Does the Media affect
Body Image?
We are exposed to the media every single day and it influences us in many ways. If you pick up a magazine, you will see hundreds of ads: some feature cars, beauty products, but most feature people. Body image is an issue that we are faced with everyday. Whether we confront this issue through advertisements, admiring others, or examining our own body, the media feeds on the idea of the ideal body image. This idea regularly highlights handsome men, beautiful women, and what it means to be successful in our society.
Jamie Hayes, WSU Senior, Nursing
Many men are influenced to look like the men that they see in advertisements—the thin but muscularly built man. Similarly, many women are influenced to look like the images that they see of extremely thin models, even if they are of average size, shape, and build. In order for these companies to warp our self-image, they create unrealistic images using Photoshop. Photoshop is a popular and commonly used tool in the media. This tool is used to edit “flaws” or “faults” in a photograph. Danielle Barck, a Winona State University alumnus, was struck by the way media influences us. In particular, she was drawn to the Dove Campaign.
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“I grew up more quickly than girls around me, and at a very young age I was constantly comparing myself to others believing that I was overweight etc… Throughout my life as well, seeing models with “perfect” bodies never helped my self-esteem. Sadly, even after learning just how much images of people are altered to look perfect, I still catch myself and other women comparing ourselves to something that isn’t even real. I wanted to inspire girls to see just how unrealistic our expectations can be,” Barck said.
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Barck did this project to demonstrate that natural beauty is beyond what the media portrays. “We don’t realize just how beautiful we really are,” said Barck. Barck began taking pictures of herself and others; she then used Photoshop to edit the original images in ways that are used daily by the media. “I asked myself and other girls: ‘what would you change about yourself?’ I then Photo-shopped the photos to fit their description of how they would perfect their flaws. In the end, the photo looks nothing like that person and so unreal that people would look at them and think ‘that’s just unnatural’,” Barck said. Opposite: Images from Barck’s series Top another before and after Below: Barck included herself in the series
“Often times we idolize images of “perfect” men and women to the point that we start believing we are inferior. Nobody is perfect; there is literally no such thing. Cherish who you are because the world believes you are more beautiful than you even realize,” said Barck. To see more of Barck’s work visit her Facebook Page
As a response to the Dove Campaign, Barck decided to utilize this approach to reveal how much the media changes an original image in order to portray beauty. September 2013
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