Media- magazines and internet

There is no denying the rather obvious fact that we are a media obsessed saturated culture.  As a teenager myself I feel that the media are glorifying thinness as if it is a cult you should aspire to be part of.  Young girls constantly desire to look like the models parading the pages of vogue (although some may not always admit to it) who are known to live on a cigarette, energy drink fuelled diet… hardly the role models of health? 

With girls reading about these diets in the media and seeing them as a good idea to get the stick thin perfect image they then embark on these diets, which sadly leads them down a deteriorating health path, leaving their bodies to cope with issues such as osteoporosis and hair loss. These ridiculous diets not only leave teenage girls nutritionally deprived but also can lead them down the eating disorder pathway.  No wonder there is a rise in eating disorders as these constant mixed messages combined with the media obsessed paradoxical society we live in can create a harmful atmosphere for young girls to grow up in. 

During my research I found out that magazines seemed to be the most influential piece of media on teenage girls. Popular magazines such as heat, closer, now and ok! never seem to be without a page focusing on weight, a diet or how “thin” a popular celebrity is, fuelling teenagers obsession even more. 

After speaking with one of the girls at my school she said that she constantly felt under pressure for no reason other than the fact that she should be thinner than she is due to what she sees in the magazines. She also felt that the clothing companies had a huge influence on the way she felt about her appearance, as when was the last time you saw topshop or boohoo advertise clothing on fuller figure girls? Was that “never” I hear you whisper?

Furthermore a lot of girls stated that if there wasn’t any media information on the calorie content of certain food, and that certain food groups such as carbohydrates where the "baddies" in diets then they would have no idea on the subject.  Demonstrating the fact that teenagers absorb much of the information that is displayed in magazines. Surely governmental agencies, health food companies, even popular clothing companies such as topshop who prove to be so influential to teenagers should be taking advantage of this fact and using it to provide teenagers with facts and images that are healthy and beneficial to our daily diets?

Along with images and ideas of the latest diet craze our magazines are filled with endless pictures of advertisement and endorsement deals. We watch adverts; we read about meal deals and are surrounded by them when we are on our lunch breaks or just out shopping.  Ironically the models and actors who promote consumption of all of the calorie laden unhealthy foods are usually slim and perceived as beautiful. Adding to teenagers’ confused perception of what they should and shouldn’t be eating, if models are eating all the McDonald’s they want, why can’t we? This paradox that we live in seems to be escalating eating problems and even levels of obesity.  

As a result of this we are seeing a huge gap between the ideal and normal body weight in teenagers, causing us to be constantly worried about our weight. This worry is definitely causing us to be obsessed with dieting and our image.  We then want to reduce our worry by embarking on a diet to control our diet, as we feel as if we can control our weight by this method, only to feel a sense of failure and embarrassment when we fall off the diet bandwagon.  From my research I found out that when girls fail their diets they then experience guilt symptoms and seek to resolve their failure by gorging on the food that was banned on the diet. Girls then may endure something called rebound binge eating and attempt to deal with this by going on further diets, leading people into a disturbed relationship with food, and may even lead into a never ending cycle of binge-purge type eating, and leaving many teenagers with a disturbed relationship with food. 

bbey Lee Kershaw and Freja beha Erichsen - two popular and successful models posed happily puffing  on a cigarette. Are these the types of images that encourage girls to embark on these so called "model" diets of cigarettes, diet drinks and apples? 

This gap between actual body sizes and the cultural idea of what body size we should be is getting significantly wider, giving rise to anxiety among all women but particularly teenagers. Ages 12 and up are really vulnerable as this is the age in which puberty hits and girls become more aware of the world that is going on around them, making them susceptible to any media influence. 

The media cannot be purely blamed for the way in which we teenagers take on board these images, yet they are definitely responsible for the way in which they handle and present these images to young girls. Personally I feel that the media has the potential to cause more harm than we think.