Media Effecting Young Ones Image?

Turn on the radio; what is almost the first thing heard every time? Isn’t it the media trying to sell diet pills, weight loss programs, or maybe a top story on an actress that put on a few extra pounds and is supposedly letting go? In the article, “Beauty and Body Image in the Media”, the Media Awareness Network informs about women and girls getting their ideas of the perfect body and life from what they hear and see in the media. Teen girls are soaking up on the media’s trends because they want the perfect body and are willing to do anything for it. Teen Magazine reported that thirty five percent of girls six to twelve years old have been on at least one diet and that seventy percent of normal weight girls believe that they are overweight ("Media Awareness Network" 1). I would have to say that I, myself, hear this statement almost every day at school. Also in the article, it states, “Networks warn that weight control measures are now being taken by girls as young as five and six years old ("Media Awareness Network" 1).To me, the article should have gone more in-depth with that statement. From my own experience, when I was five and six, I didn’t choose the food that I ate; my caregiver did. Therefore, I could not even consider putting myself on a diet because I didn’t even know what a diet was nor was I making the choice of what foods I consumed. I understand when parents put their children on diets for health reasons and are told by their doctor to so, but I fully disapprove putting them on a diet because the media says to. Young children don’t choose to put themselves on diets because of their own concerns; they are manipulated by the media’s influence on their older siblings, parents and other family members.

Five and six year olds don’t pay attention to the weight loss commercials that are on television. If they are watching television, they are watching cartoons. The parents are the ones that are caught up in the diet pills and weight loss programs. They...