Perfection: the beautiful, faultless faces on the covers of magazines, the stick-skinny girls in ostentatious outfits, and the toned figures of celebrities in photos. This aim for perfection is what women overestimate the most.When a woman picks up the new edition of "Cosmopolitan" and sulks over the "perfect" face on the cover, is that really what she is seeing? Is that picture perfect face with the glistening bright eyes, youthful clear skin, and gleaming white smile really what's behind the camera? Magazines, media, and photos are lies to the female population. What women are actually looking at is the deceiving tool of media: photo shop.
Photo shop is a device used by editors of magazines and advertisements that not only alters the way a person looks but also alters the minds of the viewer. The problem that precipitates from photo shop is the low self esteem of women and teens. Females tend to see these misleading images and wonder things like "Why can't I be as pretty as her?"or "Why can't I have her body?". The majority of women do not realize that none of it is real.
Come around December, the jealousy and envy kicks in once the Victoria Secret Fashion Show airs. Women lower their confidence once the skinny, lean models strut their stuff, but little do they know that the models are draining themselves from a lack of daily nutrients before the show. According to model Adriana Lima, for nine days before the show, the models can only have protein shakes and no solids. Also she explains her liquid diet in saying, “No liquids at all so you dry out, sometimes you can lose up to eight pounds just from that,”. If women knew that, probability is that they would lose their disheartening views and be content with their bodies. No one should try to live up to looking like the girls who consume nothing but protein shakes for a living.
Now some companies have promoted the idea of loving your body. Aerie, a lingerie store, has decided to ditch the airbrushing of ads and advocate the "real you". Their models are no longer retouched to look skinny and instead are advertised with their real bodies. Not only does this strong statement challenge supermodels of other companies, but also helps women realize that most models are edited to have the flawless figure.
Photo shop may make a model look great, but does no good to the female viewer. Generally, women become disappointed when they compare themselves to these "perfect" pictures of models. But if companies followed Aerie's lead in abandoning airbrush, then women will realize the dishonesty of photo shop and start to respect themselves more.
Source: http://blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com/celeb-watch/victorias-secret-angel-adriana-limas-supermodel-diet/
Hope, this post is good. My female students have been writing about this issue for several years. In fact, I think at least one female student in each of my last four AP classes has written a VERY strong junior research paper about this topic. Although I have read much about this issue about how mass media affects girls' self image, I still learn from this post. For that I am grateful. I was unaware that Victoria's Secret models had to starve themselves. Perhaps I should have known that. Also, I had not heard about the efforts of the Aerie stores. I appreciate that you have brought fresh information to a common topic. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThat said, there are some writing issues that I want to address. First, your thesis lacks precision. You write about "This aim for perfection...," yet when you wrote this, you had not yet introduce an "aim." You had only addressed tangible images. The other issue is that you rely extensively on "to be" verbs and the progressive verb tense. This causes your writing to lack punch. Stop by and I will explain this to you. There are a couple other technical issues that might be best explained in person.