Global
Self-image has been an issue all around the world. A study done by Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign team titled, “The Real Truth About Beauty: A Global Report,” revealed that “only 2 percent of women around the world would describe themselves as beautiful (Meyers, 2014).” Many young girls have a negative mentally about themselves. They don’t think they are good enough just the way they are. A global survey found that two thirds of women strongly agree that "the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can't ever achieve (Carter, 2014). The Jakarta Globe of Indonesia posts an article “More Women Become ‘Fashion Victims’ As Eating Disorders Spread in Indonesia,” highlighting the increased awareness of and incidences of eating disorders in Indonesia. 2.6 percent of female Norwegian students and 1.3 percent of Italian students have anorexia. 1.2 percent of Cairo school girls and 3.2 percent of Iranian school girls have bulimia nervosa (globalization and eating disorders, 2009.) As we can see, across the whole world there’s people that eat less because they think that being very thin makes them attractive. A blog posting by Susan Bordo, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky and author of Unbearable Weight, blames the rise of eating disorders around the world on the spread of western cultures and beauty ideals via mass media. The Fiji islands did not have access to television until 1995, when a single station was introduced It broadcasts programs from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Until that time, Fiji had no reported cases of eating disorders, and a study conducted by anthropologist Anne Becker showed that most Fijian girls and women, no matter how large, were comfortable with their bodies. In 1998, just three years after the station began broadcasting, 11 percent of girls reported vomiting to control weight, and 62 percent of the girls surveyed reported dieting during the previous months(Edquist, 2009). In different parts of the world they are aware of how how girls are very self-conscious about their body that they’ve made regulations. Denmark’s national society against eating disorders and self-mutilation (LMS) has proposed that models undergo an annual physical examination and that magazines should label all digitally altered photographs. LMS also wants to work with the government and civil society groups to start changing public ideals of body image. An estimated 75,000 Danes suffer from eating disorders (Hayne, 2007.) Changing cultural attitudes and perceptions of weight and body image requires international collaboration of governments, industry, and community groups. Until they all work together, societal norms will most likely not change. |
Global Context
Self image or self concept is not only a local or national phenomenon’ but it’s also a global phenomenon. Self image presents itself across the globe through the media. “80% of teen girls compare themselves to images they see of celebrities...almost half says it makes them feel dissatisfied with their own appearance.” ("TODAY/AOL 'Ideal to Real' body image survey results", 1924). You can see that it’s a lot of teenage girls that get affected across the globe. It’s not only in the United States but it’s everywhere.There are a lot of examples in where people in other parts of the world say they are not beautiful. “In answer to the question "Do you think you're beautiful?" only China (59 percent) and the U.K. (58 percent) said no.”("Body Image Around the World") You can see that not only in the United States people believe they are not beautiful, because of this they get self-esteem issues or get eating disorders, like I said before. “Self-esteem is defined as how a person feels about herself. Real issues, such as a birthmark, a severe case of acne or a scar from a childhood accident can make teens feel unattractive, contributing to low self-esteem.” (Fisher, "Teen Self-Esteem Issues") Across the globe you see different people from different countries trying to either be more skinny or get fatter. They are concerned about how they look. “Rates of body image and eating concerns among children and adolescents are thought to be approximately equal in the United States, Canada, Australia, and nations in Western Europe such as England, Spain, France, and Italy” (Guarino et al., 2005) Many countries have the same concerns about how they look and how they should look, and get the same kinds of eating disorders. “Young adults in North India, thinner than Asian or white Britons, would ideally like to weigh more than they do, especially the men but also the women” (Schmidt and Bakshi 1993). Young adults aren’t only worried about how they look because when they are skinny they want to weigh more. To start weighing more they would have to eat more and thats binge eating, they just eat and eat and stuff themselves with food. Not only are teens eating a lot but they are also starving themselves or eating a lot and then making themselves throw up.This would be called Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa. “2.6 percent of female Norwegian students and 1.3 percent of Italian students have anorexia. 1.2 percent of Cairo school girls and 3.2 percent of Iranian school girls have bulimia nervosa” ("Globalization and Eating Disorders"). Teens have these eating disorders because they get influenced through the media and see that they don’t look like the people on tv. In every country teens are seeing tv ads to buy products or they see models really skinny and they want to be like them or look like them. |