There has always been the dilemma where individual people complain about society but what we don’t realize is that together, we are society. We base our first judgement of people by how they look, such as how they walk, their facial expressions, and their clothing quality. Our second judgement of a person is how they talk to us, to others, and additional information they give us. Teenagers, and everybody else around the world make up society, and what society really is, is the popular opinionated ideas of what and how things should be. Thus making the media exploit these. If someone isn’t “perfect,” they are weird and different. For years, people have based their looks on what the media says how they should be. Society always has this idea of a “perfect image,” of how we, humans should look like which as individuals we try to live up to subconsciously because it’s normal.

Many surveys have been done to show how children and adults feel about themselves and their image. There is pressure to be perfect especially towards younger people, and as time goes on, the age of people who worry about their appearance keeps getting younger. A survey done by the, National Institute on Media and the Family, shows that, 40% of girls ages nine and ten, try to lose weight. Also, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, National Center for Health Statistics, National Eating Disorders, and SAMHSA's National Mental Health Information Center, they stated that about one in ten women in college suffer from an eating disorder. This is proof that the media is bringing society down. It’s showing girls just the ages of nine and ten are feeling self conscious, and are not owning who they are. These girls look around at magazines, at these fake images, and compare themselves to the “barbie doll” in the photo. By trying to lose weight, it’s a cry for help saying, “I want to be more like this person.” If someone was truly okay with who they were, losing weight would not be a priority of theirs. In the second statistic, it’s almost not just young girls who want to be thinner. Almost everyday we see a magazine, or a tv commercial with a skinny model, male or female, and that image is pressed into our minds. These young adolescents and young adults have eating disorders because they don’t like themselves. They don’t just go through it or are born with it, they suffer from it. They suffer from the daily image they see in the media as the, “perfect image,” and throw up in a stall, or starve themselves thinking it will give them the best body society has ever seen. Individuals are subconsciously comparing themselves which drops their self esteem. These people realize they are different from the models in magazines, and ads, but what they don’t realize is that they want to be the perfect image. They feel as if it’s their time to shine, and the only way to do that is by unhealthy change.

There have also been studies to show that people who are more attractive are more likely to have advantages, and there reasons as to why. Social Issues Research Centre(SIRC) describes the benefits attractive kids tend to have, and states three reasons why people are affected by body image. One of the studies showed that attractive children are more popular with children their age, and their teachers. Now it’s not as if children and teachers consciously like more attractive kids better, but we’re brought up to realize that beauty is better. The study also showed that more attractive people were able to get better jobs. In an US study, taller men earned $600 more per inch(in height) than shorter men in their same job. As individuals we notice these advantages when they aren’t happening to us. Thanks to media we are constantly subjected to the idea of, “beauty is skinny, tall, pretty face, etc.,” on TV, magazines, and other social media. This affects business owners, we see height as an advantage to be more successful. By being subjected to this idea, we are more likely to change but in unhealthy ways, but we don’t always see that when we change, it is related to all the propaganda we are hit with daily. Humans seeing the “perfect image” is just like humans eating everyday. It’s a natural thing, and this “perfect image” we try to live up to is constantly in our faces, it’s a natural habit so we don’t notice it because it’s “normal.”

Another study was on the type of magazines teenagers read and how closely they payed attention to the pictures they saw. Renee Botta took about 400 teenage girls and boys(about 200 of each), and the three main categories read were sports, fitness/health, and fashion. When Renee asked how often the teenagers compared themselves to the models, the teenagers had a bigger drive to be thin, and a decreased body satisfaction. Especially due to fitness/health magazines, they have had the worst impact on teens. Girls had increased anorexic and bulimic behaviors. These teenagers want to be the “perfect image” of beauty, they know they’re comparing themselves but they see it as normal because that’s what the media shows. When we read these magazines, or see these ads on TV, we trust what we see because it’s the adults who come up with these products. It’s a natural instinct for us to trust our elders, implying that what we see must be some form of normality. Society is pressuring us humans to be better than who we are, so we change ourselves subconsciously bit by bit, without realizing the true cause because it’s hidden by the everyday image. We don’t see the deeper meaning.

There is pressure all around us to improve who we are. Media has all this social media and public speakers to make us feel like we must to be this “perfect image” of being thinner, taller, and prettier, but it’s all covered up to make it seem okay. What we don’t realize is that we try to live up to that standard because it’s normal to us. If we pay more attention to how we feel about ourselves, then by constantly looking at the media’s propaganda maybe it won’t affect us as much if we are not this “perfect image.” We should be aware of who we are, and stop trying to be this unnatural depiction of how humans should be. Society lets the media have control, and with that control, they are feeding us lies about self image.