Our Media Driven Culture
"We don’t need Afghan-style burquas to disappear as women. We disappear in reverse—by revamping and revealing our bodies to meet externally imposed visions of female beauty."
Source: Robin Gerber, author and motivational speaker (Beauty and the Body Image) So, what have the actions of the media really resulted in? Well, media influences have become so horrific that visions perpetuate into forms of mental illnesses. These are complex, chronic illnesses that may also be referred to as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa; both these illnesses are on the rise in the United States (U.S. Dept. of Health 1). “Further, the number of American women affected by these illnesses has doubled to at least five million in the past three decades” (U.S. Dept of Health 1). This is strangely ironic with the correlation that in the past few decades female figures in the media have essentially become smaller and smaller. As well as dieting, cosmetic surgery, over-exercising many women have also turned to smoking to control their appetite. Two bad consequences? Either possibly dying of an eating disorder or dying of lung cancer. Harvard Medical School researchers found that American Western cultural images and values through TV appear to have altered the way Fijian girls view themselves and their bodies. In retrospect Fijian girls thought the ideal body type was soft, round and plump but that was until they got television. Fiji has only one channel which broadcasts shows such as Melrose Place and Seinfeld, since this arrival of TV, research shows five times as many teenage girls report vomiting to control weight. In 1998, a survey was taken that reported seventy-four percent of girls felt “too big or fat” at least sometimes (Harvard Medical 1). Also a girl in the study said, “Since the characters [on Beverly Hill 90210] are slim-built, [my friends] come and tell me that they would also like to look like that. They changed their mood, their hairstyles, so that they can be like those characters…so in order to be like them, I have to work on myself, exercising, and my eating habits should change” (Harvard Medical 2). All this taken in to consideration, it’s hard not to see how our American Society's portrayal of the female figure has had some role in the way Fijian people view their bodies. |
Chelsey - college student, 21. Her standpoint on body image and the media. |