Society’s image of “beauty” is an ever-changing concept that has tormented women for hundreds of years. In the late 1800’s beauty culture developed in the United States and a woman was considered beautiful if she had a thin waist and a large hairdo. During the early 1900’s “flappers” popularized the idea of showing more skin, thus making women much more self conscious about their figure. Presently, women who are skinny, toned, and muscular are considered females with the “perfect body.” Throughout the decades there has been a constant belief that to be beautiful, you have to weigh less, and look skinny. Isabella Caro started modeling in her last year of high school and decided that it was going to be her career. The moment that sparked the beginning of her anorexia was when a fashion designer told her she had to lose weight if she wants to be in the fashion world. Caro died on November 17, 2010 weighing less than 55 pounds. In the video “The Price of Beauty, Jessica Simpson meets Isabella Caro” you can truly visualize and understand that the idea of having to be skinny to be beautiful has become an issue of society. Models are not the only ones nowadays that are overly concerned that their bodies are not good enough. Today, women all over America are following special diets and strenuous exercise programs to be able to feel like they fit the image of what our society thinks is beautiful and attractive. It is understandable, even in nature we see plants and animals that adapt to present themselves as a better candidate for mating. But is it really acceptable to have a woman like Isabella Caro slip into anorexia because it is what our society thinks is good-looking? People everywhere, male and female, have such a strong feeling of dissatisfaction with how they look that it is not just an individual problem anymore. If we look at this issue in a micro-level, individuals see billboards and posters of women with skinny waists and men with six-pack abs literally everywhere. Being exposed to all these pictures of people who are considered “better looking” than the average person has led society to be completely unappeased with itself.
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Young women have always had problems with the perception of the body, but today’s mass media is “helping” to worse this problem. The influence of the media on the dissemination of anorexia cannot be ignored or diminished. This is the main contributor to the problem of eating disorders. So, media, as a social institution, could form public opinion on many issues and also change society’s values.
Television, magazines, radio are influence our society. However became ill of anorexia not all the people. The reason lies in the family (another social institution) and in the close environment of the individual (such as fashion industry). In unfavorable psychological situation anorexia get sick much easier. Often, the disease is considered to be in a family where the parents are extremely control their child. And the only thing that the child can control – is his own body.
When young girls see pictures of very thin actresses and models, they often tend to resemble them; not knowing that what they see is not real-it is not a secret that photos of celebrities are retouching and digital processing.
Unrealistic images in magazines can be devastating, not only for girls affected by anorexia and violations of their perception of their body, but also for the parents of girls who want their daughters have the same shape as the actresses and models. One way to fight with the image of women in the mass media is to teach girls to consider all of the media from a critical point of view. So, mass media and family are important social institutions, that nave not only positive, but also negative effect on the society.
Individuals are exposed to advertisements, magazines, and movies everyday that includes males and females that are portrayed as “perfect” due to their body and flawless proportions. The media has altered our perceptions of reality. We are exposed to women who are skinny and men who are muscular in magazines and other outlets, and it’s become our goal to achieve these looks. But I believe it’s come to the point where nothing is ever good enough. For example, in a lot of cases with weight loss or in even more extreme cases, anorexia, a male or female can reach their weight goal but still see themselves as not good enough. With women specifically, and being in the situation myself, I often witness a lot of women either being told that they are too big or too small. And with men, it’s less acceptable if you’re scrawny or skinny, and can a lot of these males encounter hateful comments. Also, in movies a bigger individual is the punch line of a lot jokes which then makes people view them as a joke. You rarely hear you’re perfect the way you are and I believe it’s the perception of beauty that the media portrays that has made us become overly obsessed with looks. As it was stated above, all we see is air-brushed women and men, and it makes the average person feel as if they aren’t good enough. And we shouldn’t have to change who we are. This situation isn’t a trouble but an issue. Almost every individual feels insecure about how they look due to the images advertised when we simply walk down the street or online shop. We’ve come to believe that there is a standard of beauty and if we aren’t able to reach it, we aren’t worth much. If the media is able to shape our perception of beauty, it can change it for the better by including women and men of all sizes and looks in fashion advertising, our films, magazines, etc.
Throughout history women have paid a very high price for beauty. The percentage of men worrying for beauty is increasing now but women are usually the main targets. In this video we can see how the life of beautiful young women Isabella Caro was destroyed by what is believed to be beauty. But was is really beauty, who dictates what is beautiful or not? The media who are paid by product sellers who are trying to make us buy their products so we will fall into this beauty category.
Physical appearance is very important in United States and western societies. Living in this culture where beauty has an exact definition is really difficult for any women. It is highly enforced through media everywhere we look there is something defining what is beautiful. Definition of beauty starts early during our lives, during childhood when we begin taking our little school pictures. Photographers removed all kinds of imperfection from the picture such as blemishes. At this moment the child understands that isn’t considered part of being beautiful and might start feeling shame of whatever we think is wrong with them.
As for adults we can’t be too tall, too small, need free of skin blemishes and scars, not too skinny nor over weight either. It seems as if we want to fit in to this beauty world we almost have to be perfect, but the problem is that there is a high price for perfection. Women across the world cause themselves serious injury or even death in an effort to fit into this idea of beauty. Caro is a great example she encountered anorexia in an effort to fit into the beautiful world. In my country Dominican Republic there has been many cases where women end up with bad surgery sometimes leading to death other times loosing part of their body such as their breast due to an infection. The pay a cheaper price for a bad doctor and end up paying the highest price for beauty.