Body Image

The nonfiction article, "Here's to Looking at You: Is Body Image Being Taken Too Seriously?" by Annie Rispin, is about the struggles of body image of both women and men in college and how current media plays a large part in the issue. Rispin suggests that the pressure college students have to look affects them, especially in our culture of cell phones and media. Many college students are affected by the problems of body image. Body image is how people now judge, interact, and categorize you as a person. Rispin conveys through numerous studies that people associate body types with personality, jobs, and more, and now negative body image is what is common. The models, actors, and celebrities seen in mainstream media are all intelligent, gorgeous, and popular. With these people as society's role models, many college students strive to achieve that perfect mind, body, and status. That is causing the self-confidence of many to drop, resulting in eating disorders, negative body image, and more. Rispin claims that even though we focus most of our energy and resources battling poor body image in women, it also occurs in men and athletes, people who are often overlooked. Men experience
eating disorders and often aren't given the help they need. Most body image reproduces are located in women's resource centers, which is misleading and causing many men to be turned away when they need help. Also, athletes are pressured by coaches, trainers, and doctors to loose body fat and become thin and more muscular. These are false ideas, and actually can hurt the athlete and cause health problems. This false imagery leads athletes into wanting to become something they aren't, and are hurting themselves in the process. Rispin claims in the article that "we forget what people are really like, both internally and externally" (Rispin 47). Our society is mostly electronic and online, causing people to no longer look at internal attributes to get to know a person. With cell phones and current media, we instead are submersed in images of thin bodies and advertisements with the only motive of selling, instead of seeing people's personality, flaws, and heart. Rispin encourages all people to stand up and fight. She says the poor images expressed in the media today harms and effects too many people, and asks, "are we ready to talk back?" (Rispin 48). We currently live in a world where people see others as only their physical features, while we should be living in a world where attributes and how people change and help society shape them as a person.

I think that throughout the article, Rispin's ideas are well formulated and backed up with substantial evidence. Her article flows smoothly from one point to the next, and she backs up each point with a study, statistic, or interview. Her ideas are clear and focus mainly on one, main point. I agree with many of her ideas, and many are clever and often overlooked by society, like men and athlete's stuggles with body image. I agree with Rispin's main point, that both men and women struggle with body image and the current media plays a large, negative role. I believe that since our role models and the main bodies we see on social media and online are unrealistically thin and perfect, our culture then strives to be more like them. The negative impact the current media plays on all people is causing eating disorders and a lack of self confidence and moral. Like Rispin suggested, we are no longer seeing people for who they really are and their personality, we are only seeing them as fat and skinny, beautiful and ugly, harsh stereotypes brought down upon us by false media. I also agree with the fact that men are often overlooked when helping people overcome eating disorders. Women are often the target audience for assistance regarding body figure, because that is what seems to be most common. That is why many resources are often available primarily to women, causing men to have to go outside of their comfort zone and try to reach for help in a women's section. Men often become reluctant to ask for help and recognize their problem. However, I also disagree with Rispin on one main point.
I believe she should have directed her article at a wider audience, not just college aged students. I believe that not only college students are experiencing negative body images. She focuses only on college students in the article, and I believe that many, both younger, in grade school or high school, as well as older people are affected by the mainstream media. Even toddlers and small children are seeing characters in books and TV shows unrealistically skinny and perfect. They are taught to look a certain way since a young age. Also, past college, many people continue to struggle with body image. Women with children frown at their stretch marks and larger bellies and are encouraged by the media to work out and lose the
weight. I believe that the numerous examples of real life studies and statistics included in the article help back up the evidence Rispin wrote. These studies help illustrate how negative body image impacts the world. For example, one study shows how people categorize others based on weight, and one statistic displays that ten percent of eating disorder sufferers are men, and twenty percent of female college students suffer from an eating disorder. The study helps prove Rispin's point that people view others based off their image and body. The statistics are persuasive and help illustrate that men also need assistance overcoming disorders and it is extremely common in college females.