How the Media has Hurt our Body Image

         What do you first think of when you hear the words “social media”? How much time do you spend every day using social media? Do you ever feel like the media is taking over your life? Have you ever looked at someone, anyone, on the internet or even on TV and just said that you wanted to look like that? Have you ever seen a model or your celebrity idol look differently and thought that you could look like that, too? Well, to be honest, I do sometimes. I have this friend that keeps on posting these flawless pictures on Facebook, and somehow she always seems to look amazing.  Her life looks perfect when you look at it. Now, how many of you have a friend like that? And how many of you don’t like that person sometimes? Let’s be honest, we all do it. We all envy some people sometimes on Facebook, Instagram or any other social media. Think about all those questions the next time you use social media. Now, just let me ask you this: do you feel the pressure to change your appearance because of the media or are you happy with the way you look? Well, you should be. Each one of us is unique in his way. We shouldn’t allow the media to affect our body image.

         First of all, let’s start by answering some of the previous questions in some other ways. One of the most crucial manners that the media influences us with is people being criticized by others on the way they look. People keep hearing that they are not pretty enough, not thin enough or even too fat. Those people use the social media to judge the appearance of others. But, what we might not think of is that we are all humans and we feel hurt by this kind of talk. Cyber bullying is also one of the ways in which the social media contributes to hurting our body image (Hurley, 2018). We all know that this can occur 24/7. Moreover, when there’s a victim of weight or looks teasing through cyber bullying, he/she develops a very negative body image later on.

 Besides, what the media sheds light on regarding female beauty are women skinnier than the average woman, in other words beauty is falsely shown to let females believe that the “perfect” image is what they see on the media (Miller, 2018). What we see on billboards, ads, TV shows, and many magazines are just a portrayal of a very unrealistic and untrue perspective of what girls should look like these days. But, when you really think about it is actually impossible for many of us to look like that. Now, have you ever taken a moment to think what advertisements really are?  Well, let’s just say that they reflect our daydreams and what we most desire even thought we might not know it; they affect what we do, what we eat, what we look like, and what we wear…or, in other words, what they want us to be (Kilbourne, 2012). The society has some constructed ideas of “beauty” that most of us tend to reach through different processes.

           Well, one of the outcomes of this all, is that those people are turning to way too much plastic surgeries to change their appearance and becoming unrecognizable to some extent (Mulvaney, 2016). There are many people that have done some surgeries to look like celebrities, but it didn’t all go so well. Those kinds of surgeries have a very negative impact on health, both physically and mentally. Additionally, many people tend to go through strict diets that are often unhealthy. People see trends on social media about “thinspirations” which are images that help encourage weight loss (Cole, 2017). Many movies have been done about this, too. After that, they just are more likely to try them out. But, what they don’t realize is that this will eventually lead to having eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. They tend to do so just to lose weight because they are no longer confident of the way they look.

            In conclusion, be careful of what you put in front of yourself - who you follow on social media. Obviously, many things are going to grab your attention like, the girls/guys constant selfies, the models’ bodies, the celebrities’ appearances and so on…, but you just have to remind yourself of what is really important in life. Comparing yourself to others won’t do you any good (Mulvaney, 2016). The only person you should compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday (Morin, 2015). No one has the right to judge the way you look or even say anything about it. Who is anyone to say that we are not all beautiful as we are right now? Why not accept ourselves as we are? And how would we even expect others to accept us if we don’t do it ourselves first?