Television’s Affect On Young Teens
With the ever growing world of mass media becoming more accessible to our
children, we must realize the effect television has on the youth of today. The
views and images portrayed on television go right to the heart of American
youth. Young men and women are being taught that being over weight or not being
skinny enough means that you are unattractive and lazy. The ideal female body
which television portrays as being normal has gone from the voluptuous figure
of Marilyn Monroe and Mimi VanDoren to the skinny waist and bust-line of Pamela
Anderson and Brittany Spears. It has become an obsessive, unattainable goal for
our young teenage women. These teens find themselves in an endless battle to
try and attain figures that are only made possible through cosmetic surgery and
a profession that pays you to look a certain way. Many girls who find
themselves unhappy with their appearance turn to starvation, which later turns
to binge eating, then to self-induced vomiting(Battegay 54).
Eating disorders are far more common in the United States than in any other
country. While some countries like Russia and Bosnia are struggling to find
food, Americans are creating problems by consuming too much of it. Americanized
countries or even any other industrialized countries with the direct influence
of television are found to have considerably more problems with eating
disorders. Carolyn Costin states in her book The Eating Disorder Source that
western women seem to be at greater risk for developing disorders and the
degree of Westernization seems to increase the risk. Costin then goes on to say
that Evidence suggests that anorexia nervosa is uncommon outside the Western
world and in less affluent Western countries. Furthermore, when immigrants move
from less industrialized countries to more industrialized countries they are
more likely to develop eating disorders. Costin is trying to say that you are
at a greater risk of developing an eating order such as anorexia or bulimia in
an Americanized culture because of the importance and constant reminders in
forms of mass media that you should look thin, loose weight and keep the weight
off. These are all things that are ongoing in our brains and degrade the
self-image we behold of ourselves. Constin goes on to say:
“Advertisements for taking off weight and keeping it off are found in every
magazine and newspaper, on billboards, television commercials, and bumper
stickers with messages such as, ‘Loose Weight Now, Ask Me How,’ ‘Lose twenty
pounds, in twenty days.’ ‘Get the body that get’s guys,’ ‘Flatten your
Stomach,’ ‘Reduce those thighs.’ At least twenty million people respond to the
propaganda and are on a diet at any given moment.”
The problem of eating disorders is commonly addressed on television today. As
depicted on the ‘prime time’ soap “Beverly Hills 90210” the actress Jenny Garth
who plays Kelly on the show struggled with the abuse of weight loss pills. This
informative episode on eating disorders discussed reasons for people having
disorders and the feelings they felt while going through the experience. They
described the feeling as helpless, and unable to change anything in their life.
And also having a negative opinion about body image (Cantor 25).
Young women who watch their favorite stars with envious eyes are unable to
recognize the unhealthy way in which women portray what may or may not be
attractive. When young girls watch “Ally McBeal”, and they see her sleek back
and slender long legs, they do not see her back bone protruding out of her skin
simply because she is sickly skinny. Recently I watched an episode of “Ally
McBeal” which showed Ally through many stages of the show and the continuing
theme of Ally becoming increasingly more and more skinnier. I am not proposing
that the disorders in these teens heads should rest on the shoulders of these
leading ladies of television, but there is clearly a connection to the images
shown on television and the problem with eating disorders.
Having lived my entire life watching friends going through the problems
involved with having eating disorders I begin to try and think of solutions to
prevent this from happening to any kids feeling pressure of maintaining an
unattainable figure. Professor Raymond Battegay suggests the problem with eating
disorders begins with the parents, and the matter in which you raise your
children. “Too little self-strength and confirmation of their own value early
in childhood. They are uneasy about themselves and belittle themselves
constantly.” What Battegay is saying is that the important influence and
guidance of a mother and father during the time of puberty, the time of bodily
changes, can have a tremendous effect on a child.
I cannot disagree with Bettegay’s point of the importance of parental
supervision and assistance. However, I cannot see this as being the only vital
role in a teens struggle with eating disorders. Every teen battles with
acceptance growing up and in most cases the teens are struggling with the
genetic makeup of their body. Patricia Fallon, a psychologist and writer says
that eating disorders are far more common in women than with men. Why is that?
Fallon provides that perhaps it may be that the image portrayed as the ideal
man is a healthy athletic looking man and the ideal image for a woman is a six
foot, ninty-five pound runway model. Surrounded by images of tall, thin women,
with constant reminders to lose weight.
Patricia Fallon also suggests that many young women of today take pride in
their appearance and consider the female body sacred. Fallon goes on to
describe a female patient who expressed how she viewed the human form:
“I envied those girls whose bodies were the source of masturbatory images.
There seemed to be an inherent, intimidating power that went with having such a
body-a power that was every bit the equal to athletic prowess. I imagined that
such a body would command more than unconditional love; it would impel
awe.”(Fallon et al.17)
To think that someone can be this involved with the way they see themselves
others look is beyond me. It seems that some women may consider appearance a
slight bit more important than most people may think.
By understanding the problems women face and attempting to adjust the social
standard from attractive to healthy, society can begin to help people with
eating disorders and help stop the image television creates in our own living
rooms. In order to do so, television should be regulated and filtered from
unwanted stereotypes, standards and morals. Looking at the SMCR model we can
trace the problem back to the Source.(Straubhaar/LaRose p.15) Today producers
are creating these programs with outrageous plots and beautiful people that
could never be attained in the real world by todays standards. This type of
fantasy world is bad and it reflects everything that is wrong in our society
from sex to drugs to greed. We all say that those things we see on the
television are corrupting our minds and our children's minds, but you almost
cannot blame the producers. If you look at the “R” in the SMCR model you will
see you will find the real problem. The receivers, the viewers of these
programs are the real power behind the shows. The trigger whether or not the
shows will stay on or not. The sad truth is that we keep these shows running.
Robert LaRose of the University of Michigan and Joseph Straubhaar, of the
University of Texas, Austin state their idea of the function of the receivers
power as:
“Feedback from the viewers is provided via television rating service and by
cards letters and phone calls to the station.”(LaRose/Straubhaar p.16)
Alot of times with the euphoria of teen heartthrobs, stations are flooded with
fan mail, letters and responses to the show, only increasing its popularity.
This kind of attention will push a program far past being a pilot episode in to
becoming a long running show that will keep on the air for as long as the money
keeps on coming in. This makes both sides happy, the source and the receiver.
So where do we find somebody to lay down a standard? This is where the
Gatekeeper of the networks needs to step in. The job of the Gatekeeper is to
decide on what the audience should receive and thereby serving an
adgenda-setting function.(LaRose/Straubhaar p.16)
All different genres of magazines, television shows and advertisements can
benefit from it. If you want to sell a beer product, Put your logo on a bathing
suit let a skinny model wear the suit, and put the beer in her hands. If you
are trying to sell a car put your logo on a bathing suit, let a skinny model
wear the suit and put her on top of the car. Sex sales in television and
advertising. It not only sells the product, but also causes insecurities of
what we should look like holding the product. The consumers feed the fire of
the sources flurry to put products in our faces.
Overall, media has increased its knowledge of its audience more rapidly than
ever before. We are monitored by sources we would have never imagined and the
problem is getting worse. With the new age of wireless internet and Cracker
Jack baseball card sized phones, companies are tracking our every move. They
know what we watch, who we call, where we go, and what we buy. They know what
products to offer us and they know where to find more people like us so they
too can be targeted.(Cantor p.32) The bottom line is that the media’s effect on
us through television is much greater than we know. If they can convince us
that our bodies are not slim enough, they can convince us that their products
are worth buying. We need to rally for tighter standards from the Gatekeepers
of television and the rest of mass media. The producers will only keep giving
us more and as the audience becomes more and more desensitized we will only
continue to want it until we become a warped society without values, morals or
standards.