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Some of the more common negative influences in today’s world include fashion, commerce, technology, culture, and celebrities. Fashion, Commerce, and Technology Fashion has always been an important determinant of what shapes and defines culture and society, and it’s certainly no surprise that fashion has evolved from simply being clothing to body figure when considering how fast fads change. In today’s society, fashion has evolved to shape what has now been worldly accepted as the ‘ideal body image’ -?? skinny, young, fit, curvaceous (or for men – athletic and muscular).
Modeling agencies and conic fashion names such as Vogue are infamous for their usage of young and skinny models on the runway. In recent years, fashion companies have been signing pledges to denounce the promotion of underage models and models that appear to have eating disorders and promote the message of healthy body image. Despite all attempts to stay true to their pledges, many companies have shamelessly broken them by exploiting the use of adolescent models on the runway.
Going so far as to implement an enforced minimum IBM (body mass index; height-to-weight ratio) on their models, these companies are far from pleading innocence. In fact, a startling third of pageant-winning models have met the World Health Organization’s IBM criteria for anorexia, one of the countless types of eating disorders partially caused by the fashion industry’s input to society (Grayson, “How the Media Keeps us HUNG up on BODY IMAGE”).
The fashion industry is not alone in accepting the blame for contributing to society twisted image of beauty. Commerce and technology have a good share in it as well. Through commercial advertisements and commerce, marketers have managed to send messages out to the public that perpetuate body image trauma. With the help of modern technology, marketers have developed a new approach to advertising that implements the usage of programs such as Photos to distort and shape what the public sees as ‘beautiful. In response to this, companies such as Dove have been targeting such forms of advertisement with their own approach that promotes self- esteem and cultural transformation. Dove’s aim is to change society twisted image of artificial beauty and widen the definition and discussion of beauty. Other individuals have targeted the source directly and have let manufacturers, advertisers, publishers, and programmers know about their joss of business due to unethical and destructive actions.
What is important to remember is that physical beauty is a false concept and cheap marketing technique that has been blown up over the past decade. Psychological Studies Studies have been performed by scientists in order to test the effects society has on today’s average population of adolescents. One study investigated two theories that are believed to account for the variations in self-perception of body image. The first theory, social theory deals with the thought that women and men alike are influenced by the images seen in the media when it comes to self-perception.