming very large amounts of food followed by behaviors to prevent weight gain, such as self-induced vomiting, being out of control during binge eating, and self-esteem overly related to body image (Types & Symptoms). Although there are other eating disorders, these two are the most common disorders that have to do with weight loss and preventing weight gain. Females need to look at the positive role models. Dove is one example of a company who endorses beauty and self confidence. They have many beauty campaigns. The Dove Brand

works to widen the definition of beauty. Through their advertisements, billboards, and other campaigning, The Dove Brand shows women of all races, shapes, sizes, with all different types of hair, eyes, and features and shows that they are all beautiful, which they are! More people need to pay attention to this kind of thing. The Dove Brand has also done a campaign called Dove Real Beauty Sketches. Women describe themselves to an artist and he draws them based on their description. Then another woman describes them and they compare the drawing with their description to the one with anothers description of themselves. The women look so much happier and brighter with the description from an outsider. Society has also changed throughout the decades. If you compare models from before to models now, you will see a big difference. Tyra Banks was a Victorias Secret Angel from 19972005. If you compare her to the Victorias Secret Angels that you see today, Tyra looks so much healthier.

But how are the Victorias Secret Angels chosen now? What is their critique? Is it by who is the skinniest? Girls should not want to be as skinny as the picture on the right. That even looks unhealthy. Some females think that men with only be attracted to skinny women, but that is not the truth either. Gentlemen like women who have curves too! Women can be pretty and skinny, but that does not mean that you have to look unhealthily skinny. Another thing that has

changed throughout the decades that has an influence on young girls is the Barbie doll. Below is a picture of Barbie from the 1990s compared to Barbie from the 2000s.

Why has society changed the way that the Barbie doll looks? If the look of Barbie changes, of course girls are going to be affected. Though it is highly unlikely for a rail-thin woman to have natural DD-cup size breasts, toy manufacturers set this expectation by developing and marketing the Barbie doll, whose measurements are physiologically impossible (Derenne). Society has come up with this portrayal of beauty that is so obscure that it is sometimes impossible to get to that point .

What is beauty? Is being beautiful really only about the outside appearance? That is what society says. Sure, outside appearance is important, but so is inner beauty. For outer beauty, being confident is beautiful. You do not have to be as skinny as a stick to be beautiful. That is the way society thinks. That causes a lot of self confidence problems with women, especially teenagers. When people see others who are super skinny and start to take that as what is normal, that is what they use as the standard to judge others. Speaking from personal experience, I have been around people who have judged others who do not deserve to be judged. They are called fat and chubby and ugly, but those judgments are completely unnecessary. I have also been around some of the skinniest of people who thought they were fat. But why would someone skinny say they were fat? Because of the way society portrays beauty and sets its standards.

Another form of beauty is being healthy. It is better to look healthy than to look so skinny that you look unhealthy, but some people do not understand what the difference is. What constitutes healthy? Healthy eating means consuming the right quantities of foods from all food groups in order to lead a healthy life (What is healthy eating?)

Society has standards set for beauty that are so high that they are out of reach. The only way to reach those standards is if you are unhealthily skinny. Women need to understand that being healthy, confident, and comfortable with yourself is what is beautiful. It is sometimes hard for women to all of a sudden accept their body image. There needs to be more awareness of the effects that society is having on women everywhere. It would be nice to see women and society doing things that will help them feel more comfortable in their own skin and helping other women feel the same way.

Work Cited
Body Image. Womenshealth.gov. Office on Womens Health; U.S Department of Heath and Human Services, 22 Sept. 2009. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. Cusumano, Dale L., and J. Keving Thompson. Body image and body shape ideals in magazines: Exposure, awareness, and internalization. Sex Roles37.9 (1997): 701-721. Derenne, Jennifer L., and Eugene V. Beresin. "Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders." Academic Psychiatry 30.3 (2006): 257-61. Print. Jones, Diane Carlson. Social comparison and body image: Attractiveness comparisons to models and peers among adolescent girls and boys. Sex Roles45.9-10 (2001): 645-664 Martyn-Nemeth, Pamela, Sue Penckofer, Meg Gulanick, Barbara Velsor-Friedrick, and Fred B. Bryant. The Relationships among Self-esteem, Stress, Coping, Eating Behavior, and Depressive Mood in Adolescents. Research in Nursing & Health 32.1 (2009): 96-109. Print. Serdar, Kasey L. Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspective on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard. Westminister College: A Private Comprehensive Liberal Arts College in Salt Lake City, UT, Offering Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees in Liberal Arts and Professional Programs, including Business, Nursing, Education and Communication.Westminister College, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014 "Types & Symptoms of Eating Disorders | National Eating Disorders Association."Types & Symptoms of Eating Disorders | National Eating Disorders Association. National Eating Disorders Association, n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2014. "What Is Healthy Eating? What Is a Good Diet?" Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, 16 June 2009. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.