Saying that media now a day is fixated with body image is not at all an overstatement. Switch on any TV channel or review any magazine or watch any movie and you get a typecast body image of a female and male. This is the body image that is regarded as handsome and sexy. Any other body image not fitting into that narrow mold is considered either ugly or ‘nerd’.
Female body images are everywhere. Their body images sell everything, from food to car. Only those actresses are hired who are younger and slimmer in Film and TV . They cross all limits by starving to fit into that universally desirable body image. This self-imposed torture has in some cases been so severe that some of them have fainted on the sets.
Why are these standards of industry imposed only on women, although most of whom are mature and conscious? Some analysts believe that this is due to ‘economic’ recession. Cosmetic and diet industry manipulate this situation because they know that this body image is going to give them business. So advertising a body image of beauty looks and sex appeal is all what they want. Women surely are aging so by promising them a magic to reverse the impact of time on their body they are thus being deluded of the body image which they will never have. This works perfect for the industry. The constant onslaught of visuals of thin, trim, and slim women leads to depression, loss of self-esteem, resulting in unhealthy eating habits and the other physical and mental disorders. According to Anorexia Nervosa & Related Disorders inc. one in four young women uses unhealthy weight control methods as ‘fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercise, laxative abuse and self-induced vomiting’ With the increase in weight among Americans, the Playboy magazine increased the promotion of skinniness over the period1959 to 1978. Contestants to Miss America pageant were taken in by this craze and tried to weigh less than the other contestants. The craze of looking glamorous and slim has such an overpowering obsession amongst women that the risks involved in smoking and unhealthy dieting habits weigh far less.
Many studies have proved the negative impact of the media that has on an individual, especially women by constantly raising their expectations to achieve a body image that is literally unattainable. "Researchers generating a computer model of a woman with Barbie doll proportions for example, found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel. A real woman built that way would suffer from chronic diarrhea and eventually dies from malnutrition"