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Reality Television Affecting Body Image

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Reality Television Affecting Body Image
Media of today has swallowed lives of the youth as it constantly portrays an image of perfection in which they must live up to. Individuals have seen through reality television and other sources what is categorized as this image. This is shown psychologically as it is not directly stated but represented. The Hills and The Real World, two MTV reality television shows, are provoking public interest showing these wrong images influencing the youth. This is changing the youth, as they are slowly becoming more and more degraded as the generations’ progress. Our next generation is constantly fighting a battle against reality television shows and their overall visual portraying what teens of today must live up to. Due to these programs today, the youth of today are constantly competing with “unrealistic self-expectations to be perfect; not just physical appearance, but more importantly, overall peer ranking” (dailytitan). Shows like The Real World and The Hills, both MTV programs, “sensationalize the physical attractiveness, sexual promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, co-dependent relationships and other negative connotations as to what is the norm” (dailytitan). For example, a young teen of today, could watch Real World or The Hills and see perfect body images, generating insecurity within them, leading to vulnerability around “popular kids” who induce self-doubting. This changes the teens overall impression of perfection.
Magazines of today aiming at young women tend to present traditional slim images of attractiveness. In 2009, US Weekly Magazine voted Audrina Patridge, a reality TV star from The Hills, as having the ‘perfect beach body’. She was also rated #12 out of the hottest 100 women in Maxim Magazine. This reality television star had just portrayed the image that young teens must live up to: “perfection.” Her slim, flawless beach body had won over the magazines as it was “serving to foster and maintain a “cult of femininity” and supplying definitions of what it means to be an “attractive woman” (Grogan). Audrina was seen in each episode of The Hills, showing off her body, and constantly showing the viewer what was voted as perfection and what it means to be this ‘attractive woman’. This reality TV star was not just in a television program portraying a flawless body image, but all over magazines as well. This media overload of Patridge, aimed at young women, could easily psychologically impact the youth and aid in changing their view of a perfect body image.
Reality television is supposed to have average, everyday individuals who are just like the viewers. But, in order for the reality television shows to make money, they must have attractive individuals with pleasing body images that pull the audience in. Because of this almost completely known fact for reality television, the ‘average, everyday individual’ is merely the opposite. The Hills and Real World both have beginning credits with the cast on a beach in swimsuits, showing off their bodies. Each body, perfectly cut and fit, already portraying an image before the show even begins. Surveys have shown that young “men and women felt significantly less satisfied with their bodies after viewing [the] attractive same-gender” in the media (Grogan). These merely psychological images have engulfed the youth into thinking about their body image after seeing what should be average, but is really close to, if not, a faultless human.
In a show like The Real World, where the title depicts real people in a real setting, the audience watches for equality and comparison. But, even this reality show does not portray this ‘real’ image. Not only is a perfect body shown off in every single episode, starting with the beginning credits, but also their slim, fit figures are displayed in the image advertising their show. The shows leading advertising image is the cast poolside, all dressed in bathing suits, with two ideal women’s beach bodies around a perfectly cut man in direct center (realitytea). This image is psychologically showing unrealistic beauty standards that make people question their own bodies while indirectly giving them an instruction manual on how to change their appearance. Because “viewers see over 5,000 attractiveness messages each year through televised commercials,” like The Real World image, they gain a more negative feeling about themselves due to constant ‘reality’ media overload (Wadsworth).
What reality television stars may not know are the impacts they have on the youth of today and the changes they make in body image. Even their changes in body image to be on the shows impact the youth. For example, Stephanie Pratt, from The Hills acquired bulimia due to the shows expectations and after filming in bathing suits with other cast members. “A major factor contributing to this epidemic was advertising and marketing,” (Hibbs) as this bulimia scandal was all over magazines and the news once Pratt admitted to adopting the eating disorder. This was just another factor “that influenced a child’s eating habits: television” (Hibbs). In order for youth to be less worried about their body image, the reality television stars need to prove their content with their body. If they cannot, the youth will only become more and more overwhelmed by these ideals of perfection in the media.
Everyone always has a time in their life when they feel that they could improve their body image. Even reality television stars have moments like these in their lives; moments that don’t just change their lives, but the viewers as well. When someone, like a reality television star, deems ‘normal,’ people will change their look to match theirs. And when those reality television stars feel uncomfortable with their ‘normal’ bodies, and decide to change them, it also affects the viewers. Heidi Montag, a reality star from The Hills, felt embarrassed and uncomfortable by her already perfect body and decided to take things a step further by getting plastic surgery. This reality television star “act[ed] as an advertisement for the plastic surgery industry” while showing “the concept of ‘elastic body image’ as the correct image to live by (Wadsworth). Because “a woman’s body image is responsive to televised ideal female body images,” Montag influenced the audience with her surgery. Her before body, which many sought it to be perfect, had just turned into an even more ‘perfect’ media body. This act that Montag may have believed to only affect her, was all over the media, and her new body was affecting and influencing the youth viewers as they now had a new image to live up to.
Women are not the only ones shown in these shows to be constantly eager to improve their body image. Men have an equal amount of viewers following after their workouts, routines, and diets. Each male cast member, as seen in both of MTV’s shows, The Real World and The Hills, have to be very fit and built. In MTV’s The Real World: Hollywood, Joey Kovar demonstrates his daily gym routine along with his diet. “I have to go to the gym before I can do anything else. You guys know that’s my routine,” Kovar states in Episode 8 (Murray). Portraying this constant need to put working out and improving body image above anything else, leads to misconceptions from the viewers. A misconception that these young male viewers must live their lives this way in order to uphold such a great image. This is an image that is highly portrayed through each and every male cast member in nearly, if not all, episodes. These “pressures of society, [(including reality television),] to conform to the slender, muscular male body ideal may be producing an increase in body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem in men” (Grogan). This body dissatisfaction is increased by each image that is repeatedly exposed, idealizing the ‘perfect’ male body image.
The media continues to affects the lives of the youth daily with constant images that portray perfection. Each and every one of the cast members from The Hills and The Real World have a preset image in which they must live up to in order to be a part of the show. Even they are supposed to show average every day individuals living their lives like the viewers, they relate more to models then anything else. Many of The Hills cast has modeled, along with one cast member from the 2011 edition of The Real World. Although these ‘average’ individuals are nowhere close to that, the youth still believe they are. This leads to the youth having a conception that they must too change their body in order to display this ‘average,’ but actually perfect, image. “Women (as a group) should reject traditional media conceptions of body image completely and challenge traditional conceptions of ‘slim as beautiful’” and men should follow their own workout and diet routines, rather then admiring those on reality television shows (Grogan). If they do not, and the media continues to constantly show reality television with over average individuals, the youth will become more swallowed by as time progresses.
Works Cited

Divello, Adam, dir. "The Hills." The Hills. MTV. MTV, Los Angeles, California, 31 May 2006. Television.

Ferburg, Damon, dir. "The Real World: San Diego." The Real World. MTV. MTV, San Diego, California, 28 Sept. 2011. Television.

Grogan, Sarah. "Media Effects." Body Image: Understanding Body Dissatisfaction in Men, Women, and Children. London: Routledge, 2008. 108-35. Print.

Hibbs, Jillian. "Media Advertising: Affecting Our Youth’s Health." Media Advertising: Affecting Our Youth’s Health (2008). Neumann. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www.neumann.edu/academics/divisions/business/journal/review_08/Hibbs.pdf>.

Wadsworth, Laurie A. "Television the Medium, the Message and Nutritional Health." Canadian Journal of Educational Communication 25.2 (1996): 137-42. ERIC. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://www.cjlt.ca.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/index.php/cjlt/article/view/262/196>.

Shults, Mary A. "What a Fool Believes: Does Reality TV Affect Youth?" The Daily Titan. Wordpress, 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://www.dailytitan.com/2010/09/13/what-a-fool-believes-does-reality-tv-affect-youth/>.

Murray, Jonathan, cre. "The Real World: Hollywood.” The Real World. MTV. MTV, Hollywood, California, 16 Apr. 2008. Television.

"Stephanie Pratt: "The Hills Made Me Bulimic" | Beauty & Body Image, Celebrity Quotes, General, Stephanie Pratt | Skinny VS Curvy." Skinny VS Curvy - Celebrities on the Scale. Us Weekly, 24 June 2009. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://skinnyvscurvy.com/general/stephanie-pratt-the-hills-made-bulimic.html>.

Staff, UsWeekly. "Summer 2011's Sexiest Beach Bodies - UsMagazine.com." Celebrity News, Celebrity Gossip and Pictures from Us Weekly - UsMagazine.com. US Weekly, 7 July 2011. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-body/news/summer-2011s-sexiest-beach-bodies-201177>.

The Real World: San Diego. Digital image. Reality Tea. Blog Design Studio, 22 Sept. 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. <http://realitytea.realitytea.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/new-uploads/2011/09/TheRealWorld_San_Diego.png>.

Admin. "TV Reality Shows Destroy Women’s Body Image and Confidence." Healthy Urban Kitchen. 26 Jan. 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. <http://healthyurbankitchen.com/blog/tv-reality-shows-destroy-women’s-body-image-and-confidence/>.

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