Woman's Body Image in the Media

By Charlotte Court

What is media?

Magazines

News

Adverts

Internet

Books

Film

TelevisionRadio

What is a Perfect body?Beautiful long hair

Flat/toned stomach

Be a size 6/8

Have perfect boobs

Having a thigh gap

Beautiful skin

Big lips

Jaw line

Abs/six pack

Muscles

Strong legs

Slim and fit

clear skin

Why do we want perfect bodies?• The media gives us this idea of how we

are supposed to look.• We are bombarded with images of perfect

bodies and weight loss stories. • Within the media things such as adverts

and magazines show perfect looking people and there bodies to try and sell us products that could help us look as beautiful.

• We all want to fit in and society has created this false look of how we all should be.

• Now in order to be beautiful we feel as if we have to look like the people on the front of the magazines or the TV.

• From a young age we are filled with ideas of how we are supposed to look to be beautiful.

How do magazines promote a perfect body…

• They show images of people/models who have edited using Photoshop so that we aspire to look like them ourselves.

• They cover the magazine with headlines promoting weight loss programs and diet schemes.

• The headlines promoting weight loss and getting the perfect body always surround a model who has been edited so that every part of her is how we think she should look. For example her legs, arms, skin, eyes, mouth, stomach, and even her hair can be changed so it looks flawless.

Victoria Secret Campaign

On the 28th of October 2014 Victoria's secret released a campaign called “The Perfect Body”. On the advert the slogan “The Perfect Body” is printed over 10 of there typical slim models. The advert became under fire because of this tagline and a petition containing 27,000 signatures was released just a few days later. The petition was started by three college students after seeing the advert. The students said that they felt the “ slogan and the models promote unrealistic and damaging standards of beauty”.

Victoria Secret then changed there wording on the advert/website from “The Perfect Body” to “ A Body For Every Body”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRtvpdV3XM4

A similar advert released by Victoria Secret again promotes the idea of the perfect body. In this advert all of the models are slim and have what the public would call “perfect bodies”.

How has the idea of the perfect Body changed over time…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrp0zJZu0a4

I found this short video online. And it shows how the body has changed over time, and what women aspire to look like today…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U

In this video you can see the unbelievable change made to ordinary people using photo shop, and how even the women in this advert does not look like this and is not real.

Naomi Wolf

• She is an American Author and former Political Consultant.

• She is a feminist.• She wrote a best selling book

called “The Beauty Myth” about how the idea of beauty is socially constructed.

“The Beauty Myth”

The idea of beauty is socially constructed (it’s simply a myth)

she’s a feminist who believes that the patriarchy (male dominated society) determines what the perfect body consists of.

this is strongly reinforced by the media and the

saturation of this makes escaping these ideals almost impossible

these ideals push women towards diets and gym memberships but in some cases this idea of the perfect body is unattainable and is believed to be the cause of increasing rates of plastic surgery and eating disorders

Statistics: The consequences of the “ Perfect Body”

http://www.anad.org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/

Eating disorders such as Anorexia are not all due to the medias bad portrayal of how the body should look.

But with the way the idea of the prefect body is advertised today, it is a big contributing factor to this problem.

Women are supposed to aspire to look like supermodels!!

Good or Bad ??

Conclusion

To conclude I think that the media portrays women and there bodies in a negative way and has changed the way society views the “perfect body” or how women should look. With the combination of different aspects of media such as the TV, Magazines, and Adverts we are being given an unrealistic image of how the female body should look. To this day women are still being oppressed by the idea of the perfect body! And the adverts and magazine covers continue to get worse with the promoting of this unrealistic body.

The edited models and the weight loss plans spread cross the magazine pages and TV ads like the victoria secret “ Perfect Body” are just adding to the way todays society thinks and in my opinion we will never really be happy with how women look. People will always find a way in which the body can be improved using programs such as photo shop. There is no such thing as a perfect body, this is just an idea we have all been feed through the media over the years after looking at perfect but fake bodies.

Thanks For Watching!