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Advertisements follow everyone throughout their days everywhere they go, whether we  consciously or subconsciously recognize every ad we see throughout the day, we are seeing thousands. An advertisements goal is to grasp the consumers interest and make them take the extra step to check out the subject being advertised; a way this has most successfully been done is to incorporate sex or use the bodies of ‘perfect’ men and women.

Advertisements create this world that portrays the people in them as perfect and they have no flaws or problems in life, which we can all assume is not true but that is what they want us to believe so we buy the product that makes this person look perfect and seem like they have the perfect life. This tactic from companies puts a false idea in consumers minds, especially younger generations today. A statistic in an article “Media and Body Image” by Joel Miller states that problems with eating disorders have increased by over 400% since 1970 which is a huge difference but does not shock me that much because today there definitely is no way of escaping ads, they are on every corner, on every app that is constantly in the palm of our hands; whereas in the past when ads were just on television or radio there was a way to turn it off without being cut off from the world, with this said I think body image and the idea of having to look a certain way is relevant now more than ever. Constantly having the image of people that are ‘perfect’ around you creates insecurities and can be very damaging to people of all ages, especially because most people focus on the flaws they have and what they have to ‘fix’ which can be very damaging to a persons confidence and health. More statistics in the Joel Miller article are “In another study, 69% of girls concurred that models found in magazines had a major influence on their concept of what a perfect body shape should look like.”, an image of a model who has been in hours of hair and make up, been edited and photoshopped should not be the image portrayed to people. There is a video from BuzzFeed where they take four regular women and turn there photoshoot pictures into “cover model” pictures by making them look thinner, whiter, and taking away freckles; when the women saw themselves they felt like it was a completely different person and everything that made them unique and who they are was gone. Women need to focus on the things that make them who they are and this ‘perfect’ women seen in all these ads does not exist, which I always have to try and remind myself.

Protein World ad

These ‘perfect’ women in the media are also viewed by men as a dream girl or they expect every woman to look like that, which puts the pressure on women to look like that to be viewed as beautiful by men. In the reading “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising” by Jean Kilbourne a student from the Chicago area said “We don't expect boys to be that handsome. We take them as they are.” and another student said “But boys expect girls to be perfect and beautiful and skinny” (Kilbourne, 124). I feel that there is definitely a double standard when it comes to the effect and portrayal of men and women in mass media. I am sure there are boys that are effected by mainly seeing men with six packs and feel pressured to look like that because women find that attractive but women do not add to that pressure like men do when it comes to a women's body image. Women do not only find a guy with a six pack ‘perfect’, because most men don’t look like that and women are fine with it; I don't think men feel the same pressures as a woman does to look a certain way to be beautiful or found attractive.

I try to regulate the media that I consume, for example I would rather watch a tv show such as Law and Order: SVU and Chicago Fire where they portray the women as powerful and for the most part on an equal level with the men in the show. Even though the women are powerful they are still portrayed as overly emotional and they still are thin, fit women who usually always look ‘perfect’. It is hard to think of at least two or three shows that portray women of different sizes and body types. I also use instagram every day, multiple times a day so I try not to follow instagram models or the women who post their ‘perfect’ body all the time because thats not something I want or need to see everyday; I also think its important to remind myself and others that the ‘perfect’ images we see on instagram (even our own posts) are the best picture out of hundreds and it has been edited to be ‘perfect’, just like any model in a magazine.