Body Image, Media and Adolescence Part 1

Body Image, Media and Adolescence 

            Today’s youth are faced with enumerable challenges. These struggles can range from trying to make the school’s basketball team, pressure to fit in, confused by body changes, and raging hormones. To bigger issues which indirectly affect their daily lives like the ineffective educational systems that is under constant pressure to produce successful student so that our country can compete in the world market, or the high divorce and remarriage rate and the gradual disintegration of the family structure. It is without a doubt that today’s adolescent has got a lot on their plate, but one area in particular has become increasingly problematic, the issue of body image. Yet this isn’t something we often take notice of in our culture, sure there is the occasional Lifetime movie or episode on one the popular primetime shows about this issue, but the efforts to increase awareness have had little impact. Consider these findings as evidence of the widespread nature of the issue of body image has had on our nations’ youth, over one-third of males think their current size is too small, while only 10% of women consider their size too small (Field, et al., 1999). 50-88% of adolescent girls feel negatively about their body shape or size (Rand, et al., 1997). These are big and scary numbers, think about it, if you were to walk through one of today’s schools, one out of every three boys that would walk past you thinks their too small and 5 to 8 out of every 10 girls think negatively about their body! One would think with numbers that big there would be more awareness and greater concern about this issue, but it has only been in the last 20 to 30 years that attention and research has been done into this issue (Altabe & Thompson, 1996; Borchert & Heinberg, 1996). That is why I would like to investigate this topic and gain a greater understanding of what causes such prevalent body dissatisfaction among adolescents and its impact.

Startling Statistics: Definitions and the Problem

Health Canada defined body image as “The picture an individual has of his or her body, what it looks like in the mirror, and what he or she thinks it looks like to others” (Health Canada, 1994, p.29). In other words, body image is the dynamic perception of one’s body– how it looks, feels, and moves. Several elements go into the construction of body image, it is shaped by perception, emotions, physical sensations, and is not static, and however it is also variable to mood, physical experience, and environment. As if body image isn’t hard enough to deal with as an adult, adolescents experience significant physical changes in their bodies during puberty; which results in continuously changing perceptions of body image. So the question may arise, everyone struggles with body image so why it is so important to understand the adolescent experience of body image?  Because many problems related to body image start around this time, for example, in their study Fox, Page, Peters, Armstrong, & Kirby (1994) found that many eating disorders appear to start soon after puberty and persist through secondary school years. Therefore, what adolescents think and feel about their body during this age in particular has a significant impact for many years.

Another fascinating aspect of body image in adolescents is that body image is influenced strongly by self-esteem and self-evaluation, more so than by external evaluation by others. Now, some might think this is counter-intuitive, but our own perceptions matter a lot. Rand et al. did a study in 1997 that found only 30% of older adolescents surveyed consider their current size acceptable to them, while 85% of females and 95% of males considered their current size socially acceptable for others. It seems that adolescents judge harshly when it comes to their own bodies, but are more accepting of others bodies. So there are two major takeaways from what was just discussed, an adolescent’s body image has a major significance because that image with stick with them for many more years and most of their body image judgment is based on their own self-perceptions. This is very important to note, because it leads us to the next important question of, what shapes adolescents self-perceptions of body image? For that answer we turn to an analysis of the influential power culture has on adolescents self-perceptions.

To learn more read Part 2

Catfish is a great show and...

Maybe you have seen the new show Catfish on MTV. It centers around the experience of Nev Shulman (hope I'm spelling his name correctly), when he was "catfished", which I suppose means when you are having an online relationship with someone and they turn out to be someone they're actually not. This happened to Nev, so he's making a show to help others.

I gotta be honest the entertainment factor on this show is great. I mean the twist half way through the show, when the actual catfish on the other end of the modem is revealed, is brilliant. The shock, the fear, the utter drama, muah, beautiful! I savor the drama. But apart from the entertaining quality of the show, taking a step back, the show does give us an insight into the changing nature of relationship in our culture.

Since this is a blog, I don't  have to make an overt effort to be articulate, so here's my thoughts. Technology has in a way connects us in great ways, we are more connected than ever, but the quality of our connection is purely artificial. The internet degrades relationships. It reduces us, the entire multidimensionality complex interaction of personality, experience, family of origin, environment, language, culture, community etc... are reduced to a chat box. You are getting to know someone in such a restricted way. Now, don't get me wrong, the internet is a great thing, it has the potential to increase and facilitate preexisting relationships. But if your depending the internet for your only source of relationship and connection, all your really expressing and getting is a reduced and restricted form of relationship.

So this begs the question, is people depending on the internet for relationship the cause or the result of the problem? I think its true that technology has increased our contact with others, and has reduced meaningful contact among people. I also think life has sped up rapidly from even a hundred years ago, were doing more, working more, eating more, driving more, have more things, and have more bills, so its hard to meet that need for relationship. So people seek it out on the internet, and then people get dooped by Catfishes. So, not to cop out, but I think its a mixture of both cause and effect. It is a demonstration of a covert issue in our country, we don't know how to have balance, and how to connect with others in meaningful ways. The internet is convenient and easier.