Research Paper about Media Influence on Body Image

📌Category: Beauty, Entertainment, Health, Human Body, Life, Social Media
📌Words: 429
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 23 March 2022

Social Media wasn’t just a convenient place to advertise- it was also changing how we think about our clothes.(Monroe 15) Social Media has a powerful impact on beauty standards today, specifically body standards. Adolescents felt pressured to change their looks due to social media which extended other issues if not, created new ones. The primary goal of this research project is to show others how the media shapes beauty standards today. This led to my question “To what extent does the effect of social media enforce unhealthy and unrealistic body standards on adolescents in the beauty industry?”

What are Body standards

Nowadays, beauty is not measured by uniqueness, but by a number on a scale or the size of one’s waist. (Kassir) According to a 2017 survey from the Be Real Campaign, 52% of 11 to 16 year olds regularly worry about how they look, 30% of 11 to 16 year olds isolate themselves because of body image anxiety, 36% of 11 to 16 year olds said they would do ‘whatever it takes’ to look good, including considering cosmetic surgery.  Body standards are a social construct that are enforced in day to day interactions and are perpetuated by social media. (Kassir) Social media can then hurt your body image by constantly exposing yourself to the ideal body type leading to constant comparison of yourself to unrealistic standards. Additionally, Photoshop and filters are readily available to users playing into the unrealistic body images.(Fleps) 

Most people would agree that social media promotes specific body standards based on where you are and who you are.  According to Bradley Hall (2021), In societies such as Fiji, Large bodies are a symbol of one’s status and power. It is not surprising, therefore, that individuals who would be classified as obese in the US are considered the most attractive and desirable members of this culture. Whereas in European countries, straight hair, colored eyes, a thin nose and pale skin are a few Eurocentric features that are imposed on people of color in order to be acknowledged as beautiful. (Leal) Both females and males have had difficulties with this problem, despite the fact that some of them are the same ones who take part in body shaming. In agreement with Raina Lahiri (2021),  “Social media promotes the idea of the perfect person, regardless of gender.”  She then proceeds to talk about men and their body standards, mainly women are spoken of when discussing a topic such as this. Lahiri also mentions how “ In the boy's case, “perfection” is defined by a never-ending list of requirements: being at least 6 ft tall, muscles, abs, jawline, and more.” This goes to show that no matter what gender, age, and race you are, you will still receive criticism and judgment.

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