Statistics

According to Google Statistics there are 311.5919 million people in the United States, alone.




According to these charts, just over 30 million of those people are females between 5 and 19. Depending on the person, and their family, these females spend around 8 hours of their day consuming mass media. This can come in the form of television, books, magazines, internet, phone advertisements, billboards, posters, pictures on consumer items, and much more. Not all mass media can be harmful, but even a small percent of negativity in that 8 hours of media consumption can damage a person.

Teen Health and the Media researched and found these facts:
In a survey of girls 9-10 years old, 40% have tried to lose weight.
In a study on fifth graders, 10 year old girls and boys told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show "Friends".
One study reports that at age thirteen, 53% of American girls are "unhappy with their bodies." This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen.

More importantly, The National Institute of Mental Health says eating disorders affect more than 5 million Americans each year. Close to one thousand girls a year die due to anorexia. And nearly 10% of college females suffer from an eating disorder. Five to ten million adolescent girls and women struggle with eating disorders. According to The Center For Mental Health Services 90 percent of those who have eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25. The site goes on to say that "8,000,000 or more people in the United States have an eating disorder. 90% are women. Eating disorders usually start in the teens but may begin as early as age 8."

It is important to note that not only women are affected, but they are the majority. And the view of women that men are presented with through the media unintentionally hurts women. Men are presented with picture perfect barbie dolls who have had thousands of dollars spent on making them look amazing, and hours on end every day used up just to make them appear as they do. This causes men, and even women, to think that this is the norm. Men have higher standards for women, and hold their prospective girlfriends up to these standards. Normal girls can hardly contest with models, and feel as if they must go to extremes to appear perfect, and skinny. They starve themselves, and spend hundreds of dollars a month on makeup.

As a girl I know that all of this is true. I am 5'6" and weigh only 110 lbs. For my height I am underweight. Most of my friends weigh more than me, even the ones who are shorter than me. But I find it hard to look at myself without thinking I'm fat. I may be skinnier than I should be, but there are people who are even skinnier on movies and the television. I know I can be skinnier, and have problems eating. This mindset also hurts other people. When I call myself fat, if someone who is bigger than me overhears, they take it as if I am fat, they must be obese, even if they too are also underweight. The image that we have chosen to portray as beautiful is causing a lot of harm to our population.

Another side effect caused by images portrayed in the media of girls is over eating. Girls see these images and may realize that they do not look like that, and may never look like that, and they over eat. This causes them to gain weight, which makes them even more sad as they realize that they are farther away from "perfect." This sadness causes more eating, which leads to obesity.

In order to bring up self esteem and help stop negative outlooks on self-image we need to change what we think of as beautiful. As the public, we choose what goes far in the media, and if we continue consuming content that portrays such images then we will never break this mold.