Welcome To The Media Literacy Program

1. Welcome To The Media Literacy Program

2. Is the Ideal Beauty Really What You Wish For? American women in today’s society struggle to uphold the ideal beauty that media has portrayed throughout the world. http://youtu.be/pa59zIQ_hG4

3. Who is affected? Adolescents are the most affected group “More and more 12 year old girls are going on diets because they believe what you weigh determines your worth,” observed by Arielle Cutler. Young women are not mature enough to know the true meaning of beauty. They associate happiness and self-esteem with beauty. In our society women are more judged for their attractiveness and look down upon when they lack attractiveness.

4. How Are Women Affected? The drastic measures females take to change their looks are increasing significantly. Many women are spending a lot of money on cosmetic surgery and non-surgical aesthetic procedure just to look like the ideal American. In the United States, 11.7 million cosmetic surgical and non-surgical procedures were performed in 2007. The increase interest of cosmetic surgery is increasing among the youth. A survey reveals that 69% of young adults support the use of cosmetic surgery (“Consequence of America”). The increasing use of cosmetics shows America acceptance of women changing their appearance to look like the ideal.

5. Plastic Surgery Gone Wrong To accomplish the ideal perspective, women place their selves at serious health risk. Some women who cannot afford to receive cosmetics procedures from a licensed practitioner receive it from homes or beauty salons. These places sometimes cause public health concerns. Also, even though the procedure is done by a license doctors, an individual could be at risk for blood clots to the lungs, lack of oxygen to the brain, or postoperative nausea and many more. Guest Speaker: Dr. Tracy Pfeifer http://youtu.be/X4x-T_UAXqA

6. Smoking To Lose Weight In addition to cosmetic surgery being a drastic measure women take, women also experience unhealthy dieting behaviors to lose weight. “Between ages 25-45 in the United States, 67% of women are trying to lose weight,” states the YWCA. 53% of women who diet are already at a healthy weight and still try to lose weight. One unhealthy way women try to lose weight is smoking. According to the YWCA, about 13% women smoke to lose weight.

7. Unhealthy Dieting These unhealthy dieting methods had led to almost 10 million women suffering from eating disorders. The most common eating disorders women suffer from are anorexia and bulimia. Majority of the women reported with these disorders are young females between the ages 15 and 19. These women who are experience eating disorders often suffer from self esteem (“Consequence of America”). Guest Speaker: Robin Baker http://youtu.be/cwuQ56iN5g8

8. How Do We Stop This It is a lot healthier for women to change their perception rather than the way they look. According to Baugh and Martin, this can be done by, “striving for a healthier body, focusing on positive points, limiting exposure to negative images in the environment , taking notice of all cool things the body can do, developing a positive social support system, and devoting time and energy towards helping yourself and other.” As women, it is important to not let media determine how you feel about your body. If you are unhappy about your body you should not base it on a look that is impossible to achieve.

10. Women must rise above the views of media in this society and recognize that media does not define what beauty is.