The Impact of Body Image and Self-Esteem on Adolescents

Introduction- Body image what is it? It’s how one sees their physical appearance, size, and shape. Body image and self-esteem plays a huge role in adolescents identifying themselves as they grow up.

Thesis statement: Body image has great significant aspect of an adolescent’s mental health, self-esteem, and well-being.

The perception that a teen creates of body image is form in a teen’s mind through their experience with family members, friends, and school mates. Early on in an adolescent life they realize that body image is composed of physical appearance, size of their body, and the shape of their body. The image that a teen create of their self is typically formed by the positive or negative feedback that they receive by people whose opinions make a difference to them. Body image can impact the way an individual perceives their body, feelings towards their body, and the attitudes and behaviors that affect their body (Ata Rihanna). Adolescents perceiving these pressures form family and friends to lose weight reported negative eating pattern and perceives that their actual whole and upper bodies differed from their ideal figures (Bearman SK).

As we know puberty place a major role in adolescents’ body change as they get older. Puberty and other aspects of physical maturation as teens grow enhanced feelings of awkwardness and awe. These biological forces sometime make it difficult for a female growing up to experience how to handle their bodies in the society that we live; where female’s body are being exploited. Adolescent females’ experience onset of menstruation and appearance of breasts. Adolescence is a time of rapid physical growth, where boys and girls go through puberty, and become strongly focused on their bodies (Keel). According to McCabe and Ricciardelli past research has shown that the most important factors related to the adoption of extreme weight change behaviors among adolescents are BMI (Body Mass Index), body image, and puberty. Positive affect may also play a protective role in the development of these extreme behaviors (McCabe and Ricciardelli).

The domination of body image on teens self-esteem effect both male and female but in different ways. Body image and self-esteem start in the mind, not in the mirror. They can change the way you understand your value and worth. Healthy body image and self-esteem are a big part of well-being. They are two important aspects of how self-esteem can build up or torn down. One example is how girls with a healthy self-esteem have an appropriate sense of their potential, competence, and innate value of theme selves as individual. The other one is how young girls with unhealthy self-esteem sees their self as being incompetent, unworthy, and that they are not contributing to society. In the other hand adolescent boys were less likely to adopt to extreme weight change attitudes and behaviors to alter their bodies than adolescent girls. Surprisingly, this finding applied to exercise dependence, as well as drive for thinness and bulimia. It is possible that early adolescent boys may not yet be strongly engaged in risky strategies to alter their bodies, and this may not occur until later in adolescence (McCabe and Ricciardelli).

The Impact of social media on teen’s body image and self-esteem has been influential considering the fact that Physical attractiveness has become a great asset in our society. Specifically, the teenage girls’ whose perceptions of their class mate and friends body dissatisfaction predicted their own level of body dissatisfaction. From Watching music video to focusing on reading magazines young teenagers become aware of dieting and the influence of body image. particularly, young girls who looked at magazines tended to aim at adult women that has greater level of dissatisfaction with the way they appear.

Adolescents’ body image dissatisfaction. Body image has been acknowledged as an invasive problem that is being experience by a large population of teenagers. According to Kalof the results shows that media exposure was related to aspects of both body image and dieting awareness. The results show that girls who watch a degree music video television shows had greater towards dieting awareness, while those who watch a certain degree of children’s television show had lower dieting awareness. As content analyses of music videos reveal high levels of sex-role stereotyping (Kalof, 1993) and an emphasis on the physical appearance of women, who usually appear thin and attractive and often provocatively dressed (Gow, 1996), it’s not a surprise that these are associated with a great value of awareness of dieting and thin ideal. In studies with adolescents, watching of music videos has been associated with body dissatisfaction and eating disorders (Borzekowski et al., 2000; Tiggemann and Pickering, 1996). Young girls’ exposure to teen or women’s magazines also predicted increased dieting awareness, supporting findings with older preadolescent samples (Sands and Wardle, 2003; Vaughan and Fouts, 2003). Such magazines promote thinness and attractiveness by presenting underweight models (e.g.,Harrison, 2000), as well as containing articles that direct readers on how to lose weight (e.g., Malkin et al., 1999).