Americas Ideal Weight essays

Americas Ideal Weight essays American women constantly struggle with acceptance and appearance. Daily exposure to images of waif thin models and articles of diets that will improve your appearance and self-esteem only add to the strife. This mass exposure sways our struggle for acceptance by failing to show us diverse body types. With the huge number of females with eating disorders (5-10 million) in this country, the media who pushes thin is in everyday seems largely at blame.(5) Many people find it extremely disturbing to see an article on one page in a magazine of a young girl dying or suffering from anorexia, and on the next page an ad for clothing with an obviously underweight model. The obvious glorification of thinness in this country sends a dangerous message to women of all ages- yet who takes the blame? In a recent study taken by the Commonwealth Fund, 4 out of 5 American women find their appearance dissatisfactory and one half of women resort to some type of dieting.(5) This dissatisfaction clearly resonates from the media- mainly from magazines. Womens magazines are said to contain 10.5 times more advertisements and articles promoting weight loss than mens magazines.(5) Rarely do we see a woman on the cover of magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Glamour that weighs over 120 pounds. True, these magazines often include articles about losing weight in a healthy manner, but in a study of one teen magazine over a period of 20 years, most of the articles promoted weight loss saying it would improve appearance. Of these articles, 74% cited to become more attractive as a reason to exercise, and 51% noted the need to burn calories or lose weight. In the same study, adolescent girls were polled in regards to health issues and where they received the information. Ninety-seven per ...