Final Entry

I picked these topic because as a teen I struggled with my weight. Growing up in a Asian American family where all the women are petite I feel the pressure to look that way. The women in my family doesn't exercise still they are able to maintian their bodies; however, for me that's the opposite. I'm taller than almost everyone in my family and I weight more than them, but not like them I exercise daily yet they still called me "fat" and so on. When you look at me I'm not fat, rather I'm average weight. Since everyone in my family is so tiny therefore they percieve the idea that I'm overweight. Going to school I understand that everyone has their own unique body shape, there for someone might seem bigger compare to other, but that person might has let body fat percentage. So just by looking at someone appearance you can't judge if they are over weight or not. Due to the pressure of being thin, I decided to pick this topic for my paper to figure out how the media play a role in these factors.

At the end I just want my readers to understand that this topic is becoming a big issue since there are more cases of eating disorder, but most importantly that almost every women out there have their own insecurities that they can't overcome. However we can make the best of it, don't let that little flaw erase your confident. Don't let the media change our perspective on who we are individual so therefore when we look at the mirror we can admitt that we are truely beautful from inside out.

Entry #8

For the counter argument essay I took the stand that the media can have a positive in society. In this case I focused on the fact there are women out there who view the portray of the media as motivation to stay in shape and be heathy. Therefore they're benefiting from the media rather than view it as harming our psychological thinking causing us to change our oppinion the definition of "beauty". For example there are model and celeberties out there who are being pressure by the media to stay fit to gain more fans in return. They are always to pressure to look good and when they gain weight it becomes this controverssy. However there are a lot of celebreties and model out there who take the postitive turn when it comes to losing weight, they do it by exercise and eat healthy. In return they might influent their fans to eat healthy to gain the dream body they always wanted; instead of other methods like diet suplements, excessive exercise, and beiging after meals.

For my synthesis paper I took the stand that the media harm our society. In addition is altering the younger generation psychological thinking on what they percieve the ideal body figure that define beauty. There are more young girls nowadays at six years old already view that they are fat and start dieting. It seems like as our society is getting more evolve, there are more cases of eating disorder. Media might be ther underlying cause on some of the early case of eating disorder, especially when it comes to the entertainment bussiness; however; for those who suffered from eating period of time the reason might due to their feeling and emotion as a way to hide from the problems they are dealing with in their life.

Entry #7

Survey is useful for:
Prevalence of a particular practice.
Varying points of view.
Preferences.
Beliefs of a particular group related to your topic.
Feelings that emerge from that particular group.

Creating the survey let me know the audiences's perspective on body image. The survey I created focus based on women and girls, I wanted to get their perception on food, exercise, and their bodies over all. I ended up asking question that concerned their body shape, exercise, and how they eat. For example:

What do you consider your body shape is?
Have you ever been on a diet? If yes, what type of diet?
How oftern do you work out each week? And how long?
Do you wish to lose weight?
Do you count calorie?
How sastisfy are you with your body?

These are some of the question I asked to see the important of maintaining their physique and to find out their perspective on their own body. If they want to lose weight or not and how is that connect with the media.

The result I ended up guessing gave me mix signal, it showed that not all women care about their body image as much. Instead some are already happy with their figures, still they exercise and eat healthy to benefit their health rather than to strive for the ideal body.

Entry #6

Key Terms:

Social-Cultural Pressure
Perfectionism

Define
Social-Cultural Pressure: the need to strive for norm due to society expectation.
Perfectionism: refusal to accept any standard short of perfection. [dictionary.com]

I found these terma in the Psychology Journal on Ebcohost.

Media portrayal of the ultra-thin body image as the ideal body image is an example of social-cultural pressure to be thin to feel included in society. As a result women strive to achieve the idea of "perfectionism"; which based on outer appearance. Women go through risky diet and over excersise to achieve this body that we percieved as "beauty". In return it's just a trap for the different type of eating disorder.

If we asked most females nowadays on what is their ideal body type, we will hear a large number of similar answers. Especially in a society like the U.S, women tend to associate thinness as their desire body figure since we equate thinness with beauty. Why is that we must ask? Media constantly reflect images of famous thin portrayed as beautiful protagonist as a result we strive to measure up to the norm without realizing that the media doesn’t defined beauty instead we do. The fact that we are being surrounded by the media constantly as a result the ultra-thin ideal body image is being drilled to our psychological thinking causing us to belief that thinness guide to acceptance among our peer also to the larger society as well.

Entry #5

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-02-25-schiavo-eating-disorder_x.htm

According USA Today at age 26 Terri Schiavo was strikingly beautiful, but she spent her childhood as a chubby girl. She finally lost 65 lbs. in her late teens; however, keeping the weight off was a struggle for her. Years later her heart has stopped, cutting off oxygen to the brain since she had been trying to survive on liquids and was making herself throw up after meals. Her collapse was caused by” potassium imbalance” that brought by an eating disorder. Her husband Fox mentioned that Schiavo was a victim of societal pressure to be thin since she didn't want to go back to her original weight and extreme dieting was the only way she could do this in her mind and be able to eat as much as she did ("Schiavo Case", 2005). Schiavo case demonstrated the role the media can played in term of her death. She struggled to maintain her weight; therefore her only option was to pursue with the idea of extreme dieting. As a result she able to achieved the body she always desire for and also feel socially accepted within society; however, her death was the consequence for her decisions.

What's Eating You? Gaby's treatment

This video shows that an individual can improve from on eating disorder, like Gabby's case. She went through Casa Palmera Treatment Center to work on her emotion, body image issue, and most importantly work on herself. Before Gabby hated herself and used the eating disorder to hide her emotion. She learned to deal with the her eating disorder and share her feeling instead of hiding her problems with her sister that's what caused the eating disorder to emerge. After the treatment she learned to respect herself and became acknowledge the risks that come with berging. In return, she is a more happy Gabby than before.

Entry #4

Tyra Banks mentioned the different type of eating disorder such as anorexia, bulimia, and chronic exercise. These are eating disorders that are harmful for women to undertake to received their desire body image. As society is getting more evolve we see different more cases of eating disorder occurred. In this video Tyra Banks introduced Cassie who is 5'4'' and weight 85 lbs when the average weight for her is 125 lbs, yet to her that's 85 lbs too much. " I'm too fat to be here" Cassie said. That comment leave the audiences speechless because in reality when we look at her we probably thinking on how thin she is, but when she looked at her own reflection she only see how fat she is. Cassie who is suffered extreme dieting created a rule that it isn't acceptable for her if she consumed more than 15 calories. The psychologist mentioned that her early childhood of being burned can be one of the underlying causes of her eating disorder because eating disorder occurred when we search for the needs to be in control or the need of feeling safe. Therefore Cassie's early childhood trauma of being burn left scars on her body, but what even worst is that it left a memory of the pain that she has to suffered as a young child, therefore controlling her diet is a way for her to protect herself. At the end of the video when Tyra offered treatment to help her battle with her eating disorder; Cassie make a comment that she think she doesn't need it, but there are people out there with worst condition. In her opinion her case isn't as severe compared to others condition and it isn't harming her physical body. 

Entry #3

Question that asked your opinion on your physical characteristic such as "do you want to lose weight?". " what are the reason to lose weight? and do you think you're fat? If these questions were being asked among women and young girls who live in a globalization society such as U.S, most of them will have one specific answer. These questions don't give the writer much information to generate his or her ideas on the related topic. Instead question such as "how does the media harm society when it comes to the ideal of beauty?" This question isn't asking our specific opinion when it comes to our body, instead it asking our perception on media influence society when it comes to the ideal body image.

The media can played two role in our society, depend on how society view it. In this case I'm focusing on the media portraying on the ideal body image that as a society we perceived as beauty and what it can leads to. For the women and young girls out there, some might view it as a motivation to workout and become healthier to get the desire body type. However some might take another direction to get the result by starving themselves and excessive exercise. These two ways can either benefit or harm our society. For my paper I'm focusing on the media harm society by playing a role on the different type of eating disorders.

Using a survey is a good source to see if the people are aware that the media played a role on their perception of their own body and see how does it affects them by giving evidence showing that women are insecure about their own body by asking questions such as if they want to lose weight? And if they are happy with their own body? These questions are example to see if as a society most of us are insecure of our own physical characteristics.  The result might show that most women and young girls are probably not happy with their body now and what they do to get their desire body.