In My Opinion...

        After researching and learning a lot about body image and how greatly an influence the media is to men and women of all ages, I've come to a conclusion. The media is never going to change the way they want their celebrities and stars to look. Although now shows like "America's Next Top Model" have contestants on it that are plus sized models, you'll never see a Victoria's Secret plus size model. No matter what direction the country is trying to gear towards the closed mindedness and stubbornness of some will never be lost. I've also come to find that the media is greatly responsible for the way people want to look and what they think is normal. Through digital enhancing, personal assistants and stylists, or plastic surgery, the celebrities that most people look up to are in someways fake! The media puts out commercials for diets that use the bandwagon advertising methods that make the viewers think everyone else is either skinny and the people that aren't are going on these special diets. People are now also programmed to think that only being skinny is socially acceptable and for those people that aren't they have life a lot easier if they let the pressure of being "a size 2" get to them.

              I've also come to find that parents and teachers can put too much pressure on kids. When parents have such high standards of what they want their child to be sometimes it causes the child to have illness' such as anorexia or bulimia. Until our society and media changes the way it influences people and what messages it sends out, it will be very hard to get the society as a whole to change its views.