“Did you see her nose job?!” Teenage girls today are able to have surgery on just about anything that they may not like on their body. From boob jobs to lip injections, you can get almost anything fixed for the right price. Teens are so concerned about their own looks and everybody else’s looks that they are willing to pay just about anything for the right change. Body image is sweeping the nation fast; it is becoming one of the most widely discussed topics in the media. Body image concerns are caused by media and peer pressure, which affects a majority of teenage girls today, as shown through higher than average diagnoses of anorexia and bulimia, which lead to numerous health problems that otherwise could be avoided.
Body image is not only the world’s most common cause eating disorder but is defined as a mental image that we form of our bodies and is a simple factor of our self and our own personality. Today, body image is mainly a serious issue for teenage girls around the high school level. Many people do not understand that body image is all psychological, meaning these teenage girls are just mentally imagining their body looking different than it appears in a mirror. When younger girls view themselves this way, it can be harmful, and lead to some strong dangerous emotions which lead them to some dangerous addictions. There are a lot of reasons why girls start worrying about their body. The number one environment that a girl adapts to judging herself is at school. This is because there is a lot of peer pressure at the high school level and trying to impress someone and always look your best is the pass with the “in crowd.” Teens also have problems at home with their parents or sister telling them how to look and what to eat, which can cause a lot of self esteem issues.
Media is one of the largest contributing factors to body image. Ads in magazines, billboards, and on television always have glimmered out teenagers who are nowhere near being the size of an average teenager. Today’s models weigh around twenty three percent less than the average woman. The average model is 5’10 weighing around one hundred and ten pounds but the average woman is 5’4 weighing one hundred and forty five pounds.(Loving Yourself Inside and Out) This shows why this is such a health risk for teenagers. Advertisers place these attractive girls in their ads as an attempt to sell more of their product. A survey was conducted by Teen People Magazine on how girls felt about advertisements. Twenty seven percent of the girls felt that the media pressures them to have a perfect body. Magazines are emphasizing to girls that thinness is beauty, which is not true. A teen diva, pop sensation, and hero to young girls, Ashlee Tisdale, even had body image issues so she recently had gotten a nose job. Tisdale stated that she did it because she has always had trouble breathing out of her nose, so it was about time she had got it fixed. She said she is not for plastic surgery it is just something that she had to do. Tisdale is such a pretty girl and her getting a nose job will only be an example for younger girls. They know now that even if you are pretty there will always be something more to fix.
Peer pressure comes from everyone around, from our parents to our classmates. Peer pressure is most commonly found in a group of friends that are all around the same age group. When one is a different size than the other people in their group, one could feel out of place, and helpless. They start looking at their self in a new light, thinking what they could do to improve their body or maybe get thoughts in their head they may lead to some awful things, for example suicide. Suicidal thoughts are common for someone with a body image crisis; they look at every flaw on their body and basically want to discipline their self for looking that way. A study showed that seventy eight percent of people with a body image disorder said that at one time they had contemplated suicide.
Anorexia and Bulimia are also some harmful illnesses that people come across when they are worried about how they look. These are more common illnesses for teenagers because they are easy things to cover up. Anorexia is an eating disorder where people starve themselves. These people have a serious fear of gaining weight; anorexia causes people to not want to eat in public and not consume large amounts of food in one helping. People who are anorexic usually start hearing voices in their head and they usually give these an identity, even its own name. (Beyond killing us softly) On average a person is supposed to consume 2,500 calories a day; a person who is anorexic will usually consume around 150 calories a day. It is the most deadly of all the psychological disorders. The average age of developing anorexia is fifteen to nineteen years old; around one to five percent of women are anorexic. Twenty percent of people that develop this eating disorder and choose not to receive treatment for it end up dying. People with anorexia can have a lot of medical problems like heart disease, heart failure and kidney and liver disease. They also have high chances of going through depression, anxiety and other psychological problems.
Bulimia is also a dangerous eating disorder where people binge followed by purging. This disorder is usually a response to depression, stress or self esteem issues, or a fear of becoming fat. Having this disorder for an extended period of time the individual will usually experience loss of control over his or her own body. Thirteen percent of high school girls today are bulimic. It is hard to determine whether someone is bulimic or not because they do a good job of covering it up, usually wearing baggy clothing and eating a good meal. Sufferers consume a lot of food in one helping usually up to 20,000 calories. The foods that they usually eat are called “comfort foods” which are sweets. A person with this disorder will usually binge anywhere from two times a day or more. They are most likely to purge twenty to thirty minutes after consuming their food and usually it is when no one is around. Ten percent of people that suffer from this illness will usually die from starvation, have cardiac arrest, or commit suicide.
Avoiding negative body image and these illnesses are fortunately possible. Talking at home is a great way to start letting teenagers know that the way they look is the right way to look. Teenagers need to understand that the models they see in magazines aren’t even perfect and they air brush them to make them look the way they do. People can also change their idea of weight loss to getting in shape and healthier, making up a plan for themselves to work out a few times a week. Informing teens that skipping meals is no help to them at all, it just ends up slowing down their metabolism and their body absorbs more calories than it would have originally taken in may be helpful advice. Taking multi-vitamins every day is also a healthy way to make sure that one is getting all the vitamins they need. Parents are a huge part of negative body image because teens look up to them for advice, so it is important that people are talking in the household about issues that might be going on at school or maybe even in the house.
There are many ways to prevent people from viewing their bodies in negative ways. Media does target a lot of teenagers but if parents help and talk to their kids about how the media plots and explain that they are just trying to advertise better, then maybe teens could look at advertisements in a new way. Peer pressure at school is a hard thing to avoid, but having confidence in oneself and prepping themselves everyday knowing that it will be a good one is a good way to avoid negative thoughts while around close friends that may look different. Anorexia and bulimia are dangerous illnesses that are hard to get rid of once started, they are the antidote to people’s depression and is the cause of many suicides. Avoiding body image problems/ issues is the best answer and it starts at home. Staying healthy and in shape is another great way to avoid it. Plastic surgery shouldn’t be the answer because of the damage it can create with one’s body or even the reputation it might give someone after it is done. Perhaps in the future body image around the high school level will not be such a big deal, and will be less common to hear about. Teenagers already have a lot of things to worry about at their age and appearance shouldn’t be one of them.
Work Cited Page
Wegenstein, Bernadette. Getting Under the Skin. Massachusetts, 2006. 25-28.
Owens, Timothy J., Sheldon Stryker, and Norman Goodman. Extending Self-Esteem Theory and Research. New York: Cambridge UP, 2001. 159-160.
Dinnes, Gail, and Carrol Gilligan, eds. Beyond Killing Us Softly. 26 Feb. 2008
"Loving Yourself Inside and Out." WomensHealth.Gov. June 2007. Officer of Women Health. 6 Mar. 2008
Homeier, Barbara P. "Body Image and Self Esteem." Teens Health. Apr. 2006. Nemours Foundation. 28 Feb. 2008
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