MWolfe+Reflection+2+Body+Image+in+America

MWolfe Reflection 2 Body Image in America One of the largest issues for America women and girls between the ages of 12 and 25 is body image. The fear of weight gain is greater than the fear of nuclear war, losing their parents, and cancer. Since 1970 eating disorders have increased 400%, and it is not a coincidence that the portrayal of women in the media has become less about the actual women and more about their bodies and pictures that are “photoshopped” to distort how an actual woman looks. Amazingly enough, 66% of girls say magazine models influence their idea of a perfect body shape. Further under scoring the influence of media is a study showing that, following the introduction of western television to Fiji, there was surge in the rate of eating disorders among women. Women in America today strive towards unachievable, unrealistic ideals for beauty that are made up more of makeup and retouched images than any actual any woman who exists. So we are left with the question, “Is America obsessed with unattainable beauty?” Everywhere we look there are ads for a large variety of things featuring women whose “perfect bodies, faces, and hair” exist nowhere in the world. We are bombarded by magazine pictures, video games, television, music videos, and more. Our society has made it a norm for these things to appear everywhere and thereby for women to wonder, “Am I too fat? Too ugly? Too short? Is my nose too big? My hair too curly or straight? Are my breasts too small?” We’re making women uncomfortable in their own bodies when they should be celebrating themselves. Instead of judging women based on their character or brain, we base them on their waistline and some unattainable standard that can only be achieved with computer software distorting a real image. Not only do these unrealistic images create an “American Dream” that can never be achieved, but the journey it sets girls on is unhealthy and totally unrealistic. Women shouldn’t have to live up to the unrealistic images they see in magazines. They would be better off focusing on living up to themselves and setting their own ideals. Because by being themselves they are the more beautiful than any photoshopped image in any magazine. America has created a monster it cannot control by creating this image of an ideal, but impossible, woman. It has gotten completely out of hand and created situations in which women take drastic measures. But this issue is partially pushed so hard in society not because of an obsession with female thinness but an obsession with female obedience. This can be traced back in our history to where woman did not have the same rights as men and where their only jobs were to bear children and work to keep the home and family together. As a nation, by bringing down the self-esteem of women we are also putting them in their “place.” The reason there are so many campaigns that say stand up and fight for yourself or don’t let yourself get down because of societies images is because women are being put down. Women shouldn’t stand for this but instead should break past the image of an ideal woman and an “American Dream” that is false and unhealthy. Women are all different and all beautiful in their own way and I wish that as an American Dream for all women.