Negative Effects on Adolescent Self-Esteem: Part 3

Over the next several days, I'm going to post sections of my thesis. I had a request to see it, and I figured I might as well post it here. It's about negative body images in the media and the programs that work to combat the negativity. Because the paper was long, each post will be one major section of the paper. Today's post is actually one of the more upsetting parts of the paper, in my opinion.

Impact of Children’s Movies and Literature
Perhaps more disturbing than images in commercials or programs for young adults which may inadvertently affect pre-adolescents are messages engrained in movies and literature made specifically for children. Many of the “classics” contain negative and detrimental body messages. A study by Herbozo, Tantleff-Dunn, Gokee-Larose, and Thompson undertook a content analysis of the top twenty-five children’s films and twenty children’s books. The researchers made an interesting discovery:

In many of the classic videos (60%), a character’s love for another character depends on his or her physical appearance. For example, the prince in Cinderella invites the “beautiful” maiden to a ball so he could select his bride. Also, in Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast, a female’s appearance attracts a male who is unaware of her other qualities until after falling in love with her. This suggests that his initial attraction is based on her appearance. (Herbozo, Tantleff-Dunn, Gokee-Larose, and Thompson 2004:27)

In fact, in both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, the leading female characters are in a deep sleep (after having been cursed by witches) when the male hero rescues them with a kiss. The men are presumed to have fallen in love with the women for their beauty before they even hear the women’s voices.

Even Beauty and the Beast, a story about a bibliophile who falls in love with her beastly captor after making a deal to keep her at the Beast’s castle to bargain for the life of her father, has the stereotypical happy ending of the Beast, a hideous creature, returning to this handsome state as a wealthy prince. The story has a positive message when Belle looks beyond the Beast’s appearance to see the gentleness within him, but the message is dashed when we realize that the Beast was a handsome fellow who had been cursed by an ugly hag. We pity the man who loses his attractiveness yet condemn the witch who cast a spell to make him as unattractive on the outside as he was on the inside.

In general, beauty was equated with happiness, love, kindness, and other positive characteristics; conversely, ugliness alluded to trickery, malcontent, and negative characteristics. Symbolically, beauty evoked thoughts of positivity while ugliness (anything that did not fit within the narrow definition of beauty as thinness) lead to negativity. Furthermore, while female physical attractiveness and having a slender body creates an image with positive characteristics, obesity is associated with “negative traits in 64% of the children’s videos and 20% of the books” and “obese characters are commonly depicted as evil, unattractive, unfriendly and cruel” (Herbozo, Tantleff-Dunn, Gokee-Larose, and Thompson 2004:27). Another feature of the study revealed that none of the films and only one of the books depicted exercise as a form of losing weight (28-29). Interestingly, it would seem that the media suggest that people are naturally thin as a manifestation of their good qualities, and obese people are cursed to remain overweight due to inherent, bad qualities.

Three movies that did not have as much negative stereotyping were E.T., Indian in the Cupboard, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, three of only six non-animated film from the top twenty-five list (Herbozo, Tantleff-Dunn, Gokee-Larose, and Thompson 2004). Unlike most of the other films, which revolved around beautiful men and women (or female and male animals) falling in love, E.T., Indian in the Cupboard, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory focus their attention on children as opposed to adult relationships. This could suggest that films created specifically for children about children are less likely than the others to perpetuate the negative stereotypes. This would imply that although the symbol of beauty affects young children, it is not meant to affect them necessarily. Children are not expected to conform to the ideals of beauty, yet they must understand the ideals so that they can portray them when they are older.

Negative Effects on Adolescent Self-Esteem: Part 2

Over the next several days, I'm going to post sections of my thesis. I had a request to see it, and I figured I might as well post it here. It's about negative body images in the media and the programs that work to combat the negativity. Because the paper was long, each post will be one major section of the paper.

Impact of Body Distortion
In fact, some girls develop distorted images of the differences between underweight and normal weight bodies.¹ One study illustrated this concept by showing young girls images of underweight, normal weight, and overweight girls (Ahern, Bennett, and Hetherington):

Participants labelled [sic] many of the underweight images as “normal weight.” This supports the idea that women’s concept of normal weight has shifted so that they accept increasingly thin ideal as representing the norm. This is further confirmed by the observation that two of the images of normal weight women were consistently labelled [sic] as “overweight.” However, there was consensus (over 85%) on 5 of the underweight women. (2008:298)

As described, many of the underweight images were marked as “normal weight” by the participants. Perhaps more telling of body image distortion is that at least ten percent of the “normal weight” images were consistently marked as being “overweight” (Ahern, Bennett, and Hetherington 2008:298).

Moreover, girls use this distortion, along with the notion that thinness leads to happiness, to determine that thin girls have more friends. A study by Dohnt and Tiggeman involved showing pictures of underweight/normal weight duos and normal weight/overweight pairs to pre-adolescent girls (2008:225). The girls were asked to choose which girl would have more friends and which one they would most like to play with. They had the option of choosing one of the girls or both for their responses. Unsurprisingly, the girls suggested that the normal girls would have more friends than the overweight girls and that they would prefer to play with the normal weight ones. No statistical significance existed between the normal weight and underweight duos, for the girls seemed to choose both to have more friends and would choose both or either for play (Dohnt and Tiggemann 2008:227).

¹Underweight, normal weight, and overweight are based on Body Mass Index, BMI, a calculation based on height and weight—BMI = [(weight in pounds * 703) / (height in inches)2]—and endorsed by World Health Organization and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The definitions used here are Underweight = under 18.5, Normal weight = 18.5-24.9, Overweight = 25 and above.

Negative Effects on Adolescent Self-Esteem: Part 1

Over the next several days, I'm going to post sections of my thesis. I had a request to see it, and I figured I might as well post it here. It's about negative body images in the media and the programs that work to combat the negativity. Because the paper was long, each post will be one major section of the paper.

Impact of the Media
While one must recognize that correlation does not necessarily or immediately prove causation, multiple studies have shown a link between media viewing and distorted body image and/or body dissatisfaction for young, female adolescents both within the United States and throughout much of the developed world (Cusumano and Thompson 2001; Thompson and Heinberg 1999; Tiggemann and Pickering 1999; Maltby, Giles, Barber, and McCutcheon 2005; McNicholas, Fiona, Alma Lydon, Ruth Lennon, and Barbara Dooley 2009). Most models and actresses on television are not representative of the population in terms of body size or weight; many are underweight (Anderson, Huston, Schmitt, Linebarger, and Wright 2001). Girls are bombarded with these distorted images and tend to take them as reality. Even if a child can distinguish that television shows are fiction, she may not realize that the body images projected are fiction, as well. In fact, 35% of adolescent girls named a person from entertainment media, sports, or public life as a role model in one study (Anderson, Daniel R., Aletha C. Huston, Kelly L. Schmitt, Deborah L. Linebarger, and John C. Wright 2001:115). It is apparent that negative body image is an epidemic. Therefore, helping women rebuild their battered body image is an essential part of strengthening society.

Moreover, one experiment showed that certain body types affect young women differently (Smeesters and Mandel 2006). Women who viewed extreme body types, either thin or obese, were more likely to suffer from negative feelings of self-esteem. However, women who viewed body types that were moderately thin or moderately overweight reported higher self-esteem because of upward comparison (Smeesters and Mandel 2006). Additionally, “exposure to moderately thin (but not extremely thin) model has a positive impact on one’s self-esteem” (Smeesters and Mandel 2006:581). One might make the suggestion from this evidence that the media should consider using moderately-sized women in their programming to avoid feelings of self dissatisfaction among young female viewers. This measure would help to extend the definition of beauty to at least healthy but thin women.

Impact of Parents and Peers
Of course, media are not the only proponents of negative body image in female adolescents (Dohnt and Tiggemann 2006; Clay, Vignoles, and Dittmar 2005). While the media may be the largest or most visible perpetuator of negative body images, a female adolescent’s family, friends, and peers often help to reinforce the negativity in her life (Lam, Lee, Fund, Ho, Lee, and Stewart 2009; Clark and Tiggemann 2007). McCabe, Ricciardelli, Stanford, Holt, Keegan, Miller studied the roles of mothers and teachers on children’s body appearance satisfaction (2007). While teacher’s reported minimizing discussion with students regarding the students’ appearance, mothers admitted to being more critical of their daughters than their sons and were vocal about the criticisms, both to the interview and to their children:

In fact, mothers promoted exercise as a means of weight control for girls. Even if this was not overtly stated to the girls, the consistent view of the mothers was that their daughters needed to exercise so that they would become fit, and not become overweight. Even at this young age, mothers are already communicating different messages to boys and girls. (McCabe, Ricciardelli, Stanford, Holt, Keegan, Miller 2007:228)

Whenever the mothers commented on exercise for the boys, they intended the boys to exercise to gain muscle rather than lose or maintain weight (McCabe, Ricciardelli, Stanford, Holt, Keegan, Miller 2007:228). One must note that the mothers of these girls were likely indoctrinated with the idea of thinness is beauty and are socializing their children in the same way that they would teach their children about any other aspect of their culture.

Introduction to Adolescent Influences

Over the next several days, I'm going to post sections of my thesis. I had a request to see it, and I figured I might as well post it here. It's about negative body images in the media and the programs that work to combat the negativity. Because the paper was long, each post will be one major section of the paper. Today's post is the opening section.

In 2009, American children and adolescents between the ages of eight and eighteen watched more than forty hours of television per week (Kaiser Family Foundation 2006). This information would suggest that television would have a significant influence on children, particularly when considering that children only spend around thirty hours a week in the classroom (assuming a six-hour instructional period for five days a week). As Tiggemann and Pickering (1996) state, “it is difficult to believe that a medium which gets so much exposure will not have an influence on the minds of young women” (202). The rest of the time outside of school, sleep, and television is spent with friends and family, two important peer groups in an adolescent’s life. Many television shows portray women who are unrealistic at best and air-brushed at worst. Female adolescents tend to internalize these messages and attempt to become like the unhealthy women. Although the media have played a major role in creating a deficit in the self-esteem of female adolescents, it is possible to rebuild positive self-esteem through workshops, programs, educational tools, and familial support to remind young girls that beauty can be redefined.

Definition of Terms: Self-Esteem and Body Image
The definition of “self-esteem” as used in this paper will incorporate two specific terms in a sociological context: self-esteem and body image. Random House Dictionary describes self-esteem as “a realistic respect for or favorable impression of oneself”; however, such a definition is too broad for the scope of this paper. Merriam Webster describes body image as “a subjective picture of one's own physical appearance established both by self-observation and by noting the reactions of others,” which is not quite broad enough. Because self-esteem is a measure of one’s entire self-worth, it encompasses body image, an important factor for determining how media and other groups affect the self-esteem of female adolescents. Therefore, the definition of “self-esteem” will refer to “a subjective interpretation of oneself (physically and cognitively), determined at least in part by noting the reactions of others and internalizing such outside influences.”

Introduction of Theory: Symbolic Interactionism
Two major concepts from symbolic interactionists heavily influence the research of this paper: the definition of the situation and significant symbols. William Isaac (better known as W.I.) and his wife Dorothy Thomas proposed the definition of the situation, or Thomas Theorem, that if a person perceives a situation to be real, it is real in its consequences. In Don Quixote, the lead character reads novels about heroics and chivalry, believing every fictional act to be true. Because he believes them to be true, he then believes that he, too, can achieve such feats and drives himself mad by completing various quests. George Herbert Mead conceived the idea of significant symbols, which are symbols that create a specific similar response from various people. Language is a critical significant symbol. For instance, if a person screams “Duck!” everyone in the area will cower and look around them for a flying object. If the screamer has saved a person, they will be thanked. If the screamer was simply yelling for no purpose, they will be admonished. Similarly, in this context, if female adolescents perceive that beauty (meaning thinness) will lead to happiness, popularity, and love, they will go to great lengths to attain the beauty.

Redefining Beauty

Over the next several days, I'm going to post sections of my thesis. I had a request to see it, and I figured I might as well post it here. It's about negative body images in the media and the programs that work to combat the negativity. Because the paper was long, each post will be one major section of the paper. Today I'll begin with my abstract.

The current definition of beauty is far too narrow. American society dictates that a woman is only beautiful if she is thin, regardless of any other characteristics she may possess. In fact, most people assume that a thin (beautiful) woman will have positive characteristics, such as kindness, whereas overweight (or even normal weight) women will have negative characteristics, such as cruelty. The media supports this notion by utilizing women in commercials and on television programs who are underweight.

Unfortunately, female adolescents do not realize that the women on television are not realistic or representative portrayals of the female population. They perceive that the women are appropriately-sized and that such a size will lead to happiness, so they must suffer the consequences: low body satisfaction, poor self-esteem, and sometimes eating disorders.

Surprisingly, a movement has arisen within the past decade to combat this epidemic. Organizations like the National Eating Disorder Association and companies like Dove are working to combat the negativity that the media projects onto young girls. They provide information, workshops, and constant support if the parents or teachers would become involved.