Hi, my name is Emily Barber, and I am a student at the University of Georgia. For my "Rhetoric and Popular Culture" class, we were asked to write a research paper and do a creative project on a topic of interest. My project takes a look at the media's effect on women, and more specifically, the effect of advertising on young women's body image and self-esteem.
Today's media bombards us with images of unrealistically thin models, and seeing these images over and over again sends women the message that they must be thin to look acceptable. A disproportionate amount of emphasis is placed on women's bodies, so it's no wonder many women end up with eating disorders and low self-esteem.
My research paper serves as a summary of current academic articles pertaining to this topic, and in each article, some type of study was done where participants were exposed to varying images to assess the participants' perceptions of themselves. For my creative project, I decided to interview some female college and high school students using questions about body image and the media to get a better understanding of how girls in our society feel about their own body image and the pressure to be thin.