Visual Arguments Defining Beauty
The television turns on. Two lanky models sashay their way down the 2 foot wide runway wearing nothing but lingere from Victoria's Secret's newest line. Change the channel. Britney Spears Live from Las Vegas. Britney struts around stage in extreme low rise jeans and a halter-top dancing to "I'm a slave for you..." Millions of viewers watch these types of shows daily. We are force fed this definition of ideal beauty that says that you have to be tall, thin, and tan to be considered beautiful in our culture. Many teenage girls in our culture fall victim to this definition of beauty every year. They ultimately end up thinking that they have to be tall thin and tan to be beautiful and force themselves not to eat or regurgitate everything they do eat. The Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention (EDAP) website states that, "in the United States alone, 5-10 million women and girls have active, destructive eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorder and bulimia." There has never been another time in the history of our nation in which our body image plays such a major role in our everyday lives. With the various forms of media present today, we are being exposed to
thousands of images and messages that define this unattainable ideal body image as beautiful on a daily bases. The victims of eating disorders are classically adolescent females, although approximately 10% are males. Generally it is the females of our nation that feel the constant social pressure to live up to this definition of beauty that is most often beyond our reach. This social pressure often causes large amount damage to the physical and mental states of the person. Hollywood and the movie industry also play a key role in this ongoing problem. It is a cardinal rule in the movie business that sex and beauty sell. If you watch any prime time television show you will notice that most of the female characters are very small in size. Rarley can you find on that is over a size 5. If you do come across one, they are commonly the fat hairy guys who live across the street and are continuously made a fun of. It is becoming customary to believe that we must all look and live as though we were on a television show. There is no one person in the entertainment industry who sells the message that you can lead a happy life even if you do not fit the cookie cutter image of life as seen on tv. To fully understand the crisis at hand, we must look at the reasons this is a problem. Why has the female body been pushed into the limelight of society and media? It is indisputable that it is all a mere marketing maneuvers. The beauty industry is a multimillion-dollar business. Compani
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Approximate Word count = 1103
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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