Editing in the Media
Soleil Kurowski-LaBelle
Mrs. Pelopida
AP English
7 November 2014
Paper Title Every day, Western culture bombards females with advertisements and images of glamorous women. These advertisements highlight their beautiful features, and the pressures of society encourage average women to strive to reach that level of perfection. The individuals in the photographs are often computer edited, manipulated into looking better than they actually are. The images portrayed by the media are often heavily edited and feature women with bodies not possessed by the average female. The edited images of ideal bodies perpetrated by the media are a contributing factor to poor body image, low self-esteem, and eating disorders among females. According to numerous doctors and therapists, self-worth is established in relation to what is portrayed in the media, and when magazines and advertisements are Photoshopped, the expectations for average women are altered. In an attempt to reach this new standard for females, some girls develop eating disorders and obsess about losing weight and become thinner and more beautiful.
How a person looks is often directly related to how they feel about themselves, and this is linked to the social norm. Self-esteem is defined as confidence through self-worth, and for teenage girls in most Western cultures, self-worth is linked to body image. Body image is developed parallel to a number of sociocultural factors, one of which is the edited and unrealistic media images of so-called “ideal women.” The images shown in the media subconsciously effect young girls and lower their self-esteem because they believe that the edited images show what they ought to look like (Clay). The link between body image and self-worth is evident, as is the link between photo-editing and self-esteem. In 2011, the American Medical Association urged the media and businesses to stop retouching models and editing photographs so heavily. They warned “we must stop exposing
Mrs. Pelopida
AP English
7 November 2014
Paper Title Every day, Western culture bombards females with advertisements and images of glamorous women. These advertisements highlight their beautiful features, and the pressures of society encourage average women to strive to reach that level of perfection. The individuals in the photographs are often computer edited, manipulated into looking better than they actually are. The images portrayed by the media are often heavily edited and feature women with bodies not possessed by the average female. The edited images of ideal bodies perpetrated by the media are a contributing factor to poor body image, low self-esteem, and eating disorders among females. According to numerous doctors and therapists, self-worth is established in relation to what is portrayed in the media, and when magazines and advertisements are Photoshopped, the expectations for average women are altered. In an attempt to reach this new standard for females, some girls develop eating disorders and obsess about losing weight and become thinner and more beautiful.
How a person looks is often directly related to how they feel about themselves, and this is linked to the social norm. Self-esteem is defined as confidence through self-worth, and for teenage girls in most Western cultures, self-worth is linked to body image. Body image is developed parallel to a number of sociocultural factors, one of which is the edited and unrealistic media images of so-called “ideal women.” The images shown in the media subconsciously effect young girls and lower their self-esteem because they believe that the edited images show what they ought to look like (Clay). The link between body image and self-worth is evident, as is the link between photo-editing and self-esteem. In 2011, the American Medical Association urged the media and businesses to stop retouching models and editing photographs so heavily. They warned “we must stop exposing