There is no doubt that the media, mainly TV, movies, magazines, and advertising, is an extremely powerful force in shaping who we are as a culture, and as individuals. “For many, television has become like a surrogate parent” “It socializes them, entertains them, comforts them, disciplines them, and tells them what they can and cannot do.”(Friedman, 75). Everyday we are bombarded by images of thinness, youth, and beauty; these things falsely promise many things, such as success, fame, fortune, love, self-confidence, power, and an overall sense of control over one’s life. And it is no mystery why we buy into these empty promises, particularly when it comes to adolescents, the biggest consumers of mass media. Most of us probably don’t realize how much media we consume on a daily basis. In essence, it is the wallpaper of our lives. “The average teen watches 21 hours of TV each week, compared to 5.8 hours a week on homework, and 1.8 hours reading” (Pipher, Reviving Ophelia 82). Furthermore, the average person sees between 400 and 600 ads per day, ads filled with thin, young beautiful women, fatty foods to make you gain weight, and diet products to help you lose it again. “By the time a woman is 17 years old, she has received over 250,000 commercial messages through the media” (www.mediascope.org).
It is obvious that most American corporate executives care little about the well-being of their consumers, and care a great deal for revenues. We often forget that advertisers ultimately want us to buy their product, so they are going to portray a perception of reality they want us to buy into. No matter what kind of promises these ads make or even hint at, believing they will come true because you buy or use the product does not make it so.
Today’s teens aged 11-17 are a huge money making resource for businesses and advertisers. The media’s goal for adolescents is to seduce and lure them to spend money, while the goal of parents is to raise happy, well-adjusted, mature, responsible young adults. These goals are conflicting, and more than likely, the goals of the media have a better chance of coming out victorious. Unfortunately, parents are not the primary influence on teenage girls; friends and ideas from pop culture and the mass media are much stronger influences on the average adolescent. The media communicates that adulthood implies drinking, spending money, and being sexually active (Reviving Ophelia 82). “Girls are caught in the crossfire of our culture’s mixed sexual messages. Sex is considered both a sacred act between two people united by God and the best way to sell suntan lotion” (73). This environment of slick images and quick seductions shapes their desires, and their sense of self, even if they try to resist (Brumberg 209). Our media does very little to portray the realities of adulthood that adolescents should be learning about, such as responsibility, juggling a family and a career, raising children, health issues, dealing with loss and failure, and keeping a marriage working. This has more to do with the everyday life of an American adult.
The debate between those that believe that media plays a significant role in the development of eating disorders and those that don’t is a heated battle in which we will probably never know the true answer. However, one very recent study conducted by Harvard anthropologist Anne Becker may have found some proof that the media does indeed have a significant impact. In December 1999, Becker reported her findings after a four-year study conducted in the Fiji Islands (Getting the Skinny on TV” 34). Just four years prior to the report, television arrived for the first time on the islands. The shows provided to them were of western origin; mainly the U.S. Becker wanted to examine how the country reacted to and changed after the advent of television, what she found was disturbing.
Fijians have traditionally idealized larger proportioned women as beautiful, which is why even though more than four-fifths of Fijian women are overweight (by American measurements), it didn’t seem to bother them, until recently that is. Thirty-eight months after western television shows to Fiji via satellite, Becker found that the number of teenage girls who vomited to control their weigh increased five-fold, along with a general rise in abnormal attitudes toward eating (34). Surveys of teenage girls in Fiji revealed that the ones that spent the most time watching TV were half again more likely to feel fat and third more likely to be on a diet than their peers (34). The most popular shows on the island are Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210. “They (the teenage Fijian girls) see that they are much bigger in size than these rich, successful American women…add to that a culture attuned to weight changes, and the result are disastrous,” say Becker (34). This is just one other example of the damaging effects of the media. With emerging technology, the producers of American television shows can get more bangs for their buck; satellites enable us to send our television shows thousands of miles to new lands. The companies make more money, and more girls feel ashamed of their bodies. These Fijian teen perceive these television shows as American reality, and they attempt to mimic its appearance because they buy into the false promises we do. In only four years, American television is changing the ideal of beauty in Fiji, as well as other countries, to resemble our own impossible ideals, and it is doing so at the cost of young women everywhere.
It is important that we recognize and are aware of the underlying power the media has over all of us. Young girls are particularly susceptible, and advertisers know it, which is hwy teenage girls are such an important target market. Chances are they will not recognize these negative affects the media is having on them, so it is important that adults point it our for them. “Given what we know about the deep commercial investment in girls’ bodies, and also the tenor of our contemporary culture, it seems unrealistic to think that young girls can operate independently, without parental or adult assistance, or that they should be expected to (Brumberg 209). As with many things parents harp on their daughters about, it may not seem like they are listening, but usually they are. If someone plants the seed in their heads that they don’t have to buy into this unrealistic image of beauty, that they are worth so much more than a pretty face, they are valued for their ideas, and loved for who they are, the seed may flourish. If we can find a way for girls to understand the effects our culture is having on their lives, they can and will fight back.