...The Media’s Effect on Women’s Body Image Women and young girls are obsessively trying to alter their appearance just to look like the perfect body images we see in movies and magazines. What is body image? Body image is how people picture themselves and how they think other people picture them. It is basically how you feel about your body, and it includes your imagination, emotions, and perception. Images portrayed by the media tend to make people strive to be someone else's idea of perfect, while ignoring their own goals. The media influences us through television, health magazines, fashion, music videos, film, commercials, and various other advertisements. Sadly, as a result, this frequent exposure, the "thin" ideal, can lead many young girls in triggering depression, stress, low self-esteem, and suicide. The media's ideal body image has led to wide-ranging effects including, surgical procedures, body dissatisfaction, and clinical eating disorders. In “Body Image of Women” by Tabitha Farrar, she points out that the “thin-ideal media” concept highlights thinness as a desirable thing to be even if it comes to the point of damaging a person’s health. Farrar indicated that marketers will do anything that they can to sell a product and make a profit. She also mentioned that poor body image can lead to depression, anxiety, problems in relationships, unhappiness, and various health problems. Farrar suggested that people can focus on their good qualities, work with self-esteem...
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...an image, change an idea or shape an attitude. These thirty seconds or more of flashy attractions draws viewers in on the attitudes and values of which people hold in society. It promotes particular beliefs and ways of thinking. Such beliefs that are promoted through TV commercials can be the encouragement of changing one’s appearance in order to look similar as a certain celebrity. On the good side, TV commercials display positive behaviors and role models that young girls and adolescent girls can aspire to be. In contrast, many of these TV commercials have a negative influence on the life of young girls and adolescent girls. TV commercials targets young girls and adolescent girls through the use of different outlets that glorify unrealistic expectations, distorted body image and sexualization in which leads them on a path of self-destruction. TV commercials can promote positive behavior. Dove is the first “beauty” company to promote to young girls and adolescent girls that they should be comfortable with their own body. Their marketing campaign helps to establish self-esteem and a good body image. It shows “real women” as role models who are happy with themselves even though their body may not be what is typically thought of as beautiful. According to the article, “The Dove® Campaign for Real Beauty”, Dove states, “Dove® kicked off the second and most iconic phase of the Campaign for Real Beauty in June 2005, with advertising featuring six real women with real bodies and...
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...of the media. Body image is a problem that women and even men have been struggling with for as long as the media has been around. The media constantly puts pressure on young men and women brainwashing them into thinking that the ideal body image for women is small and slim and the ideal image for men is muscular. The media uses interesting standards to define beauty. There are different aspects to beauty that a lot of times, the media does not exhibit. For instance true beauty comes through dignity and character, not necessarily through how a person looks. Nevertheless, there is no denying that ads do affect some of us. Women and young girls all around the world are suffering from eating disorders because they are dying to have the perfect bodies, like supermodels. Flip through a few pages of a magazine and you will surly come across seductive looking models. Turning on your television you can find shows that gladly promote skinny people. Music videos are filled with scandalous women dancing seductively. There is no denying that the media does not promote healthy, realistic physical role models for young men and women. " Perfection- It's classified in medical journals as the extreme need to be more perfect than is humanly possible. My perfection resulted in a four-decades- long struggle for sanity, starting with my childhood and zooming in on my long nights and days of model-mania". ( Janis Dickinson ) Perception of reality can easily get distorted through exposure...
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...or nervous activity in the body? Marijuana cultivated from the Cannabis sativa or indica plant, is a brown, green, or gray mixture of dried stems, shredded leaves, and flower buds. The plants primary psychoactive ingredient is the chemical delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other related compounds. It’s usually ingested, rolled up like a cigarette or cigar, or put into a pipe and smoked. Occasionally, people inhale it using a vaporizer or mix it with food. Although there are people who use it for treating a variety of medical conditions, young people typically use it as a recreational drug. Is Marijuana a Stimulant? Marijuana is considered to be a...
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...they have the fear of gaining weight they have a distorted body image which means even if they are extremely thin they will believe that they are overweight. (Ehrlich, 2015). Anorexia is not really about food and weight at its core. Many eating disorders are much more complicated than that and they run a lot deeper than just appearance. The real cause of the disorder could be depression, loneliness, insecurity or feeling out of control. Typically,...
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...Recovery 3 Beating Ana: How to Outsmart your Eating Disorder and Take Your Life Back 3 Beginner’s Guide to Eating Disorders Recovery 3 *Biting the Hand That Starves You 4 *Bulimia: A Guide to Recovery 4 Eating Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence, 3rd Ed. 4 Eating Disorders: Journey to Recovery Workbook 4 *Desperately Seeking Self: An Inner Guidebook For People With Eating Problems 5 *Life without ED: How One Woman Declared Independence from Her Eating Disorder and How You Can Too 5 Overcoming Overeating 6 *Overcoming Binge Eating 6 *The Anorexia Workbook: How To Accept Yourself, Heal Your Suffering, And Reclaim Your Life 6 *The Overcoming Bulimia Workbook 7 *Skinny Boy: A Young Man’s Battle and Triumph Over Anorexia 7 When Dieting Becomes Dangerous: A Guide to Understanding and Treating Anorexia and Bulimia……………7 Body Image and Self-Esteem 8 *Body Image Workbook: An 8-step Program For Learning To Like Your Looks (2nd Ed.) 8 *Body Love: Learning to Like Our Looks and Ourselves 8 *Feeling Good About the Way You Look………………………..……………………………..8 Girls Rock: Wise Teens Offer Tweens and Moms Advice on Healthy Body Image, Self-Esteem, and Personal Empowerment.9 Life Doesn’t Begin Five Pounds From Now 9 Love your Body: Change the Way You Feel about the Body You Have 9 *Self Esteem Comes In All Sizes 9 Healthy Eating and Balanced Lifestyle 10 Eat, Drink and Be Mindful: How to End Your Struggle with Mindless Eating and Start...
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...the situation an epidemic. To further understand obesity we must first look at body composition. Body weight is the sum of the weight of the fat and the weight of the lean body mass. Lean body mass is comprised of all the nonfat body components including muscle, bone, and internal organs. Body composition then is the proportion of body weight that is fat compared to lean. Having a high body weight can be attributed to large muscles or excess fat. A high body weight due to excess fat increases the risk of chronic health problems which can include high blood pressure and cholesterol, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, respiratory problems, arthritis, sleep disorders, and gallbladder disease. Obesity can also increase the risk of breast and uterus cancers in women and prostate and colon cancers in men (Grosvenor,M. & Smolin, L., 2006). There are several factors that weigh into the obesity epidemic. The genes that you inherit from your parents determine your body shape and composition. Obesity genes get their name because an abnormality in one or more of them can result in obesity. There are also different hormones in the body that signal the body to eat or not to eat and have a hand in how much we eat at each sitting. For example the hormone ghrelin is released by the stomach and is believed to motivate you to eat at regular meal times during the day. Insulin is another hormone that helps the body monitor how much fat is present and sends appetite suppressing signals to the brain...
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...another. Anorexia involves starvation, while bulimia involves purging. Anorexia is an eating disorder defined by an abnormally low body weight, intense fear of gaining weight and a distorted perception of body weight. Anorexia is not about food. It is more of a way to deal with emotional issues. Thinness is often correlated with self-worth. Those who have anorexia are usually athletes, models, or other figures where body image is huge. “Eating disorders are a daily struggle for 10 million females and 1 million males in the United States.”(ANAD) Women are much more likely than men to develop eating disorders. Women are also more likely to develop anorexia than men. Anorexia has a mortality rate of 4%. When developing an eating disorder there are risk factors. I have named one already, being female. But genetics and family history also play a role in developing anorexia. Having certain genes or having a direct relative with anorexia can make people more susceptible in becoming anorexic. Being young is one of the main risk factors as well. Just like with every other disease there are symptoms, both physical and emotional. Some physical symptoms are the obvious extreme weight loss and thin appearance, dizziness, dehydration, or developing osteoporosis. When dealing with anorexia the body becomes extremely malnourished, damaging all the organs in the body. The damage is not always fully reversible either, even if the anorexia is under control. To name some of the emotional symptoms...
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...fixated on being skinny starts to affect their eating habits, way of thinking, and life can be a sign of an eating disorder. When someone suffers from anorexia the desire to lose weight becomes the most important thing in their life. They begin lose themselves and not love who they truly are. Anorexia nervosa disorder or frequently called anorexia is an eating disorder that is mostly common among women and young ladies. It’s described as the intense fear of gaining weight and a contorted perception of one’s self body image. Anorexia isn't really about food. It's an unhealthy way to try to cope with emotional problems. When you have anorexia, you often equate thinness with self-worth. (Pawlowski, Cheryl, PhD, and LeAnna, PhD DeAngelo.) There are over 200,000 to 3 million united states cases of anorexia per year. That means there are over 200,00 to 3 million people in America that don’t themselves as beautiful without going through the emotional and harmful roller coaster of drastically changing their body. There are various causes of anorexia. Some anorexia...
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...The meaning of the poem was how a black girl was before and after she grow up in life, were blacks were not welcome. When the author stated " it’s being 9 years old and feeling like you’re not finished" she was meaning that everything had started to change for her at the age of 9 that was helping her change into that young black girl that she was to become. Also in the poem, she stated that " its dropping food coloring in your eyes to make the, blue and suffering their burn in silence. It’s popping a bleached white mophead over the kinks of your hair and primping in front of mirrors that deny your reflection" That section to me meant that she wanted to blend in The literary works I will compare are “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Levin Morales and “What’s It like to be a Black Girl” by Patricia Smith. The works focus on the psyche of two women of African descent, plagued by the historical American public perceptions of their culture. These negative perceptions play an important part of the individual’s psyche due to prejudice. It has misconstrued and distorted the minds of these young African American girls. These poems show how two young girls from different American minority sub-cultures, view themselves in totally different perspectives. One of the young women wishes to identify...
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...Bush Abstract To Eat or Not to Eat Introduction My name is Gina Morgan. I work as an eating disorder counseling specialist. I am here today to talk with you about two types of eating disorders, obesity and anorexia nervosa. In our talk today, I would like to be able to give you a fresh perspective on food, hunger and satiety in hopes that it may benefit those who live with these disorders. Obesity is the term used when a person has maintained a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher. Obesity carries with it many health risks. These include hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, bone health problems and many other health complications and illnesses (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008). The disorder known as anorexia nervosa is a mental illness. This term is used for individuals who refuse to keep their weight within 85% of the standard weight for their age and height. Sufferers of anorexia express deep anxiety about gaining any weight. In addition, their body image is grossly distorted. These individual’s refuse to eat and often combine their self-deprivation with eating binges they follow with willful purging. They state that they do this to maintain what they view as an acceptable weight. This illness is very severe and is often life threatening. It can result in heart failure, kidney failure and damage to the brain (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2008). Both anorexia and obesity are studied extensively. Several new theories...
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...women, but anorexia occurs throughout all cultures and races. AN has the highest mortality rate of an psychiatric disorder (Kumar, Tung, & Iqbai, 2010). Every major organ system is affected because of the malnutrition that anorexia causes. People with anorexia look in the mirror and see a distorted image rather than what is reality. Victims of anorexia see someone that is huge when in actuality they may be average size and weight. Once a person is diagnosed with anorexia it is hard for them to recover. Not only is it hard for a person with AN to recover, it is also extremely easy to relapse. It takes intense therapy and treatment to cure someone with anorexia. AN exists in every culture and race; it varies amongst African Americans differently as opposed to other cultures. Symptoms of anorexia include an intense fear of gaining weight, refusal to keep body weight up, and amenorrhea for 3 consecutive months (Kumar, Tung, & Iqbai, 2010). Amenorrhea is the abnormal absence of menstruation. Some other symptoms of AN are lanugo, joint swelling, dental cavities, tooth loss, and abdominal distension (Kumar, Tung, & Iqbai, 2010). Lanugo is the growth of fine white hair that grows when anorexics have no body fat left to keep themselves warm (Morrisey, 2010). There also tends to be changes in the endocrine and metabolic systems that encourage AN patients to further constrain their diet. People with anorexia have major impairments in psychological functioning, severe medical complications,...
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...Todd’s Syndrome is a neurological disorder that effects ones visual perception of physical objects and their surroundings. An athlete begins to experience episodes of micropsia and macropsia (objects within their visual focus appear to be smaller or larger than they actually are). This can cause the athlete to perceive that their own body is bigger or smaller in size than they actually are. Surrounding objects can also appear farther or closer than they seem but, because of the athlete’s visual sight being distorted it can lead to the athlete to see non-uniformed shapes (Metamorphopsia). Todd’s Syndrome has also been given the name Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AWS) due to the signs and symptoms being similar to what occurs in the...
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...Assessing Mental Status Most of a mental status assessment can be done during an interview. Assess the patient’s appearance, behavior, mood, thought processes and cognitive function, coping mechanisms, and potential for self-destructive behavior. Record your findings. Most of us already do an assessment of mental status everyday, esp. in our jobs. But now we are going to take a little closer observation. Mental Status exam is a FOCUSed exam. Used for screening, assess state of consciousness (expected or unexpected) or to assess whether the patient is experience delirium versus dementia. Past Medical and Family History Any history of * Neurological disorders * Brain surgery * Psychiatric counseling * Mental retardation * Alzheimer disease * Learning disorders Personal and Social History Pertinent data should include: · Emotional status · Life goals, relationship with family members · Intellectual level · Sleeping/eating patterns, weight loss/gain · Anxiety · Use of alcohol or street drugs Age and Condition-Related Variations * Children * Areas relevant to children are speech & language, behavior, performance of self-care activities, personality and behavior patterns and learning difficulties * Older Adults * Ask about any experiences with depression, or changes in mental functions Let’s look at appearance… this can help to indicate emotional and mental status, specifically noting his/her dress and grooming. Some things...
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...industry, fashion scouts are rethinking their choice in girls. Models with low body mass index or BMI have become the industry norm, which in turn is causing societies perception of a beautiful woman to be distorted. Fashion scouts need to be more aware of the model’s natural BMI that they employ and require help if signs of an eating disorder are present. A Utilitarian point of view on whether or not thin models should be banned would be to ban the use of thin models in modeling. In the 1960’s, supermodel Twiggy came on the scene. She is best known for her very thin, waiflike figure that brought on her nickname (Twiggy). Twiggy’s look became the new desired look for models regardless of whether it was their natural size or a size that was brought on by an eating disorder or excessive exercise. Now decades later we are still seeing the effects of the demand for stick thin models and how it has affected society. More specifically the rise in eating disorders and low body mass index or BMI in models on the runway today. There are two types of eating disorders that are most common: Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder where a person diets, exercise, or doesn’t eat even if they are underweight. People with this disorder often times have a large fear of becoming overweight or gaining weight. Those with anorexia nervosa have a warped perception of themselves (Thompson p159-161). Bulimia Nervosa is when a person binges...
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