Body Image Pressure Among Young Adults and Adolescence

Body image and its notion of impressing other people through it has become like a general trend amongst the youth. They try to change their body figures, and their characters while trying to impress others. The majority of youths do matters to enhance how they look in the eyes of others. Moreover, social media has a big influence on the teenage body image, particularly when teenagers post their pictures in social media forums. They strive to change their appearance and personality by the way of attending to galvanize the public. Thus, impressing the society through a body image and its pressure is becoming an alarming concern in the society such as, improper dress ups by youths, adoption of unhealthy diets and unnecessary expenses.

Over the years, way youths dress up has got changed drastically due to body image pressure. Ferguson (2017) states that people trend to choose the clothes that could expose their body figure thus, the clothes they choose directly affect their mood, health and confidence. Especially, ladies wear clothes to make themselves look thinner during their fat days, something that covers more as it makes them psychologically feel thin (Reddy and Otieno, 2013). Thus, such choosy mindset of ladies’ could be the main reason for them doing unnecessary shopping on daily basis visiting every cloth shops. Such unnecessary shopping leads to financial implications at both personal level and family level. Moreover, it could be the reason for disrespect in a family relationship since, parents wish their children to dress decently on the other hand youth’s trends to follow the westernized style of dressing that reveals every parts of body revealing their body. Further, body image pressure with regards to family & environment is found among different age groups and strive to change their appearance, personal character by way of attempting to the public with revealing dress ups. Such trends of ladies dress up could be the main reason for the increased number of rape cases since, their way of dressing attracts the attention of the boys. In fact body image can mostly be found in girls as young as age of seven. The most of the negative impact that caused to body image of the Bhutanese young girls such as increased anxiety which can be harder to treat if the person wait, stress and depression which causes both psychological and physical issues. Therefore, due to huge concern for their body image by youths and choosy mindset of youths in dressing let them to disrespect their parents word of advice when it comes to dress ups and end up doing more unnecessary clothes shopping thus, body image concern is becoming a major concern in the society.

Secondly, the body image pressure in youth is becoming a major concern as youth’s are following unhealthy dieting system to have presentable body figure. Grossbard, Lee, Neighbors, and Larimer (2009) stated that body image is a significant developmental concern for both adolescents and young adults, in light of the physical, psychological, and social transitions occurring during these periods and associations between body satisfaction and positive psychological and social functioning are empirically supported. Moreover, they stated that youths are particularly susceptible to social pressure associated with their physical appearance, as these developmental periods are critical for the formation of one’s identity and self-worth across a number of domains, including physical self-evaluation. Thus, especially girls can be found engaged in risky weight-loss behaviors including unhealthy dieting, using laxatives, self-induced vomiting, and excessive exercise which can cost their health. Further, peer competition and pressure has negative impact on body outcomes of the teenagers. They create new identity with their peers such as smoking, alcohol consumption and their body image through eating habits and other physical activities (Anger, Kvasnicka & Siedler, 2011). They usually smoke to boast image in front of their peers and other mates. Most Majority of the youths try to meet the standards set by peers and their circle of friends and starve to become thin, maintaining body structure. Thus, due to youths adopting unhealthy dieting practices to maintain body figure which is dangerous to their health, body image pressure has become a major concern.

Thirdly, body image pressure has been a major concern in the society as it has many financial implications. As highlighted in the first paragraph due to body image pressure youths of today can be found every possible ways to deal with their body figure to make it presentable starting from dieting habits to plastic surgery. When youths are get indulged in substance abuse such as smoking marijuana and tobacco substances; in the first place they themselves can be found in financial crisis and when they are gradually stricken by throat cancers and other related diseases, for their treatment parents and government may have to spent huge money otherwise, which can be spent in other necessary things.

To conclude, body image is a major concern in the society as majority of young ladies prefers to wear a dress which reveals their body in order to show their figure but indirectly or directly brings disharmony in the family and to the personal life. Further, youths are found adopting unhealthy dieting habits which are dangerous to their health and their decision of caring their body figure undermining the financial implications to self, parents and government is becoming a worrisome issue to be think of thus, body image pressure has become a major concern in the society

References

1. Anger, S., Kvasnicka, M., & Siedler, T. (2011). One last puff? Public smoking bans and smoking behavior. Journal of health economics.
2. Givel, M. S. (2011). History of Bhutan’s prohibition of cigarates: Implications for neo-prohibitionists and their critics. International journal of drug policy.
3. Irish Health pro. (2013). Peers influence teen body image. Retrieved from http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?level=4&id=21644
4. Raymond, J. (2015). Family, environment and body image: Make the connection, choose to change. https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/family-environment-and-body-image-make-the-connection-choose-to-change
5. Taylor, B. (2017). Body image in the fashion industry: How far have we come? Retrieved from www.studentnewspaper.org/body-image-in-the-fashion-industry-how-far-have-we-come/