It is normal human tendency to get influenced by things people do in the society. People are influenced by different things such as what one is wearing, eating or where a person is living and his/her lifestyle. But I would like to emphasize how a person judges one’s own body by the influence of fashion andmedia specifically the internet plays a vital role in influencing peopleabout their own body in today’s world. The media has various means to communicate to the world such as television, the internet, radio, magazines, and newspapers. People tend to these means of communication in their daily routine and get influenced by things media convey to them and become more concerned about their own body.The first reason is people should be concerned about their own body to a certain extent but if someone crosses the extent it is called an obsession, which never decreases and only keeps on growing gradually affecting a person mentally and physically.The second reason is that fashion world which walks along with media in influencing people mostly youngsters which tend to follow the fashion trend very seriously. The third reason is that people are getting negatively influenced by blogs posted regarding different body related blogs and diet to get into particular body structure on sites such as a Tumbler, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Therefore awareness should be spread in society about the issues which leads to make them extremely concerned about their body.

People tend to look at themselves in the mirror every day and be confident about their body. When a person does not feel confident about one’s own body they get influenced by someone else who has a better body that’s when they start obsessing about their own body. The first evidence to support my reason is by Susan Bordo the author of the essay from her book Twilight Zones. The Hidden Life of Culture Images from Plato to 0.J., first published in 1997. Susan Bordo claims that the world of fashion has more importance for how a person looks and her personality towards other people in the society.Bordo supports the claim with many evidences. Bordo had researched about how a person thinks about one’s own body with physiologist and results in a syndrome known as ‘the body disturbance syndrome’. Body disturbance syndrome is basically when a person starts over thinking about one’s own weight and looks. For example some people believe they are fat when in real life they are not fat. A research by Bordo also shows that during 1980’s Olympics most cheerleading girls did not look physically matured due to lack of nutrients in them. This was due to various kind of dieting and food restriction in their routine which was affecting those girls physically.

Bordo also had a glimpse of fashion world in her essay which she quotes “Eating disorders are also linked to the contradiction of consumer culture, which is continually encouraging us to binge on our desires at the same time as it glamorizes self-discipline. Despite media attention to eating disorders, an air with ‘victim feminism’ has infected attitudes towards the women’s body issues” (Bordo, page2). This clearly justifies that eating disorder is clearly because of the obsession of looking good physically on a large scale in our society. Media plays a bad role in this by advertising and making people more conscious and makes them think about their body. This leads affecting a person psychologically by over thinking for their food and body and that leads to physically actions such as excessive gym or any kind of workout which is not good for a person’s health.

Almost half of the American population are young people between the ages of 0-20 years. And youngsters are the ones who are most concerned about their clothes and how they look in front of other people. So young people tend to follow fashion trend and even set a role model and try to look like them. To support my reason I would like to talk more about fashion world another article was published in Business Insider on May 3rd, 2013, by Ashley Lutz talking about how Abercrombie and Fitch does not stock XL,XXL or any plus sizes in their store just because if fat people who generally look ugly wear their brand clothes the company considers it as a bad publicity. The CEO Mike Jeffries quotes that” In every school there are cool and popular kids and then there are not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after cool kids. We go after attractive all American kid with great attitude and a lot of friends.” This means that the CEO of the company thinks that people who go to school or college and who have a American attitude are more likely to wear their brand clothes so that they can make other people jealous who do not look good as them or who cannot wear the same clothes because of sizes not available in stores. This is to prove that Abercrombie and Fitch is the brand all cool and attractive people wear.

Lewis another CEO of the company quotes that” Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomach who look like they are about to jump on surfboard.” (Lutze, pg. 3) his statement is harsh as well as very specific at the same time. The company is very specific about what they want and what is best for their company. The media then makes this big flashing news over the channel and on social media and this provokes people in a very negative way. The fashion world is what everyone in the society looks forward to get to know about new trends but now they fashion world also speaks about a person’s weight and how it might affect will a person be able to wear a particular brand cloth or not . This can be taken a challenge by many women in the society that the brands they look forward too or desire to wear has limited sizes and thus they start working on their body. But some of them take it very negatively that his/her body needs to look like someone else and start working out and crash dieting which will affect a person physically.

Everyone in the society uses different social media sites to get updates regularly. Social media tends to post articles which includes articles about new body obsessions and unhealthy or inappropriate diets which influences people who are active on these sites. To support my third reason Kendra Alvey wrote an article on Cosmopolitan on January 13th, 2014 where she talks abouthow she was on the streets of LA when she one heard about the word ‘thigh gap’. Alvey felt weird about what is this thigh gap so she researched about it and then found out that it was the new obsession which all people were talking about in the society. The obsession had reached another level with thigh gap diet, exercise, home workouts and many other things. Alvey quotes “Starving myself until I get a thigh gap LOL!”(Alvey, pg2) this is an example about how a girl posted this on twitter about her thigh gap obsession. This post is read by millions of users using that particular site which would tend to influence them in a wrong direction.Research showed that people who spend more time on social media such as Facebook, Instagram,twitter etc. are more likely to think and get obsessed with their looks than people who spend less time on the social media. Social media is the only thing in today’s world that could change a person’s way of thinking by fake evidences people post on social media which affects a person psychologically. People do not realize that they damaging their own body internally by trying to change the original shape of their body which would be temporary and then they would realize the side effects of it.

The fashion world as well some companies would object my claim saying that they are not conveying the wrong message to the society through media about being in a proper shape for both men and women.Bordo quotes in her essay “Is fashion dead?” but “Why has death become glamorous?”(Bordo, pg3) .But the world looks at their favorite brand or model as their role model to follow and be like them. It is normal human tendency to like and get attracted to thing which are popular and famous, so the post models and the fashion world makes an influential atmosphere among the society. Unless the fashion industry does not understand that how badly they impact the society there cannot be a change among the people. So the awareness about not following wrong people is very important in today’s world.

Work Cited

Bordo Susan, “Never just pictures”

Abercrombie & Fitch Refuses To Make Clothes For Large Women Ashley Lutz | May 3, 2013, 10:36 AM ?Published in Business Insider, an American Magazine( A&F Refuse to Make Clothes)

Why the Thigh Gap Obsession Needs to Stop Immediately

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