Men unhappy with their bodies...

[Pheebs]

Hmmm... maybe I'm not conveying myself right.

Okay. Hypothetical:

A young girl called Molly has a birthday and is bought a present which is some girly mag (I don't know any... let's call it Bimbo!) So yeh. Molly gets Bimbo for her birthday (*waits for fay to pop in and say he want's a bimbo for his birthday* ) It has lots of pictures in it of pretty models who have been cropped and paintshopped up to the max. It also has make up in it and hunky boy band posters for her to stick on the wall and a fashion section of the newest hippest things around.

Do you think that Molly wouldn't feel at all influenced/strained/pushed to be like or wear stuff like what she sees in the magazine - which all of her friends have also got?


And if you're going to say "It's what Molly wants!!" how does she know she wants it? She's super dooper young! If she was born into some tribe in the jungle she wouldn't want it!

Another way to look at media influences is through tribes who have little - if any - contact with the media. From studies I have read I have the understanding that very few tribes have body issue problems similar to us...? One study... I will have to dig it out of my old psychology book... looked into TV and it's influence on children. They introduced TV to a small society of people who hadn't had such a thing previously and conducted a long term *argh*... something study (christ I'm dusty and have forgotten the type of study I mean... it'll come back to me). Anyhoo.. after 5 years the scientists discovered that the children had grown up to suit stereotypes more than how they had prior to having TV within their society. They also conformed to the fashion more so and there were increased cases of bullying.

I know studies have to be taken with a pinch of salt with problems arising about biased views/people being aware of being in a study and therefore conforming to what they think the scientists would want to see... but when reading it and looking at the statistics it spoke volumes.