10th graders in Mr. Garfield’s class spend some time reflecting on the way advertising affects people in society, especially women. They also watched some interesting videos from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty (here and here).
Here are some of the students’ insightful reflections:
How many times have you done something that might make you thinner? Have you ever stopped eating despite you’re starving?
Nowadays there are pictures of female bodies in the TV, magazines, internet, social networks, almost everywhere, which sell different products. The actresses are becoming younger, taller, and thinner. Why are standards of beauty being imposed on women? Because the majority of women magazines have at least one article promoting weight loss, diet, excercise or cosmetic surgery in it’s cover, and this is all based in the economy. This articles just promote more insecurities about your bodies and encourage girls like you to loose weight, even if you don’t need to. This in linked to unhealthy eating habits, depression and loss of self-esteem. Stop comparing yourself with the rest of women!! You will never look like the girl in the magazine. The girl in the magazine doesn’t even look like the girl in the magazine.
-Bárbara Allué, Camila Fuchs, Francisca Marcos, and Magdalena Peñaloza
Films, magazines, television shows and advertisements show a unrealistic image of women which is a bad influence on children because it makes them believe if they follow this stereotype they will have the perfect life. These standards of beauty are not natural, because healthy children are larger than what the film and television actresses are. The diet and cosmetic industry think by advertising something impossible to achieve they will sell more products. This form of advertising makes children unhappy with their appearence when they cannot achieve the appearence they want, which makes them continue to buy the products. Majority of the dietery things brought do not work long-term and most people gain back the weight. Most of the people who buy these products have low self-esteem and very insecure. By being surrounded by unhealthy images of women (in films and advertisements) these teenagers become more insecure and could result in depression.
-Camilla Johnson, Maria Jesus Urrutia, Camila Reino
Images of female bodies are everywhere. What is the effect that they cause in your children? And even more important, in your daughters?
As they are too young to understand the way the world works, they are easily influenced by what they see and hear every day. As the standard of “beautiful woman” that exists nowadays is about a thin, tall, with a lot of botox and stuff, they think that they must be like that too.
But the true is that they are just decieving themselves.
This false image of women becomes real to your daughters, so they compare themselves with this “perfection”. This can lead to anorexia and serious stuff, that is actually dangerous to your health.
We are in a society that tries to create something that it is not representative.-Antonia Kummerlin, Daniela Rodríguez, Francisca Hughes