The Negative Impact Of Body Shaming In The Brand Of Forever 21

Under society’s customs for decades, young women have found themselves immersed in the pressure and anticipation to have exemplary bodies. Nearly every young woman prefers to be slim, have a perfectly shaped body, that is beautified by applying pounds of makeup to their face but does not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these measures imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model on the cover of Vogue being called flawless, naturally it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the that model. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough, our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a surging subject for young girls. Advertisements and pictures of lean female models are all over. Young women are measured and perplexed by their physical appearances with attire intended to raise their physical structures; social media, magazines, the society, marketing campaigns, advertisements, and the fashion gurus add to a strand of excellence.

The fashion industry plays a huge role in portraying bad images of ideal beauty, which in turn affects today’s society perception of their own body image. Not only are women affected by what is seen and heard about how the perfect body should appear, children of young ages are now feeling insecure and obsessed with their bodies before they reach teenage years. This ‘ideal image’ the fashion industry continues to enforce only focuses on very thin models who seem to be in shape and are very healthy. Furthermore, many people think of the influence from the fashion industry as being human representations (models). Because of the rising problem with the image of beauty within the fashion industry, it is shown that even mannequins and non-human representations (mannequins, dolls, photoshopping) of bodies play a significant role in women’s body image; which causes problems to the individual. (Anshutz & Engels, 2010). Body image and self-satisfaction, eating disorders and non-human representations all can cause harm to the individual, if prolonged.

When the Tatelman brothers took over the business, they changed their mode of advertising. They realized that by limiting their advertising to newspapers, they were potentially missing out on a whole demographic of people that needed furniture, which would be 18-34 year olds. This demographic was starting to move out on their own, starting families, and needed furniture. By moving from newspapers to funny radio ads and later funny TV ads, Barry and Eliot were able to draw in more customers, especially the demographic they were targeting (Iacobucci, 2013). Before they started to add in the extra shopping experiences, they had customers waiting to get into their third store. Once they added the entertainment portions of the store, they were able to draw in more customers. Even if the customer is only there to take part in the entertainment aspect of the store, which is in the back of every store, they do have to walk through the showroom first. By walking through the showroom a first time customer could see a room design or one piece of furniture that catches their eye. Each customer has a different shopping experience, whether it be at one store or multiple Jordan’s Furniture

Girls don’t just simply decide to hate their bodies, society teaches them to. I think ads that show “perfect” models are creating insecurity and self-consciousness for teens. For example, “ads help limit our understanding of our worth and our full potential.” (SB pg. 126) The ads that show beautiful, slim, and flawless models make teens suffer from certain illnesses like anorexia.

The Fashion Industry is affecting the way many people look at themselves. In today’s society there is always an ad promoting fast food, clothing brands, Cars. Etc. almost all of them have a model to promote their products. These fashion models are usually, extremely thin, tan, tall, and gorgeous. This set a negative standard for many women on what they should look like and can often cause to self-esteem issues. The Media is having a negative effect on body image by choosing to settle toward an unrealistic persona. In Addition, this has created many young girls, to have eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia, and fasting. However, some businesses have started gravitating toward plus size models to stop the affects it has on society. Plus, also many companies are limiting the amount of photo shopping and airbrushing. The issues are far from being resolved but numerous people are working toward making a change.

Under society’s norms for decades, young women have been put under the pressure and anticipation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin and curved, beautified by applying pounds of the makeup to their face but not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these standards imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model along the cover of Vogue being called flawless, it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the photocopy. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a pressing issue for young women. Advertisements and posters of skinny female models are all over. Young girls not only could be better but need to be more upright and feel driven to throw the perfect figure. Moreover, girls are evaluated and oppressed by their physical appearances. With supplements and apparel designed to enhance a facial expression; social media, magazines, and marketing campaigns and advertisements add to the burden of perfection. The fashion industry is a prime object of body image issues, as they believe clothes look better on tall and svelte women. Established on a survey participated by 13 to 17-year-old in the U.S., 90% “felt pressured by fashion and media industries to be skinny”, with more than 60% routinely compares themselves to models, while 46%

“Body shaming someone describes how mean the society can be to troll someone on their physical appearance” (Jain). Body-shaming people affects their self-esteem. People think it is normal to criticize the body of others because they are accustomed to do it every day, that sometimes they do not even realize it. Society body shames others all the time, instead of helping them feel secure and happy with their bodies. They want other people to look the way they want to be look at. Body shaming is affecting people physically and mentally.

Walking into the library at most high schools brings to the eye an array of fashion magazines in the front shelves. Most schools acknowledges that fashion has a large audience, but the skinnier and skinnier models have created a large group of people with eating disorders and bad self-images. In her article “What’s Wrong with Skinny?” that discusses eating disorders linked to the fashion industry, Lisa Hilton states that women are “so pathologically stupid that they are unable to distinguish the fantasy of the runway from the realities of their own bodies”. Fashion is something that many girls let influence them into changing how they dress, feel, and eat; the skinnier the models are (or are “retouched” to look), the more it supports eating

A considerable problem in today society is discrimination. Whether it’s based upon race, age, sexuality, or even looks, discrimination is a serious dilemma. Marshal Cohen, a senior industry analyst with the NPD Group, believes that hiring people who are “walking billboards” is critical and essential to a company’s success. The companies who hire based on looks, fail to realize that there are shoppers who do not care about the appearance of the store employees, just as long as they are receiving good customer service. People cannot completely control their appearance and brands like Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, and American Apparel should take notice to that.

Perhaps you’re just like Tamara, a 21 year old who’s struggled with body image from a young are. Growing up, she would ask her parents “How come my brothers can have ice cream, but I can’t?” “Because they don’t have a weight problem.” She considered herself “fat”. Have you ever dealt with a body image issue?

The piece that I found was a picture for a Tampax ad. It shows Serena Williams hitting a tennis ball through a gift which represents the unwanted gift that Mother Nature brings every month (your period). I felt that this advertisement connected well with the Restriction and Renewal article. In the article, Dunnavant and Roberts talk about how women have negative feelings towards their periods. The ad shows negative feelings towards menstruation and how it is unwanted. In the article, Dunnavant and Roberts had several women take a 48 item questionnaire to assess menstrual attitudes. The questionnaire had five items that discussed feelings of menstrual burden. The scale was from 1.6-7.00, with 7 being strongly agree. With the results that we

This power has allowed the creation of new standards for women who are expected to be in perfect in every way and do everything to reach the established standards, even if it means putting their life at risk in order to meet the “ideal” body or face. Being exposed to these models flaunting their perfect bodies millions of women suffer from insecurities and low self-esteem. In the article Reconstructing the Ideal Body Image in Teen Fashion Magazines the writers Malachowski and Myers state that “Magazines are particularly influential because they target an audience in which disordered eating is most common, and display models that are thinner than 98% of American women” (2). Studies show that the most affected by these ideals are girls and teenagers, which is sad because they only care about looking like models in orders to be considered beautiful or just to be part of certain group. In the article No model for girls Fiona Bawdon states that “In a study of 3,200 young women carried out in February this year by Girlguiding UK, over half of 16- to 25-year-olds said the media showed in magazines or fashion advertisements made them feel that "being pretty and thin" was the "most important thing". This proves how the media and The Fashion Industry guide and shape the concept that society has about beauty

The world is constantly filled with a dark cloud of judgment and sometimes that judgment may even come from oneself. Imagine being a young female who is always battling herself on how to have the perfect body that is seen on all kinds of social media. Victoria’s Secret is a good example of a company that promotes their idea of a so called perfect body for young women. However a company called Dove argues that the image Victoria’s Secret portrays is not correct.

Many Forever 21 retailers set up the store in sections, men’s on the right hand corner, children’s clothes in upstairs left. Yet, despite the employee’s best efforts all the clothes continue to pile on top of each other and create a large mess. There is an overabundance of merchandise and many products end up crammed on the racks, to the point where the customers are not able to efficiently look through everything. Not to mention that many employees are unsure of the products whereabouts because the store is usually two stories tall and the product placement is a disaster. Shoes are usually tossed on the ground and many dressing rooms have large stacks of unwanted clothes hanging on the

In today’s society we let the media decide everything in our lives from what clothes we should wear, music we should listen to, and how we should look. One of the biggest problems that both men and women face is body shaming, because the media sets standards for young kids and young adults., they often times try and fit the description of “perfect” which leads these people to either be depressed because they do not look like people want them to look or harm themselves in order to achieve the desired look. The most common ways the media shames both men and women are by celebrities and how they are the “perfect” body, publishing magazines of what is the ideal man and woman, and by the people who believe being “too” fat is bad and being “too” skinny is bad.