Body Image

By; Sarah Keller

We have all heard that girls in the world today are viewing themselves poorly, that they have low self esteem and low body image. Where are girls getting this idea from? As many may know, they are receiving this poor perception from the media, whether it is by watching movies with very thin stars or reading popular teenage magazines.

When I was younger I loved Seventeen magazine. I thought they were great, they always wrote about how young girls should perceive themselves as beautiful no matter what shape they were, they even tried to put “bigger models” in the magazines to show that it does not matter what size young girls are. Looking back at it now though the models that they showed as being “plus size” were what I would call normal size, such as a size eight or nine. If they are taking women who are normal size and putting them in under the category of “plus size”, how do you think that affects girls today? If journalists show young girls that they are considered “plus size” if they are not a size five or below, it is going to give girls a poor self image.

I do appreciate that Seventeen tries to mix up their models, but they need to let girls know that they are “normal” if they are above a size five. Magazines today such as Cosmo Girl, Allure, and Seventeen are putting sections in their magazines for workout exercises. I think it’s great that they are trying to get girls to stay healthy, because obesity is also a big issue in today’s society, but maybe in their pictures they should not get stick sized girls to do all of the workouts; it might lower girls self esteems if they do not look like the models in those pictures.

Some magazines have done spreads over Whitney Thompson Who was the “America’s next top model” winner last year; she was the first “plus size” model that had ever won the show. Magazines think that it is great that they are showing girls that even if you are the size of Whitney you are still beautiful and not fat, of course your not fat, Whitney only wears between the sizes of eight and twelve. According to an article in The New York Times, the “average” woman wears between the sizes of 12-14; even Marylyn Monroe may have worn a 14 at one point.

Models are wearing smaller and smaller sizes today, and I think that we need to take it back to the way things used to be and have models wearing bigger sizes so girls today do not get the wrong image, it is up to journalists to show young girls that they are beautiful and that they are normal even if they are not a size two.