Observation Activity Part 2

I was walking through walmart with my sister and passed the magazine aisle. Almost every magazine cover had a woman. A woman showing flawless skin, flat stomach, perfect body, amazing, soft, shiny hair, and expensive clothing. These magazine covers also had words written on them of how to obtain such perfection.

“Wake up Hotter!” (Cosmopolitan)

“Your do anywhere workout!” (Self)

“Water Diet” (HealthyLiving)

“Step up your skin and hair game!” (Seventeen)

“Prettier than ever! Glowy skin, gorgeous makeup, and jaw-dropping hair!” (Seventeen Prom)

“Beauty Buz! Whaat’s new now” (TeenProm)

“Hot Tips! Run off pounds, best workouts to slim down!” (WomenRunning)

“Fight flab and win! Ways to eat light and love it! Get glowing! Rewire your cravings!” (Health)

“Happy new you! 10 hot trends for 2015” (New Hair Trends)

“Get arms like this! Complete, total body plan. Lose fat fast!” (Oxygen)

“Lose your belly! See and feel results in just one day! 21 day tummy plan!” (Reader’s Digest)

“Drop 10 pounds you won’t gain back! Change one thing… Shrink a dress size! Doctors secret for great skin!” (Dr. Oz The Good Life)

“Lose your sugar belly! Drop pounds now!” (Sugar Detox Made Easy)

“Shed two sizes! Burn more calories in less time! Get glowing with 16 instant beauty boosters! Diet hacks that help you lose--for good!” (Fitness)

“Lean and sexy! Secrets to a slimmer body. 74 moves for hot legs, tight butt, firm arms. 80 easy ways to torch mega calories!” (Womens Health Training Guide)

“Hair makeovers! Skin turnaround! Perky breasts!” (Allure)

“Look sexy now! The future of anti-aging! Beautiful!” (New Beauty)

Most of these covers promised happiness along with this idea of a perfect body. As though if you weren’t skinny with a flat stomach, firm arms, a tight butt, perky breasts, flawless skin and hair, then you can never achieve true happiness. The media is screaming at us to invest all of our time and money into something to incredibly impossible. I noticed they target young audiences too with their teen editions. Young, impressionable girls are fed these standards and they make these women go to incredible and deadly lengths to try and achieve them.

Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from eating disorders. Eating disorders that are caused by our society telling us that we will never be good enough. Telling us that we will never be happy. Because we will never be flawless. no one can become these practically computer generated beings that we are faced with through advertisement and merchandising every day. So:

• Why does society keep feeding us our flaws, with dictation and laws on who we must become?
• we live in a day and age now where we know that eating disorders are a mental illness. A problem that is extremely real, and extremely deadly. So why does nobody seem to care enough to stand up and fight about this? Put an end to body shaming?

Observation Activity #1

• Music:
• (Jan 7, 4pm. Switching through FM radio stations) Song lyrics these days are all about sex, body shaming, love and heartbreak. Why? Why is our society so focused on these four topics? you see them in movies as well.
• Societies set standards:
• ( Jan 8, 8pm. Saw my mom watching Americas Next Top Model and thought) Skinny, fat, ugly, pretty, built, strong, weak.. Society categorizes us like animals. Leading to things like:
• Eating Disorders.
• Seeing magazine--Eating Disorders:
• (Jan 7, 4pm. saw a magazine at the check out line) A huge problem in our society. it can affect males and females of all ages. we often only hear about women suffering from anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorders, but they affect men as well. Males make up to 10%-15% of anorexia nervosa cases. Anorexia is the most common cause of death for women ages 15-24.
• There are four main leading causes of an eating disorder:
• genetic factors
• life stressors
• cultural expectations
• mental or behavioral disorders

 

Summarize one observation:

 

Our culture and society as a whole has drifted away from health into a realm of ultimate beauty. It feeds us our flaws with these dictations and laws on how we should be. from the time we are born society teaches us our first words: skinny, pretty, strong, skinny, beautiful, skinny, tall, perfect, skinny. And these cultural expectations influence so many people in deadly ways. It needs to end. Now. And it can affect males and females of all ages. We often only hear about women suffering from anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorders, but they affect men as well. Males make up to 10%-15% of anorexia nervosa cases. Anorexia is the most common cause of death for women ages 15-24.

Why does the media keep feeding us these lies filled with body shaming, when they know it is literally killing hundreds of thousands of people every year?