What I thought before researching this topic is that it’s just normal to have large companies use unhuman like people and use photoshop to sell their product but I never thought what it does to the people and how it makes people think about themselves. Social media is near inescapable it rests in the palm of our hands all day. At any given moment young men and women have access to an infinite thread of images that have the power to change the way they feel about themselves as an individual. These images offer the perfect body, bright smiles and flawless skin. Of course the images have been filtered and cropped by the companies to create a far better version of the original.
What is seen is the final product reality is forgotten.The media has always had people point fingers in its direction when it comes to eating disorders and body image. The media have for decades been accused of portraying dangerous and false messages to young men and women, posting both silent and blatant messages of the type of body that should be aspired to. Eating disorders are caused for numerous reasons body shaming can be a part of that equation. According to the United States government health services, 25 million women and 15 million men suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their lives. These include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, or other specified feeding or eating disorder, Roughly 65 percent of people with eating disorders say bullying and body shaming in media contributed to their condition, The survey also found that 48 percent of the women said their eating disorder started before the age of 10 due to the unrealistic standard the media portrayed.
Due to this about every hour someone affected by this dies either to not being healthy or suicide according to Canadian government.I asked some of my neighbours and family what they think about this and my mom had this to say ” For women beauty is everything and the media portrays that if you don’t have big boobs, a big butt, a flat chest and small thighs that you are ugly.” Since I am not a girl nor am i affected by body shaming in media this is crazy to think about and how the abnormal is “normal in media”.My final thoughts are we should accept we aren’t like the people in media but we should embrace who we are. Ya maybe you don’t have a flat stomach or your skin is perfect but that doesn’t mean you are ugly or not normal. Everyone has flaws.
