Essay On Body Image

Media displays body image as a thin figure and beautiful, in hopes to convince audiences to purchase their product. However, how does tv shows or movies show body images that reflect our own perception? Our own perception of body image can be influenced by our own individual cultural and social background. Growing up in a Latino family, we would watch Telemundo news which is full of women with a small waist, large bust, and wearing tight dresses. This was the image that was instilled into my mind since I was a little girl, and I continued to grow up with the thought that I had to be this hot, steamy Latina woman like the ones in media. Yet, I found a show that I felt a connection or a relation to my perception of what my body image should
The show surrounded the life of Cristela Hernandez who is a Mexican-American law school graduate living in Dallas, Texas. Cristela was not the average Latino woman that was thin or an object, but rather a body image that was true of what Latina women should be perceived in media. In the sitcom, Cristela did not wear a tight dress and she was not thin. In my mind she had an average women’s body, but what is considered average? Average in my mind is a woman who is not fat but rather curvy, a thicker figure, and a little overweight. The tv-show represented a typical Mexican family from making tamales to having one crazy uncle who does whatever he wants to do. Cristela’s body image reprograming the way I thought about Latina body images and how Latina should be perceived in media.
Cristela opened my eyes that we, as Latinas, don’t all come in the same shape, but rather we can have this body image and still be successful in our daily lives. When we think about Latina body images in Telemundo, we think about this one figure of body image, which is thin, beautiful, and a large bust. Yet, now that I have seen ‘Cristela’, this type of body image is perceived to be body image of having a little thicker figure than the rest of