User:Eleonor.thomas/sandbox

Edited the heading within the body image page from sex differences to gender differences.
 * Was a suggestion that another user had given over a year ago but was never made.

Additional work will be done to this page for my assignment. I plan on doing additional research on how body image affects age, race along with socioeconomic status. Ideas on other information to be added to the body image page:
 * more on both male/female perspective
 * current page skims the surface of the issues but does not go into great detail on the topics which kind of seems like an issue
 * rate at which body image issues are growing or decline in today's society due to societal pressure
 * deception of Photoshop/behind photo editing
 * article talks about how women in society feel insecure about their bodies due to the pictures that are found/seen through today's media.

Dismantling the media pressures of body image
The negative influence of the media's promotion of often unrealistic and concretely unattainable images of beauty has, at least in more recent times, been noted and criticized. Films and campaigns have been put in place to dismantle the pressure and show the ugly truth behind media. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, the documentary called Miss Representation along the documentary America the Beautiful all address the damage done to citizens of both by sexes by the media's promotion of materially impossible criteria of physical attractiveness.

Feminist women were studied during a study done by Lisa R. Rubin, Carol J. Nemeroff and Nancy Felipe Russo at Arizona State University on body consciousness. The following quote describes how feminism seems to be a safety net for women in regards to the media. "Feminism appears to be a life-raft in the sea of media imagery. Specifically, feminist perspectives celebrate diversity among women, including body size diversity." An example of this is the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. In 2006, Dove launched the Real Beauty Campaign which promotes the Dove Self-Esteem Fund with the award winning advertisement, Evolution. The following link sends you to YouTube and shows the advertisement. The advertisement shows the many levels of deception that take place while photo editing that could be beneficial for individuals to watch. The clip encourages viewers to realize the ugly truth of photo editing. Viewers will watch the work put into beauty regiments before the shoot for the model but Evolution also shows how many edits and changes are made to create the perfect images that are plastered throughout media.

Miss Representation is a documentary exploring and displaying the role that mainstream media plays in society today with regards to women. Prominent women in today's society were featured in discussing how the media has impacted their life along with their views on how the media is impacting the lives of people from an early age. These media messages have a severe impact on how individuals carry themselves along with what aspects bog them down like insecurities with body image. This film encourages viewers to start to see beyond the message and not compare themselves to these picture perfect computer-generated images.

The 2007 documentary America the Beautiful explores how the fashion and beauty industries are contributing to the problems that individuals feel regarding body image due to their beauty obsession. The film discusses a wide range of topics like plastic surgery, dieting, eating disorders, the modeling industry along with the fashion industry and much more. Young middle-school aged girls were portrayed in the beginning of the film and asked if they found themselves beautiful. The girls who are around the ages of 13 had decided that they were not beautiful. In today's society, people are starting to see themselves as ugly at an earlier age than ever before. As individuals who identify as ugly increase, the number of body image issues also increase.

In a study done at Old Dominion University, Thomas F. Cash, Julie R. Ancis and Melissa D. Strachan studied college women and their attitudes toward gender, feminist identity and body image. "Relative to men, women are considerably more psychologically invested in their appearance. Moreover, women's poor evaluations of and stronger investments in their looks potentiate greater body-image dysphoria in women's daily lives." A contributing factor in this scenario that leads women to greater objectify of their bodies are the images that are seen throughout media. Women who are portrayed throughout media posses unattainable beauty. "Furthermore, the social construct of femininity is partially tied to perceived beauty, as evinced by the 'what is beautiful sex-typed' stereotype." These internalized ideals along with the pursuit for this unattainable beauty of one's body image can lead to body dysmorphic disorder, body objectification, eating disorders, anxiety, depression and other related psychological difficulties.

In the same study from Arizona State University, it was said that the idea of beauty is generated from these media messages. "Cultural messages about beauty (i.e what it is, how it should be cultivated, and how it will be rewarded) are often implicitly conveyed through media representations of women." The 2007 documentary America the Beautiful explores the role of the fashion and beauty in contributing to the problems that individuals feel regarding body image due to their beauty obsession. The film discusses a wide range of topics like plastic surgery, dieting, eating disorders modeling industry and much more.

In the study from Old Dominion University, the authors state the importance of research in this area. "Given the centrality of body image in clinical and subclincial eating disturbances that are so prevalent among women, research on gender and body image has substantial importance." Even though there is research being done, there is still much more work to be done to help individuals who struggle with their body image.