Although some studies have demonstrated the contrary, others have found that when taken as a group, teenage women are mostly focused on their external appearance, and more so on what they do not find positive about themselves.
Marketing strategies are developed and money is spent to target precisely this demographic group, that seems the most vulnerable and the most susceptible in purchasing large amounts of their pocket money and their parent’s money on trying to look as good as they can.
The main trend is definitely that you have to look both thin and sexy to be able to please the male gender.
The dietary industry in particular makes more than 30 billion dollars each year from teenage women seeking to reach this status.
The problem with dieting as far as teenage women are concerned is that it affects not only their bodies but their mental health too.
Statistics have revealed incredible figures relating to what teenage girls and women think of themselves. More than eighty percent of teenagers think that they should definitely be on a diet, and even amongst girls of ages 10 to 11, more than 50 percent think they are overweight.
Our society nowadays and the media as a consequence, have led women to believe that you have to be thin to be sexy.
This is because most of the fashion magazines and other forms of media use models that are thinner than most of the teenagers and young women today.
All you need to do is turn on the television or watch a video to realize, which the models are for young women and teenage girls today.
This can only contribute to an enhanced desire to lose weight, as young women and teenagers want to look like their idols.
Is it safe to say that teenage girls and young women have a low self-esteem because of the media pressure?
Studies have been carried out on a selected group of teenage girls and young women who had very a very low percentage of eating disorders, and these were submitted to programs that hit in the USA, such as Melrose Place and ER.
A few years later it was found that eating disorders had risen nearly 20 percent as a side effect of this media pressure.
Media has negative effects on teenage girls and young women even in those social milieus where women with curves are preferred to the thin models.
This means that media pressure has the enormous negative potential over young women and teenagers, and is a serious problem of our century.
