Body Image and the Difference Between Europe and America Term Paper

Body Image and the Difference Between Europe and America

The concept of body image is really a perception involving imagination, emotions and physical sensations about our body. (America Now Short Readings from Recent Periodicals) This does not remain the same, but keeps on changing, and depends a lot on our moods, the environment that we live in and the practical experiences in life that we have. Often we do not realize the factual situation within it. It involves a lot of our psychology and depends a lot more on our self-esteem than the real physical attractiveness that we have according to others. People do not directly tell us this, but this is what we feel. The transmission of this knowledge is cultural and through the family and friends. (Body Image: International Eating Disorder Referral Organization)

Most of the people involved are not happy with the bodies they have. There are some differences between the sexes regarding body image and in Europe, the girls are worse off. According to research conducted at Glasgow University women are even as much as 10 times as unhappy with their bodies. Even healthy weights for their body statistics are seen as 'overweight' by the person residing in that body. Yet it is the men who are now getting more dissatisfied with their bodies, and this trend is on the rise. The general tendency of men is to be more concerned with their skin, hair loss, nose and genital size, as also not feeling that they are muscular enough. Research in UK suggests that the dissatisfaction with the body increases with wealth, and the wealthier a person is, the less likely is he to be happy with his body. The general feeling is that this tendency comes from the feeling that the wealthier persons are felt to possess the required amount of money to take care of the changes. The general tendency is that even in terms of countries, the wealthier a country is, the greater is the level of body dissatisfaction.(Body Image-BBC)

At the same time, the Americans are not able to give up on their sprees of high eating, and as many as 40% of them do so regularly. It is said through research that 38% of American men want bigger chests and 34% of women want bigger breasts. The desire was more serious in men than girls. And the study that we are referring to was done in1972. They are also willing to spend a large amount of money and the current expenditure by Americans on gym memberships is over $2 billion, as also the same amount for home exercise equipment. The magazines for this aspect also have very large subscription lists and those lists are also rising sharply. In 1990, the list was for 250,000 persons which have now increased to 1.6 million for the most popular of these magazines. The medical treatments are also large and were 700,000 procedures in 1996. (Never Too Buff)

One of the main reasons for this problem in both the areas is the images that we are exposed to in advertising in all media -- television, films, magazines, newspapers, and websites. The models in all advertising are beautiful for selling high image products. The persons that one can see are featuring muscular leading men, or jeans with a taut and tanned model. The models are much more perfect than they were 50 years ago. Only the present magazines can be compared with magazines of 50 years earlier. The earlier models were much less polished, and even some flaws could be noted on their skins. Today the pictures are much more perfect with excellent lighting, beautiful make up and airbrushing. This technique removes all the flaws, and they are made to look perfect. Another help they have is from personal trainers, hairdressers, make up artists, stylists and even personal chefs. Most….....