Who Decided What Beauty Is?
DeVry University
Introduction
In the article Body Image and the Media: An Overview, Ballaro (2013) discusses the impact of media on the influence of our perceptions of ourselves. There is evidence to support the theory that the effect of advertising and media for the prevalence of eating disorders and body distortion pathologies. This article reveals an insightful account that identifies the history, facts, and outcomes of the effects the media has had on the self-esteem of people of all races, cultures, and genders, and the resulting physical, mental and emotional issues resulting from a negative body and image perception.
Standards of beauty have changed over the last hundred years, emphasizing a standard of appearance that is unattainable for most, which can lead to self-abuse. Media and marketing are the true ‘culprits’ that send messages, often insidiously, that we are not acceptable unless we look a certain way. In a pursuit of an unattainable ‘idealized’ body, starvation, steroids, binging and purging, and abuse of nutritional ‘supplements’ have skyrocketed. New terms such as “bigorexia” (Ballaro, 2013), speak to the fact that women are not the only ones suffering the effects of the pressure to conform to an idealized standard of beauty.
Ballaro provides an objective account of past and present trends and the transition of the definition of beauty that has taken place, to provide readers with information about the devastating effects that have crippled our perceptions of our bodies and our self-worth. Beginning in the 1920’s, emphasis on physical beauty has metamorphosed into a multi-billion dollar business. The business of making people feel badly about themselves because they will never fit an idealized mold of what society has deemed acceptable. For women it is skeletally thin with big breasts, for men, tall, lean and muscular. How we view ourselves has been imprinted on us...