LaTashia Madsen English 1102 Grant 4/28/2014 Body Shaming and How it Affects Women How many women

have confidence in their own body? How many can look in the mirror and be perfectly happy with what they are looking at? Even on the days I feel most confident in my appearance, I can still find a plethora of flaws in my physical characteristics. Women everywhere look at magazines and even at women they pass in public and judge themselves based off of others appearances; however, they are not just judging themselves. These women are judging each other. They toss insults back and forth just to feel better about the way they look. Every different body type and size can get harsh criticisms from anybody in their surroundings. I cannot eat a salad in public because I feel as though I am being judged to harshly for being skinny. I am constantly being told by friends, family, and strangers that I need to eat a cheeseburger and gain weight because I am skinnier than they think I should be . I go out in public worried that if even one hair is out of line that I will be judged harshly for my appearance. Having that stress on top of the normal stresses of everyday life can be a bit too much for me and I am sure that others have the same problem . It is even easier to be a victim of body shaming today more than ever because of social media sites . While all this type of hate has probably been happening for centuries, thanks to the medias presence in society, it is increasingly becoming more of an issue amongst females of all ages. The introduction of Photoshop is also giving women unrealistic Madsen 1

expectations of how the female body is supposed to look. The self loathing and the insults from society can cause women to take on unhealthy dieting habits and create psychological problems that initiate self destructive activities. The research done by Dr. Szymanski, Moffitt, and Carr explains the psychological effects that this type of behavior has on women, such as substance abuse, eating disorders, anxiety, and depression. (Szymanski). Far too many women seem to struggle with those psychological

effects caused by body shaming.

Many companies are realizing the effects that shaming women can have on them. Dove started a campaign called the Campaign for Real Beauty because they discovered that only 2% of women found themselves beautiful in 2004. Dove found the definition of beauty to be too narrow and unattainable. Photoshop has influenced

women to think that the women in magazines look the same in real life and Dove wanted to show people that those are unrealistic in many ways. Their
advertisements consisted of women of many shapes, sizes, and races in order for females to see that any woman can be beautiful. In 2011, many years after their campaign began; they found that only 4% of women thought themselves to be truly beautiful. While their campaign may have helped some women with their confidence, as seen by the two percent increase, most still do not have the self esteem that they should (The Dove). This essay will hopefully not only explain what has affected women in terms of their physical appearance but also how to prevent body shaming and the psychological problems that are associated with it.

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The main step in fixing a problem is to understand what exactly that problem is. Body shaming is not just an act that can be committed against one person to another . Body shaming can also be self inflicted. Vargas explained it as manifesting in three different ways. 1) Criticizing your own appearance, through a judgment or comparison to another person. 2) Criticizing anothers appearance in front of them. 3) Criticizing anothers appearance without their knowledge, (Vargas). This means that it is not just somebody criticizing another persons body weight to them. Body shaming is every time a person thinks that another has better features than her own; looking at a magazine and hating her own appearance based off of what she sees in others. Body shaming is also someone turning to her friends and making fun of somebody else for their physical appearance. Basically, any type of behavior involving making somebody feel bad about how they look is body shaming. This type of behavior only encourages people to judge a book by its cover . Meaning that every person is being judged based on how they look and not who they are as a person. In fact, the more attractive a person is then the more popular they will be. Being more physically attractive gives a person a better chance at getting a job they applied for. The more attractive students are usually liked by their teachers more

so than the others and are thought to be smarter as well. Many go by the what is
beautiful is good standard. That basically means that good looking people are thought to have good qualities such as intelligence, confidence, or good social skills (Fox). These biases influence people to try and attain the societys standards for beauty.

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However, medias influence in societys standards has set very strict regulations for what beautiful means in, at least, Americas culture. People are exposed to these unrealistic standards for beauty more than they are exposed to their own family causing people to feel that the way women look in magazines is normal and attainable . According to a study done in 2003, children and adolescents would spend on an average of five hours a day being exposed to media but due to the ability to multitask and focus on multiple forms of media at a time, they can fit about seven hours of media into that time frame (Morris). According to a more recent study, those numbers have increased to being exposed to media for about seven and a half hours a day and fittings ten hours and forty-five minutes worth of media into that time frame (Knorr). The medias standards are only attainable by about 5% of the population of women (Fox). Yet women are being shamed by others and themselves for not being able to meet these standards. It is not just the more attractive people or skinnier shaming the less attractive or those who do not maintain the medias standard of thinness. Both sides are spreading hate. Both sides are degrading the other just so that they can feel better about themselves and how they look. While on any social media site, you can see slogans such as real women have curves or judging a persons attitude and

lifestyle based on how they look. There are many other images and quotes going
around shaming women for being skinny or attempting to attain those standards . Despite what the media or social networking sites claim, real women come in many shapes and sizes and not a single one of them can be held to the same strict standards . Women are made to be different and not a cookie cutter form of the ideal woman .

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These standards did not always exist for women. At one point in history, women were desired for their god given bodies. This can be seen in renaissance paintings of women being painted as just women of all shapes and sizes. It was not until the Victorian age that women desired a thin waistline and used corsets to get that desired look. However, in the 1920s women flocked toward the flapper look. This look was designed to completely hide curves and to get an all around boyish look . Women in the 1930s and 40s really started caring about what they ate and their muscle tone in their arms because their style of dress of typically sleeveless. In the 1950s women such as Marilyn Monroe became the standard for beauty with short hair and curves. After that, in the 1960s, Twiggy came into play. She set the standard for beauty as very thin

and was one of the thinnest models in that time. In the 1990s, the standard was thin
and toned because the crop top was popular so many women wanted flat

stomachs to show off. Now thanks to Photoshop, todays standards for beauty are
literally unattainable and unrealistic (StyleCaster). Except possibly through plastic surgery but if the only way to obtain that standard is by physically altering a persons body with surgery then maybe society should rethink its standards. The standard for beauty has clearly changed more frequently with the introduction of the media. This implies that the media has a great impact on how women are viewed in society. The introduction of media has made a set standard more accessible to more people everywhere. Society is exposed to it not just through television but also through magazines, websites, billboards, etc. They are constantly being exposed to what the media believes to be beautiful. The more strict the standard Madsen 5

it seems from the history of how women looked, the more media exposure there has been in peoples daily lives. It appears that will the introduction of television in the early to mid twenty century, more people are able to see the same standards and those standards changed more frequently as television and other media became more popular. With the introduction of Photoshop, these standards have become unrealistic. People will look at the women in magazines or online that have been photoshopped and because of the constant exposure to these images, they begin to think these appearances are what an average person is supposed to look like. It does not help that some celebrities who have been photoshopped will not admit to it . Some claim that they do, in fact, look like the version of themselves that have been through Photoshop no

matter how unrealistic those images actually look. These women will refuse to admit they look anything but perfect. One of the few that admits it is Jennifer
Lawrence. While looking at her photo shoot for Dior, her reaction was of course thats Photoshop. People dont look like that, (Jennifer). These are not the only

photographs she has ever mentioned have been photoshopped either. It is

important to acknowledge that it is Photoshop and not actually how women look so that people in society stop judging each other based off of these very unrealistic expectations set by the media. While not being able to maintain a certain body weight may not seem as though it is a cause for alarm, the side effects from body shaming can have serious psychological effects on those affected by the act. These side effects are not just kind of feeling bad about a persons physical appearance but can be for more self destructive . Body

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shaming can cause women to have anxiety about their appearance, low self esteem, and many other effects. These issues in turn lead to depression, and anorexia and bulimia (Szymanski). Approximately 48% of females between the ages of fifteen and nineteen reported having anorexia nervosa while one to five percent of them reported having bulimia. That number has been increasing over the last 50 years and continues to increase (Morris). Since over half of that population is being affected by eating disorders, it is important that the situation is being fixed in some sort of way to help prevent these eating disorders and help promote positive self image. According to another study, depression is positively correlated with how much media a person is exposed to (Nauert). Basically, the more time a teenager would spend being exposed to media, the more likely that teenager would be to develop depression later in life . These

expectations set by the media to look a certain way are not met and so their negative self image can cause their depression.
It is not just the photoshopped actresses and models that are affecting adolescents and teens but also fictional characters as well. Even though men outnumber women in family films three to one, female characters are usually overly sexualized and objectified. They are often depicted with small waistlines and exaggerated features. Many of them hold jobs that are seen as fit for women . Children and adolescents exposed to this regularly view this as a typical standard for women. Believing that the female characters are what women are supposed to look like causes negative body image (Smith). Unrealistic standards can be seen not just in family films but also in video games. These depictions of what the female is supposed to look like

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are constantly being shown to the population not just while they are in their youth but in adulthood. These characters are affecting their psyche throughout a persons entire lifetime. The problem of body shaming has become rather obvious. It seems that much of the problem comes from the media. Its depiction of females and the unrealistic modifications it creates might just be the core of that problem . As mentioned earlier in this paper, Dove attempted to help women see themselves and others as beautiful. They posted videos displaying what a model looked like before the make-up and Photoshop. They ran a Super bowl advertisement in order to be seen by a wider audience. Because of them, Spain even created a law against using models that were too skinny because it promotes unhealthy habits. The campaign definitely helped women with their self esteem and body shaming (The Dove). Evidently, if one company can do that much to help with realize that everyone is beautiful, imagine what could happen if all media stopped portraying females in unrealistic and unattainable ways . Body shaming and all of the problems associated with it could be prevented if the media stopped lowering the self esteem of women and changed the standard for beauty .

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Works Cited Fox, Kate. "Mirror, MirrorA Summary of Research Findings on Body Image." Mirror, Mirror. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014. Jennifer Lawrence on Her Dior Ads: 'Of Course It's Photoshop; People Don't Look Like That'" The Hollywood Reporter. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. Knorr, Caroline. "The Side Effects of Media." Reviews & Age Ratings. N.p., 20 Jan. 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. Morris, Anne M., and Debra K. Katzman. "The Impact of the Media on Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents." NCBI. N.p., May-June 2003. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. Nauert, Rick. "Excess Media in Teen Years May Cause Depression."Psychcentral. N.p., 26 Feb. 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. Smith, Stacy. "Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media." Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. N.p., 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. StyleCaster. "A Timeline of Sexy Defined Through The Ages." StyleCaster. N.p., 19 Mar. 2010. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. Szymanski, D. M., L. B. Moffitt, and E. R. Carr. "Sexual Objectification of Women: Advances to Theory and Research 1 7." The Counseling Psychologist 39.1 (2010): 6-38. Print. "The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty." The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Apr. 2014. Vargas, Erika. "Body-Shaming: What Is It & Why Do We Do It?" Walden Behavioral Care BodyShaming What Is It Why Do We Do It Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2014. Madsen 9