Attention, Teenagers: Nobody Really Looks like That

An introduction that leads up to your thesis. [Think: Hook. Background. Turn. Thesis]

[hook] How many girls have looked into the mirror and be happy with how they look? Not so many. The media present messages and oppressive images of ideal body types for women, which often leads shaping our attitudes and behaviors. Although the media is not the only factor that have been affecting our mindset, it is one of the most powerful and influential factor on us. In recent years, the topic of body positivity has become an important subject to be discussed on media. The different forms of media portray and send the body positivity message in a variety of ways concerning the topic of body image. In this media synthesis essay, four different forms of media are compared: an article, a short film, a podcast, and an ad.

In "Attention, Teenagers: Nobody Really Looks Like That," the writer states that teens use products to cope with the altered images used in advertising and in social media. The New York Times writer says, "a lot of young women are taking laxatives to try to become very thin, and a lot of young men are using products to help them bulk up and become more muscular." The writer puts in facts from study and quotes from professors to make her article valid and credible. At the end of the article, she sends out her personal message, "there are a lot of unrealistic images out there to measure yourself against, and a lot of false promises about how you might get there." The article has only one visual: an illustration of a teenage boy and a girl, each holding a capsule which contains ideal body shape of the gender. The visual successfully represents the article. The capsules that teens are holding are the metaphor of products such as laxatives and steroids that teens take to approach their ideal body shape.

The article

On the contrary, the ad from Aerie delivers a message of body positivity with a visual and only fourteen words. The ad displays a model in lingerie, smiling at the camera confidently. When the viewers look at the ad, their eyes are first drawn into her stomach. It has lines; it is natural; it is not the typical stomach you would see in lingerie ads. The next thing the viewers put focus is the model's thighs. In the model industry, the ideal body shape is to have a thigh gap. The skinner your thighs are, the better. However, in this ad, the model's thighs are touching. Again, not the typical feature you would see in lingerie ads. On the top left corner, along with other text, it says "the real you is sexy." This ad sends a message of body positivity both visually and textually.

Stuff Mom Never Told You, is an audio podcast hosted by Cristen Conger and Caroline Ervin which discusses the business of being women from every imaginable angle. In the episode, The Body Shaming Epidemic, two women discussed weight bias and weight stigma through their own experiences in the past. They talked about how parents, peers, and television affect our mindset from a young age. Caroline spoke about her mother who always told her to stay skinny and not eat junk food. Cristen said that when she was little, her crush called her "fatty" when they were playing trust fall. She said, "things like that, stick with people" (9:20) and once a certain mindset is formed at an early age, it never really changes as you grow up. They discussed the impact of media, especially television, on the ideal body image. Cristen spoke that she "personally thought that people who deserve to be on screen were the people who look like this one specific way” (6:20) when she was little. They also discussed the meaning