Opinion: The body image in the media

I have a theory that if something shows up on the television or the Internet, we, the viewers, normalize it. No matter how initially shocking the picture or information may be, the fact that we are seeing it in the form of mass media, we get used to it. That’s where the subliminal messaging comes in; because we are over-exposed to advertising, we don’t realize how it affects our thinking.

According to the American Time Use Survey of 2010, the activity that takes up the most time in our lives is watching TV. On average, people 15 and up spend 2.7 hours per day in front of the television. That’s almost 19 hours a week, around 81 hours in a month, and more than 900 hours in a year. That doesn’t even account for an entire lifetime.

I don’t think television is evil, but I think people underestimate how much it affects them. If we spend a year of our life watching more than 900 hours of TV, you expect that to affect our thoughts.

The kinds of shows that keep popping up never cease to disgust me. There are plenty of people who watch “Toddlers & Tiaras,” where little girls are taught to value their looks and “personality” over any actual talent. Girls from the age of 4 are putting on pounds of make-up as if they’re middle-aged women. Some children have spray tans. One girl had to wear fake teeth. They undergo beauty rituals that are normally reserved for teenagers and older women.

I remember seeing a special on E! that featured two people who had undergone extreme amounts of plastic surgery. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good reasons to have that kind of surgery—correcting a congenital defect, repairing a shattered face, or replacing breasts after a mastectomy. Yet it seems that those who go under the knife for anything other than a “legit” reason are put on display for mockery. Like “Toddlers & Tiaras,” we the viewers are supposed to laugh at these people who have become caricatures of human beings in the search for beauty. But we aren’t the ones who feel the effects.

Don’t get me started on commercials. There was the Shake Weight commercials where for women, the Shake Weight supposedly could help turn your arms “from flab to fab.” For men, the Shake Weight’s promise was almost the opposite— to add “definition, size, and strength.” But that’s not even the worst—an advertisement for Multi Grain Cheerios says, “More grains, less you!”

Thanks, but no. I’ll stick with Lucky Charms and be more of myself. Losing weight, if it means improving your health, is a good thing, but the way weight loss commercials are worded  doesn’t sit well with me. It seems advertisers try and tell women to want to be small, slender and “less you.” And advertisers try and encourage men to be fit, strong and muscular.

So many commercials for weight loss could send the wrong message — that we’re fat and need to lose weight. I think we should just stop doing this to ourselves. I think we should just calm down on the weight loss, the fat-phobia, plastic surgery and the obsession with appearance and just…read a book.

Posted by Patricia Frederickson on Feb 9 2012. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.