Body Image: Part 4

Body image is becoming a huge issue today with younger girls around the high school level. They are becoming more interested in what models in the magazine and ads look like and are wanting to become more like them. Mass Communication is a broad field of study that is used in everyday life. Mass media is commonly seen in the news, from reporter and in newspapers- updating you on what is going on around the area. The most commonly seen part of Mass Communications is advertising. Advertising is seen everywhere from commercials to magazines, billboards and now even on cars for example the Red Bull truck. Advertising has a lot of positive and negative effect s, but the main issue with advertising today that is discussed a lot more often is body image. Body image is how people view themselves and others on a daily basis; it has to do a lot with judging others or even themselves. This is becoming a bigger issue towards teenage girls that are entering the high school level or in high school already because they are trying to find the “in-look” and these models in magazines might be becoming their role models, people they want to look like all the time.
My feelings on body image are very strong. I feel as if girls rely too much on others to figure out what they want or think they need to look like. Magazines and ads always have very beautiful models and they do this because they know it will help them sell their product better because the models catch reader’s attention by their looks. I feel in a teenage magazine, for example, Teen People, or YM. Girls aren’t reading to look at ads they are reading to find out what is cool and in for the upcoming season. I had a friend in middle school that thought she needed to be as skinny the models in one of her magazine ads and ended up getting very sick. She found out that once she started the things she was doing to stay skinny she couldn’t stop. It wasn’t attractive how skinny she was and it was making her very ill. Today big role models to high school aged girls are Lindsey Lohan and Mary Kate Olsen. Look at these girls now, they are anorexic, sick and out of control of their own bodies. I am sure that some of the younger girls that look up to these stars might of started doing what their doing to get skinny just because they think that this is what people what you to look like. But what they don’t see is how people really don’t find it attractive.
Another example of body image happened recently at the University of South Dakota with the cheerleading and dance teams that advertise “coyotes” on their uniform. Someone that works for the university mentioned to their coaches that they would not be able to wear their uniforms anymore if some of the girls didn’t lose a little weight. When they were told this of course it affected the squad as a whole because you can’t just point out the girls that need to lose a little weight because that would be very upsetting to them and discouraging to hear. What is it that makes people judge others on how they look? How do they determine if someone doesn’t look good enough in their uniform or how big someone is when obesity might run in their family? I just feel like you can’t judge someone without knowing anything about them.
There could be opposite view points on the topic body image. Some people may think that girls don’t think they need to look amazing because the girls in the magazines do. Others may say that Lindsay Lohan and Mary Kate Olsen might have no effect on the younger crowed or the University of South Dakota told the cheerleaders and dancers that they need to lose weight because there is a lot of people that look up to them. A lot of younger girls that may want to be just like them someday are watching them and they need to present themselves in a clean manner. This is a good opposite view point because all of these points are very strong as well.
Body image is a problem that is just becoming worse over the years and it would be an amazing problem to clean up because there would be a lot less deaths from illnesses of people becoming anorexic and bulimic. Body image could be cured by people just starting to respect themselves and others in public and at home. No one needs to be compared to anyone else everyone is beautiful in their own way. Even stars in magazines think they need to lose weight because one of their competitors is skinnier then them, which isn’t setting a good example for the younger crowed. Hopefully in a few years body image will not be such a large social problem.

Thesis

Body image is becoming a huge issue today with younger girls around the high school level. They are becoming more interested in what models in the magazine and ads look like and are wanting to be like them. The purpose of me writing about body image is to inform the reader that it is getting dangerous and out of control.

Body Image: Part 3

Mass Communication is a huge field of study and is only getting bigger. Mass Communication is used in everyday life if you realize it or not. One of the things seen daily is advertisements weather they are on billboards, in magazines, on cars, or just on a flyer they are being seen and used. Something that is becoming a bigger issue in advertising is body image. Body image is how people view themselves and others on a daily basis; it has to do a lot with judging others and even yourself. It is found that this is a bigger problem towards teenagers and younger girls who are still looking for role models and trying to discover what people want you to look like in high school and what is attractive.
Judging others on the way they look is socially unacceptable. To be able to tell someone that they are too big, not pretty enough, or not fit is just cruel and unnecessary. This is happening more often in magazines because they are looking for and hiring tiny, fit little models and when younger girls read through these magazines they are thinking that this is the way they are supposed to look and think that is what people are looking for maybe even just to be popular and be able to fit in. Recently there was an issue at the University of South Dakota where the cheerleaders there were told that a few of the girls on the team didn’t look the best in their uniform. This was very cruel to be said because what exactly determines whether or not someone looks good in the uniform given to them. What if an individual had a weight problem that maybe ran in their family, and she couldn’t help the way she looked in her uniform. This really was a huge deal to the team, it was also upsetting because they did feel as if they were being judged and now they are always going to be thinking that they don’t look good enough which is an awful feeling.
Body image is a big issue right now and hopefully in the future it will become a smaller one.

Body Image: Part Two

How big is to big these days? Girls today have an image in their mind that they make themselves believe they need to look like. This image most of the time has to do with looking skinny, toned all around and beautiful of course then there will always be the “in” hair cut also. The reason girls want to look this way is because this is what the models look like in all of the magazines they are reading and commercials they are watching.
Advertising is one of the major topics in the Mass Communication field. Advertising today has a huge effect on how everyone views things. You see advertisements on billboards, commercials, magazines and even on the side of cars (for example, Red Bull). One of the bigger topics in advertising today that is effecting many of people is body image. Body image is how people view themselves and others on a daily basis; it has to do a lot with judging others or even yourself.
Telling people weather or not they look good in what they are wearing or how there body shape looks is usually not appropriate and most of the time discouraging to the person that has to take in what is being said about them. This is something that the University of South Dakotas cheerleading team had to hear from an individual that works for the university. Someone had reported to their coach the two individuals on the squad didn’t look “right” in their uniform. “This was an awful thing to hear and experience” said a member of the squad. “Now I will always be telling myself I’m not good enough.” How do you judge a person on what they look like in their uniform?
The reason the school had said something was only because the uniforms says coyotes across the top, which means this team is advertising for the university, which thousands of people are looking at. Some of the most important individuals looking at them are younger girls because they are roll models to them. It is easy to see what the school expected from them for that reason, this only proves that girls are looking at other girls and judging them or wanting to look and be just like them.

Every Kiss begins with Kay

The Purpose: The purpose of this ad is showing the the jewelery is very romantic, pretty, and eligant. And maybe that their is worse things going on in the world, so you should be thankful to have something so nice.
Audience: The audience of the ad is probably targeting towards couples, maybe early college to adults.
The Message: The message of the ad points out the quality of the jewelrey and how you are able to put pictures inside it and it still looks really nice.
Is the ad effective? I thought the ad was effective because I love to look at jewlerey and having this kind of picture associated with it really made the ad stand out.

http://i.treehugger.com/files/no-dirty-gold-ad.jpg