Body Image
In America and around the world body image is viewed from all sorts of perspectives. We see body image being put all over the internet, in stores, and all over television via advertisements, magazine covers, and programs you can buy to get yourself that perfect body you have always asked for. There are also several ways you can improve your body to fit into society’s perfect body image including dieting, training, weight lifting, and countless hours of dedication to doing what you need to do to better yourself.
One way body image can affect people is the way they find themselves exercising and have that daily dose of physical activity. Prestige Gaddad and all other authors of the article on “Relationship of physical activity with body image….” Mentioned the affects body image has on the way people get that exercise. “The physical activity is one of the various factors which have a positive affect on body image….” (Gaddad, et al, 775). Now there is argument on that which they say “Individuals with a positive body image are more likely to engage in physical activity than those with negative body image” (Gaddad, et al. 775). This relates to the idea of people seeing all sorts of magazines and advertisements where they suggest that you can get that perfect body image with little time in the gym or exercising. When they see that they think it takes little time and little effort to get the perfect body image they see depicted on their favorite top athletes or models.
Athletes are affected by body image as well. They seem to have to continually keep themselves at that perfect image for everyone to see unless they are called a disappointment or a failure. Ron A. Thompson from “Eating Disorder Hope” mentions the affects athletes have on body image in the article “Athletes and Body Image Issues” mentioning a fact that athletes face the affect of having two body images. “Recent research suggests that athletes have two body images—one in sport and one outside of sport (De Bruin et al., 2001; lowland, 1999; Russell, 2004).” This idea is very true to its word as we see athletes posting all over their social media what they do daily and how they keep up with their body image by having expensive trainers and keeping a steady diet. Most people don’t think that they can easily get the body image they see in the heavily edited and skewed magazine covers and Tv advertisements just by following the “simple and easy ways” that are listed throughout those examples.
There are many ways that companies and other programs are advertising products to people that are all tricks to get you to buy their product where they mention you being able to see progress in a matter of a couple weeks. They are being shown people of great athletic ability who probable took years of training and expensive trainers and diets to get where they are. The ways people are being shown this are through all sorts of magazine companies and TV advertisements where they are all pointing to the fact that you are going to see results in all sorts of fields in a matter of 2-3 weeks with little workout time. Big fitness companies are saying completely different things. The company Livestrong is one of those companies. Andrea Cespedes from Livestrong mentions that you will indeed start to feel stronger in the first couple weeks but you will need to raise your potential to maintain that form and start working harder. She says “With consistent work, you can expect improvements in strength in eight to twelve weeks.” She mentions ways to keep the results coming by saying “you’ll have to vary your workouts and continue to increase weight to you are challenged in eight to 12 repetitions” (Cespedes, 1). She also mentions that being able to see results in from weight lifting in general is based on a lot of things, those things include your body type, age, and your fitness level. Backing up the body type idea, she gives the example of weight training being hard to see if you are already fit and have a large amount of muscle mass. The idea that companies are hinting at the idea that if you are only able to put in a minimal amount of time in the gym you can still see these results. To be seeing results in weight lifting and any sort of physical activity tactic, there has to be a consistent workflow and a decent chunk of time spent in the gym nearing every day to see results. If you are looking to gain the weight and turn that into muscle you need to start to rise your daily calorie and food intake. But you have to continue working hard in the gym or you will completely ruin the idea of taking in more food to build muscle. You will simply maintain the fat making you even more unhealthy. Weight lifting being one of the ways to improve yourself and being one of the best ways that people are trying to meet the body image perspective society persists.
Body image has provided several psychological issues and benefits in society. A main example would be when the average person would look up to their favorite celebrity and see how perfect they are and how toned they are. They see that as the perfect body and it will lean heavily on them to get to that since they see that as the better image. This perspective can be taken in all sorts of ways, one bad way is that it can create health problems and cause psychological damage to someone who tries to get that body image. Mara Aruguete and all other authors of the article “Body Image and Celebrity Worship” said “persons who tend to worship celebrities would also tend to self-objectify, enjoy being sexualized, and show disordered eating attitudes.” (Aruguete, et al. 231) which goes even more into the psychological myths that relate to body image. Women are looking at the models they see in magazine covers and advertisements on TV and see a skinny model who is comfortable in her own skin and has the perfect image of what a women’s body should look like in 2018. This forms a sexualization of women when it comes to body image.
The view on sexualization from body image can be taken both ways for males and females. For females its getting to be at the level the models are at and looking at them and admiring their looks. Mara Aruguete and all other authors mention “Celebrity worship, enjoyment of sexualization, and eating pathology might be casually related. A strong attachment to celebrities, at least for males, might lead to some appearance concerns that manifest themselves as enjoyment of being sexualized and eating pathology” (Aruguete, et al. 231). Body image causes a lot of those personal feelings and it is negatively affecting people. Males are looking at the women models and are dreaming to find that perfect girl and only look at girls who can get that body image they want. This pushes women even harder to feel accepted in society based on their image. Females are constantly looking to lose weight and will do whatever it takes to lose those couple pounds a week. By doing this they are making themselves vulnerable to eating disorders so they can get that thin and fit body image that all the models have in magazines, movies, commercials and much more. This is shown in those examples by models who are tagged with sayings like “get this body in a matter of weeks” or “easy workout to lose weight” when they constantly worked hard for their body.
The media plays a huge part in depicting what the perfect body image should be for people. The media will expose all of its audience to the body image that should be acceptable in society. This mostly affects the female population as that’s who the mainly target. Shelly Grace and all other authors from the American Psychological Association pointed out that “Research suggests that exposure to mass media depicting the thin-ideal body may be linked to body disturbance in women” (Grabe, et al., 1). It is clear in today’s society that women are attacked constantly for their body image and that everyone woman out there must be up to male and other females standards of being fit, skinny, and having all the great looks they can get. The thin perspectives of women are “dominating the media” says the American Psychological Association. There are several TV shows and series of especially women where they compete using their body image to see who is the most perfect one and you never see men doing the same. This way they are being looked at can make these women feel unhappy with what they have and will try any and everything to get that perfect image. It mentions in the article from the APA that “Across movies, magazines, and television programs, thinness is consistently emphasized and rewarded for women….and the thin television characters are overrepresented while overweight characters are under presented” (Grabe, et al., 2). The myth that these thin perfectly imaged bodies are always privileged and are always looked at as the superior type affects the way especially women look at body image as a whole. It affects them psychologically, and mentally by causing them to try everything they can find and use whatever that model uses to get what they have.
Not only are females affected heavily by body image, but so are males. The Male body image is all about that muscular and strong man who can do anything you throw at him. A perfect example of one would be professional athlete LeBron James. In several magazine covers and advertisements he looks over the top muscular and has that dominant look on his face. Authors of the article “Body Image Men” from Mirror-Mirror hit the idea that “Men begin to develop their body image when they are still children, based on parental cues” (Mirror-Mirror, 1) Which is a very true statement. Boys may look up to their fathers and even other peers and see what they should look like to match their peers or fatherly figures. But as they attend school and progress in society, their view on body image gets even bigger. Mirror-Mirror says “Men that are regularly exposed to unrealistic images in the media may also experience a poor body image” (Mirror-Mirror, 1). This is most likely due to them picking up those magazines and wanting to be able to be even stronger and more muscular and even more good looking then those men on the cover. They use the motivation of being able to look good and have all sorts of muscles and good looks they will be able to be attracted by several females which will boost their confidence. Body image for men can be very beneficial but can be a very touchy subject. You can be a average joe looking male and be able to eat more than you usually do and have the undivided motivation to go to the gym everyday and work towards that perfect body image that has been shown. But, the exception to that is that companies will show males all sorts of steroids and added ways to make your workout better and more beneficial. These steroids and additives are only going to improve your body image for a couple years and will eventually wear off. Males are always targeted to be heavily muscular and have all sorts of “good looks” to them. Mirror-Mirror notices this as they mention “A counselor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering reports that over the past decade, male college students have expressed increasing degrees of dissatisfaction with their bodies” (Mirror-Mirror, 1) This is mainly due to them reading fitness magazines and seeing advertisements online and creating “greater dissatisfaction” (Mirror-Mirror, 1) than men who don’t look at those types of images. But recently in todays society men have started to stray away from the idea of having a perfect body image. It has become more of a problem with the female population. Men are beginning to not care so much like they used to about what they look like and this typically comes with age. Either way younger men are still looking at body image for themselves and seeing a very muscular, cut jaw line and toned body with abs and will do anything they can to achieve that lifestyle.
We have seen all sorts of ways how body image has included itself into the human society and has taken all sorts of myths along with it. The idea that the perfect body image can be gained with little effort, but really it takes dedication and a lot of motivation. All sorts of companies being able to put out ads for additives that look like they make an impact when really they don’t is allowing for all sorts of issues in both male and female body image perspectives. Body image should simply be a personal goal to get to where you want to be and should not be the definition of a super fit, and trained model or athlete who took years to get where they are and adding in that the “average joe” can achieve that easier than ever. If you give yourself the time and gain the motivation to get where you want to be physically, you will see huge improvements rather than using false additives and false images as a backboard to your view on the perfect body image.