The Negative Effects of Media on Adolescent Girls essays

The Negative Effects of Media on Adolescent Girls essays Adolescents today are continually developing a negative self-concept resulting from the negative effects of the mass media. The commonness and the impact of the mass media on adolescent girls are directly linked to the development of forming a negative body image. For years, the media has molded the public to view beauty according to their standards, to be model like, obtain an ultra-thin body, to be sexy and most importantly to be perfect in there appearance. Adolescent girls cannot read a magazine or newspaper, turn on the T.V. listen to the radio or shop at the mall without being assaulted with the message that "fat" is bad. The influence of the media is powerful at the age, and because of the strong yet negative influence it has on adolescent girls, it often times leads them to obsesses about their appearance leading them to cause serious harm to their bodies, such as an eating disorder. Because sexism is presented in all aspects in mass media, my research paper will focus on how sexism shown in the media and its negative affects causes eating disorders and poor body image in adolescent girls due to the pressures of obtaining an ideal body image. Each day, the average adolescent girl is exposed to four-hundred to six-hundred advertisements per day illustrating "the perfect body" or "the perfect life." As artificial as these ideas may be, adolescent girls under the age of eighteen take on the media culture as a symbol, or representation, of what to grow to be. Countless hours on television are given to advertisements attempting to convince consumers that buying a product will result in thinness, beauty, increased acceptance but more importantly popularity among their peers, loved ones and within themselves. The media rarely presents a women's average body type to the viewers as a positive message but goes as far as deeming those who are overweight or "ugly" as the loser in any gi...