The Media's Influence on Teen Body Image

Anytime that you distill large portions of humanity down into a small sample of reality, you will come away with a distorted view of how the real world is or should be. It becomes an American Idol type of mentality. The media starts with tens of thousands of people and reduces the population down to a few stars. The dozen or two that make the cut if viewed in isolation will make it appear that all of humanity can sing, perform, or look like these few individuals.

When these people are not portrayed as a minute sampling of an enormous population, the message being sent is clear. The media wants those who view it to believe that everyone should look like these few. When the target market is teens at a highly vulnerable point in their identity formation, the consequences can be big. Teens today are bombarded with images of slim, trim, and physically attractive young people.

There is little wonder about why teens seem obsessed with starvation diets and have overstressed bodies from excessive exercise. The portrait of teen perfection is being broadcast on multiple cable channels daily. Teen magazines are filled with photo after photo of young teens with unrealistic bodies set up to be the ideal teen image. At the same time, these teen stars are glamorized by articles and pseudo-news shows that work hard to tell teens that all young people are envious of these bodies and the truly popular kids will transform themselves at any cost.

The result is eating disorders. Some teens who have become so convinced that their bodies will never appear like their teen idol begin to mutilate and do other damage to their bodies. In some cases, this is to make a statement that they are not good enough to be beautiful and attractive and never will be. The real tragedy comes in some young lives when the frustration and self-loathing builds until suicide seems the only possible way out.

Some teens who are able to reach some semblance of the teen idol image will work to push those who cannot achieve the look deeper into basement of low self-esteem. This has resulted with violent results in some instances where the frustration grew into a hatred for those they could never be like. All sorts of outcomes have occurred from shootings, to stalking, to murder. While these are quite extreme and rare, they do still happen.

As bad as these scenarios seem, they can become even worse when parents begin to push their teens into these roles. These parents may be condemning their offspring to lives of eating disorders, low self-image, and a host of other emotional, social, and psychological problems.