Media's Negative Influence On Body Image

Media is a bigger part of everyday life than it ever has been before. Although the media has lots of positive effects, it also has many negative effects. One of these negative effects is the influence that the media has over body image. Peoples body image contentment has been decreasing as the use of media grows. Media negatively influences the body image of all ethnicities, genders and ages- all for its own profit.
The media promotes negative body image because thousands of companies that make a profit off of it. This is especially true with women. There are hundreds of products all designed to help women feel more beautiful. In order to continue selling these products, the media encourages girls to see themselves as objects and to place all

However, there are many other issues with body image that the media causes, and it especially affects minorities. For a long time, it was assumed only white women could have body image issues, so there is not a lot of research on how media affects minorities body image. Yet, minority groups are just as affected by the media, if not more. In fact, a Minnesota Adolescent Health Study showed that dieting is associated with weight dissatisfaction, perceived overweight, and low body pride in all ethnic groups. It is worth noting that Latino-American girls born to foreign parents are one of the groups with the highest eating disorder rates. This may be because American culture is much less accepting of different body types than other cultures are. This causes ethnic groups assimilating into American culture to be more likely to develop negative body images and eating disorders. It is almost a type of culture shock (“National Eating Disorders Association”). But weight is not the only thing the media tells minorities they should worry about. There is a very clear white standard of beauty in the media. This means that the media sends subliminal messages that white people are the most beautiful. For example, there have been magazine scandals where publishers whitened black models skin. There is also almost no representation of natural black hair or any minority groups. Minority girls are told from a young age that they are not as beautiful as white girls are. This is a terrible thing, but it is not an issue often talked about. This may be because white people control the majority of the media. Nonetheless, some facts that show weight is not the only factor contributing to minority negative body image. A study was conducted on the thinnest 25% of 6th and 7th grade girls and it showed that Hispanic and Asian girls in this group had more negative body