Children today face stringent expectation as to how they should look and act, according to their gender, to gain social acceptance. Children as young as five know that if they want to be well liked and lead a "normal, happy life," they must conform to our society's standards of beauty. These standards are taught to the members of our society using the media. Family values, friends, religion, and any other social factors that may affect children also teach them. Children see it everywhere, in movies, an television, in magazines, in t

Many studies have been conducted to show the media's effect on our society, especially on its children. A study by Paul Rosenkrantz, mentioned in the 1996 book, Am I Thin Enough Yet? noted that "(the) body... often frames our perceptions of what it means to be feminine and masculine [Hesse-Biber, 17]." Garfinkle, Schwartz, and Thompson (1996) tracked the proportions of Playboy centerfolds in a twenty-year study, completed in 1978. They found that as time passed, the models' heights increased as their bust and hip proportions decreased. The models depicted for the entire span of the study weighed thirteen to nineteen percent lower than did the average woman at the given time. Depictions like these set an unachievable standard for women whom men deemed attractive, which would eventually filter down to any given young girl's body image. This process would most likely be a combination of the girl's media exposure, and her perception of what men deemed attractive from listening to the comments the men around her made about women. These men, having had the standards raised by the centerfolds in Playboy, would now make harsher judgement on the women in their everyday lives, (which the little girl would pick up on through conversation) and how the men acted towards different types of women. This is not to say that man is a helpless being whose will is easily changed by the depictions in one magazine, but to point out the role that such magazines play in our culture.

he newspaper-if one wants to be successful, and one had better look the part. These lessons are reinforced throughout our lives; as we grow older, we learn a new set of expectations for ourselves, always with the media's help. For instance, a child of twelve years might learn from watching television or reading magazines [not to mention the pressures from other members of her society such as friends, family, and peers, who wish for her to conform], that it is getting to be time for her to start wearing makeup and show interest in boys. A boy of seven years might learn from both media and social cues that it is now less appropriate for his best friend to be the girl down the street, and more appropriate to replace her with the boy next door.

Two Harvard research studies pointed out the effect television and magazines have

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1549
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)