Body Image and the Media

The huge impact that the media has today on women is extremely negative and damaging to their self-esteem and body image. Every commercial and infomercial on t.v., in magazines, on billboards, on pop-up computer ads, and more are telling women how they should change their bodies and what they can use to do so. It is sad to see just how many forms of media are constantly telling women they aren't good enough and should change to either get more friends, find a man, or be happier with themselves. What's odd is that one of Americans' biggest values is individualism or independence, but these ads teach women to be anything but different. The media today is telling women to become clones of one other with perfect physical features, which is not in any way promoting women to be individuals. When I was younger, I can remember numerous occasions where my older sister would look at the women in magazine advertisements and say, "I want to look like THAT!" Little did she know that the women in those ads don't even look like that. Women base what they should look and be like off of computer generated images that are in no way real. How can we look like models if the models themselves aren't actually that pretty and perfect? It would be ideal if American women would take a step back and realize that there is no such thing as "perfect" and they should be happy and comfortable with themselves just the way they are.