"I wanna be like her"

Have you ever looked in the mirror and not been satisfied with what you have seen? Thinking, "Oh no, I'm fat, I have a big belly, I should lose weight, I should stop eating this and that..." These and similar thoughts go through every day mostly girls' and women's mind, but it's not completely uncommon among boys and men either. WHY? Why cannot we accept ourselves the way we are? The answer is easy and simple. We have all been manipulated to believe what is beautiful and what is not. And what has been manipulating us is the media. Different mediums, such as TV, magazines, advertisements create a norm and an ideology about beauty. Literally they try to brainwash us. Hmm, do you know how I feel? They mostly succeed. As an evidence, click here and read the article I found on a website, called americathebeautifuldoc.com.

The article says that there are depression and eating disorders can be observed among girls at an early age. When they read and see advertisements with airburshed and perfect models, whose pictures were digitally retouched, young girls try to look alike as the women on the cover of the magazine. They would start unhealthy diets, feel insecure when they don't succeed and fall into depression. In order to change this situation, researchers from Europe, America and Australia have written to the ASA (Advertising Standard Authority) to ban on digitally retouched photos in advertising aiming at the age under-16s.
A sad research by Girlguiding UK showed that half of the young girls between age 11 and 16 have done or are on a diet to be thin. As you can see on the Ralph Lauren ad, the woman was made impossibly thin. "Where are your ribs girl?" This look is just medically impossible if she has all of her 24 ribs.
Unfortunately, ASA has refused to act so far, "insisting that no scientific evidence has been provided to back up the complaints."

All of us know that mediums are giving us unreal pictures of beauty pretty often. These pictures have a big influence on our life and eating habits. Needless to say that most of the mediums depict women stereotypically, like homemakers/mothers or sexual objects. According to Gaye Tuchman young girls, and adolescents see women as their role is only secondary, and the only place they are needed is behind the four walls at home.
The ideology that media create about women is far away from what is going on in our real world.

I personally do not understand those girls, who believe those stereotypes and try to look alike those women in the ads. Honestly, when I look in the mirror and see something that I don't like about myself, I just start doing more work out, but I would never stop eating. Why would someone give up eating??? Eating is awesome, especially when you eat delicious foods. Of course everybody has to know where his/her boarder line is. I also cannot see myself as a housewife, who stays home and raises the children. I need to feel that I am not 100% dependent on someone. Well, this is how I feel and what I think. How about you? Have you changed something in your life after you have seen something in the media?

Klaudia