Negative Self Image

The media causes girls to have negative self images.  Many shows portray women as skinny, sexy, tall, and perfect.  They do not have blemishes, and they tend seem as if they are carefully sculpted.  Many of them also are covered in copious amounts of makeup.  They show women who are very different from the average girl.  They see images such as these:

They wonder why they are not that skinny or tall.  They worry that their hair is not that perfect, or that their skin is not pure enough. Girls begin to think that they do not dress correctly.  They think they look stupid, fat, imperfect, or even wrong.






A girl may look like one of these girls:

All of these girls are beautiful.  But they all have features that keep them from being what we refer to as the ideal look for a girl.  One girl has braces, the another has acne, and another is not super skinny.  None of these girls are wearing make up, or dressed promiscuously.  They look beautiful, but many girls who look just like this have body image issues, which lead to eating disorders.  The get anorexia, and refuse to eat food, which can cause serious physical harm.  Girls also get bulimia, which is where they eat food, but then throw it up so it is not in their bodies anymore.  Girls will also go on binge diets, or alter their eating patterns so they eat less food.  They will work out excessively, trying to lose weight so they can be as skinny as models. Some girls even self mutilate because they dislike their body image.  Cutting has become huge, and can even result in the loss of life.  

Shows like America's Next Top Model,  Make Me a Supermodel, Sex and the City, and many more cause girls to think that that is how they should look.  Movies, portraits, and advertisements that portray women as more than average leave negative ideas in young girls heads.  Young girls are not very media literate, and it is hard for them to tell that many of these people are not healthy, or even may be photoshopped.  They see that they look different, and since they are famous they look better, not different.  It is important for us to teach girls the difference between what is real in the media, and that while models may be appealing, that does not mean that they are not.

There are many sites dedicated to help stop these side effects of the media on girls:

1. National Eating Disorders
2. National Institute of Mental Health
3. National Association for Self Esteem
4. More Self Esteem 
5. Teen Health
6. The Dove Campaign