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media and body image

Do You See What I See?: the Link Identifying Women, Beauty, and Body Image

What image do you see whenever you look at yourself in the mirror?

Do you see a beautiful, self-possessed, and confident woman eager to live life and ever-ready to face whatever challenge life has to offer? Or do you see an unattractive female full of self-doubt and so conspicuously flawed that she could hardly stand the sight of her horrid reflection?

Since time immemorial, the connotative reference of beauty to women and vice-versa has ingrained the universal idea implying the need for women to become physically appealing creatures. In effect, it could not be helped that majority of women have an inherent tendency to become partially but frequently preoccupied with issues concerning their physical appearance. Our body image—how we see ourselves physically—performs an integral part in how we interact and present ourselves to the world at large. It determines our level of self-esteem which in turn affects the manner and extent of our performance in our daily functions and social interactions.

Analyzing the reflections we see in our minds

The body image we have of ourselves has little to do with the actual quality or state of our physical features. Even a woman possessed with drop-dead gorgeous looks can have a poor body image if she sees herself as unattractive every time she faces the mirror. This is explained by the primary factors determining body image: our thoughts and feelings about ourselves based on our physical appearances.

Having a poor body image impacts our way of life. As in most cases, women these days are driven to undergo rigorous exercises, fad diets, and various cosmetic surgeries in pursuit of physical beauty. The non-verbally imposed standards of beauty prevalently determined by a variety of current social and commercial factors made popular through media have led women to assess their appearances in accordance to them. As a result, almost half of the entire female population in modern societies these days either overestimate their body size or underestimate their physical attractiveness; worse, they could be controlled by both self-deprecating perceptions. As such, allowing these ideas to take hold and sink in could make us feel depressed and anxious to the point of coming down with psychological illnesses requiring antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications.

Seeing our true reflections

With the powerful influence of media, detaching ourselves from these controlling notions surrounding “ideal beauty” can be hard. But since our minds are ours to control, we are still in full possession of every right and power to dictate the manner in which we see ourselves. Focusing on the wonderful things our bodies are capable of is particularly helpful. Moreover, bearing in mind that our physicality only takes up a small fraction of our entirety keeps us grounded on the truth that our personalities and minds make up more than half of who we truly are. Determining beauty would always be reliant on the personal opinion and assessment of the one looking at us. And the most important person whose opinion and assessment of our beauty would figure greatly more than anyone else’s is none other than ourselves. In the end, seeing and accepting ourselves as the beautiful women we truly are, are our most commendable features that really deserve far more than just a passing glance.

About the Author

Felicity Maris Modesto is a content writer/editor and visual artist with a passion for topics delving on health and personal improvement. She is interested in the emerging online pharmacy industry. For more information on cheap pharmacy online, visit www.cheappharmacy.ca

Title for a Psychology Dissertation on Body Image?

I am doing a Masters in Psychology. I also did Psychology for my undergraduate degree and focused my project/dissertation on Eating behaviour.

Hi Kiera. I just wrote a paper and gave a presentation on Tuesday about ‘Pro ana/mia’ websites influence on body image. I know how you feel, because there is quite a lot of stuff already out there on media (magazines especially) and its relation to body image, but when i did my study i realised that the internet as a kinda new media vehicle, is quite under researched still, especially in the UK.
I also wrote about quite a few theories and then turned them on their heads in the conclusion, i.e i used the theories to then say how these theories can be utilised in order to help treat people with ED’s or body image problems.
A good dissertation title may be “How can Psychologists help make the world a better place” or more specifically “How can social psychologists help make the world a better a place”

I included these theories:
Classical Conditioning
Behaviourism
Operant conditioning
Social representation theory

amongst others. I included a bit (under the social rep theory part) about how ‘Pro ana’s’ symbolise/identify themselves by wearing these red beaded bracelets, as if to symbolise like belonging to a group- much like lots of groups in society use a symbol to identify and represent themselves (I.E like the nazi’s, christians, socialists, alcoholics anonymous ect all use a symbol), then i used this in my conclusion and mentioned how a ‘pro recovery’ group could be formed using a new symbol (maybe a green bracelet for example).
It may help you to know that I scored a really high mark for this (a first) so at least you know if you wrote it up well and did research on the things i’ve mentioned, you could do a really good dissertation honey. Hope i’ve helped a bit x

Body Image In The Media