Currently 90% of American household families watch television and surf the web, which has the largest influences on body perspective for men and women. Differences men and women face in terms of body image are social pressure, ways to enhance beauty, and they have similar diet awareness.
The first major or/One of the most important differences men and women run into in terms of body image is the disturbing pressure from social media networks on how they perceive an attractive body. The author contends, girls have become victimized by society’s hyper sexualization and are exposed to the idea that their value as female is closely related to their sexuality. (Heldman 65).
In contrast advertising companies highly influence women over men because women spend more time obsessing over their physical attributes. Moreover the media exposes women as a sex character, which impairs their judgment towards their body image. For example author contends “it’s because U. S. residents are now being exposed to 3,000 to 5,000 advertisements a day- as many per year as those living a half a century ago would have seen in a lifetime” (Heldman 64).
Also everyday men and women and bombarded with unrealistic images from media outlets that influence the human race to acquire unattainable bodies. In contrast men are not as influenced from television advertisements even though they spend more time watching television. The second major difference that men and women encounter in terms of body image is ways to enhance physical body parts to look like Hollywood actors or models. For instance men are less challenged to perform surgical procedures to change they body appearance, whereas women are normally willing to bear pain to reach them.
The author contends, “the size of pants I wear seems to say something about my sexual appeal and sexual preference. ” (Shanker 54). Further more women spend more time and money on average, shopping for body hugging clothing and face and body products. Also women turn to surgical options more than men do to alter their look. The author contends, in society where most of our influences of body presence are not real, women face constant sacrifices to have bodies of actresses and models, and this is how women mentally believe their issues will be answered. (Shanker 54).
For example women undergo plastic surgery more than men to look like Hollywood actors. Most surgeries include breast, lip, and buttocks enlargement. In contrast men many men take steroids to enlarge their muscles. However, most men do not prefer plastic surgery, but when they do it is commonly to change the look of their nose. Lastly a similarity between men and women in terms of body image is their awareness of the diet and food intake. For instance most men and women commonly have the same desire to have a strong body and live a healthy long life. Also men and women like to have healthy food choices to keep in shape.
The author contends, “what is clear is that over a century, American women have changed their shape. ” (Franke-Ruta 69). For instance men and women are taking drastic measures such as starving the body from food for a day to lose weight. Furthermore acquiring the proper body shape for ones size is one the most significant issues men and women have in common, because being overweight is mostly not attractive and simply not healthy.
The author contends, “former tween-queen Britney Spears told Oprah Winfrey that she used to do between 500 and 1,000 crunches a day to perfect on display abs. ” (Franke-Ruta 70).
Therefore both men and women are training their bodies with risky workouts to achieve a body that a media driven society will appreciate. Furthermore both genders want to have bigger muscles and consume a healthier diet. In conclusion people should not obsess about what media tells society how the male and female body should look like but rather be more concerned about achieving true content with oneself and enjoying the little things in life.
Also not to spend wasteful amounts of time watching television shows and surfing the internet which can lead a person to believe they have a body image un-liked by society which can cause depression and anxiety. Furthermore men and women should not concern themselves with body images of celebrities and models because truthfully those people have abnormal lifestyles with excessive amounts of wealth that allows them to acquire those types of bodies.
For example having eating disorders can cause many health related problems such as muscle loss and weakness. Finally people should always be concerned with the health of their bodies to prevent any health risks by eating organic foods and exercising regularly, but not to take dangerous procedures to attain unrealistic body images.