Marketing Self-Esteem

Increased exposure and availability of media in the 21st Century has allowed the public to be pressured into the idea of a perfect body and has formed our personal ideal image. It is important to understand the influence of this “ideal” image and its effect upon an individual’s self-esteem.

The third piece of digital content I have chosen to present as evidence of this notion is a webpage titled “Media and body image” published by the Growing and Developing Healthy Relationships (GDHR) group. The GDHR group consists of a partnership between the Department of Health and Education in Western Australia. Its aim is to increase knowledge of primary school children of issues concerning sexual health in order to allow them to enjoy happy and healthy relationships.

The Media and body image page focuses on 3 topics; Body Image, Eating Disorders and Sexuality in the Media.

Body Image is a concept derived from the idea that messages around us have shaped our idea of the perfect body. The GHDR group attempts to present to us the reality that everyone comes in different shapes and sizes, thus we should not conform to the idea that one body type is beautiful.

A few facts presented were that, for 80% of women, looking at fashion magazines for 3 minutes lowers self-esteem, 50% of teenage girls have dieted and more than half are unhappy with their bodies. And while females appear to have severe problems with body image, it is also important to consider young males. An increase in a health consciousness has resulted in placing pressure of attaining high levels of fitness and physical perfection and thus has a great effect on young males self-esteem also.

Eating disorders are perceived just to be extreme eating habits used in order to obtain the ideal image, although in reality it is actually a serious mental illness that is the result of low self-esteem. These disorders can include Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia nervosa, Binge eating disorder and there are other eating...