The Influence of Society on Today's Youth

The influence of society on today's youth

It’s all about image   

For generations now society has created an image that represents the desired features of our female youth. The image that society creates is made up of a tall, skinny flawless figure. Society targets young females through the use of advertisements, magazines, and media. These influences don’t always start in teen years and early adult years, society creates the image of a perfect body from a young age. Society is able to emphasize its desired features in an aggressive and non aggressive form.  

Through the use of children’s toys society portrays the desired image of what is acceptable to females at a very young age in a nonaggressive manner. Those images stay with the individual throughout their lifetime. This image of a Barbie doll can be identified by most young girls. This Barbie doll can be described as a tall, skinny blonde that has been manufactured to have no flaws. At a young age, girls are exposed and taught that they must grow up and look like Barbie. This can be detrimental to one’s physical and psychological well being. Barbie is an exact creation of what society views and perceives as the perfect form for women. As a result, young women struggle with self image when they don’t match the standards set by Barbie. Young women who are short, heavy, unattractive fight to find self worth, and self respect. So as a result they struggle to be accepted by society.

Even Walt Disney, the standard for non aggressive role modeling, utilizes society’s version of the perfect female image. Countless Disney films illustrate the heroines as beautiful, slender, “perfect” female forms. As a result, young women in their target audiences are lead to believe that this is how one is suppose to look. In the 2013 production of Frozen, a colossal Disney box office success, the lead character Elsa, is illustrated as a tall, blonde, blue-eyed, slender, beautiful woman. In conjunction with the box office hit, retailers and merchandisers have built aggressive advertising campaigns around the image of Elsa. Her form can be found on shirts, lunch boxes, shoes, sunglasses, umbrellas, wrapping paper, further driving society’s perception of how young women should look.

Advertising in print specifically speaks to society’s version of beauty. 0ne example, Elle magazine. The cover, before you get into the contents of the magazine, promotes ways to improve or change an individual's look.

“How to dress”, “Hair and makeup secrets", "Curvy Chic” all leap off the Cover, all indicative of making sure women look a certain way, in order to be found attractive by Society’s standards.

Statista.com reveal that in 2012 almost 386.6 million dollars was spent on advertising in women's magazines alone, in efforts to change how women perceive themselves.

Advertising that promotes society’s perception of a beautiful woman is not just limited to magazines. We see indications of this core perception in all walks of day-to-day life. Television commercials, billboards, internet spam, food packaging, apparel promotion are all advertising platforms that drive the emphasis of the “perfect” image.

One example of aggressive feature, dedicated to how a woman should look, is the emphasis that beautiful women must appear a certain way. Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, Nutrisystem are all institutions built solely on society’s view that beautiful women are not heavy set, or overweight, that beauty is only found in those women, who are slender, and physically appealing. The Health Industry no longer simply promotes good health, but highlights that good health equates to looking a certain way. Curves Fitness, Goodlife Fitness, LA Fitness, all promote that in order to be fit, one must have a specific shape, a shape that aligns itself to those illustrations of Barbie or Elsa: “perfect”. As a result, women diet, and drive themselves to meet this viewpoint, rather than be comfortable in their own beauty or appearance.

In conclusion, it is apparent that society has a preconceived image of what a woman should look like. This image is promoted through a variety of ways, as illustrated above. Film, print, advertising, and children’s toys reinforce this, both in aggressive and non aggressive methods. As a result women strive to attain this ideal, while at times putting themselves at physical and psychological risk in the process.