Medias Impact on Teens

Not only is the media having a huge impact on eating disorders amongst teens, they are also creating a low self-esteem for teens. According to the article How the Media Affects Teen Girls, the author talks about "Teenage Girls + Media = Low Self-Esteem," saying that most girls these days aren't only focused on their size they are worrying about things they do and do not like about themselves. The article says, "Despite contradictory findings, all researchers agree that teenage girls as a group are focused on their looks-especially on what they don't like about themselves!" Most of the media has a huge impact on this because of all their advertisements on "how to look good," or "what not to do." All of the advertisements are mostly targeted toward teenage girls, most girls care about what they look like and if the media says not to do what they are already doing, they will change everything about themselves just to be "perfect." The author of How the Media Affects Teen Girls also quoted "Marketing departments and ad agencies spend millions each year targeting teenage girls who spend much of their hard-earned dollars (and their parents' hard-earned dollars!) on looking good." This shows that the media are advertising towards teen girls just because they know teens will go out and buy what is being advertised. When really they do not understand how much it is affecting the teens. These teens are slowly loosing their self-esteem because they do not feel comfortable being who they are if they are constantly changing who they are just because of the media. Also teenage girls feel obligated to be just like the other girls in the media, who are in the advertisements, because they see that other girls have the "perfect" look and they feel they can have that "perfect" look too. According to the article Why is Fashion so Important to Teens?, the author would agree by saying, "Look at any advertisement for a fashion store, and you are likely to notice that most of the models are teens." Advertisements in the media have a huge impact on teens.