What "Perfect" Means?

Ms. X: "I think I'm overweight."
Ms. Y: "No way! You are fine the way you are. I am the one who has to diet."
Ms. X: "Don't! You are too skinny! You have to eat more."


I often hear those kinds of conversations among (Japanese) girls. Although most of them who are on diet do not need to lose weight, they do not think that way. Ms. Y might look at Ms. X who sees herself as overweight, and might feel pressure because Ms. X is skinnier than Ms. Y.

We girls always want to get skinny. Why? Because of advertising we see every single day no matter where we go. As Kilbourne states, "Most teenagers are sensitive to peer pressure and find it difficult to resist or even question the dominant cultural messages perpetuated and reinforced by the media" (122). We might see a beautiful skinny woman pass by and feel depressed after checking our own body.

On last several pages of Japanese fashion magazines, I always find thins kind of advertising which I posted on the top. They love to show how the model looked before and after using their product, such as diet pills and diet drinks. Who wants to be look like the girl of the picture? I hope many people think it is crazy. But it is true that some people actually buy their products after seeing this advertising. This is what advertising do. Advertising have to make people think they need "it" in order to sell their products. It does not matter if the people really need it or not. I do not think there are not so may people who are skinnier than this girl in the picture. So, in this case, this advertising is trying to make people think they are not skinny enough. As Kilbourne says, "It is interesting to note that one in five college-age women have an eating disorder" (124), this kind of advertising can lead young girls to get anemic and/or nearly become anorexic. "Women are constantly exhorted to emulate this ideal, to feel ashamed and guilty if they fail, and to feel that their desirability and livability are contingent upon physical perfection" (Kilbourne 122).

I think this picture above is even crazier than the first one. In fact, as soon as this picture was found out, Twitter erupted with criticism towards this advertising. Actually, I was personally shocked because she does not look like a human being! I do not understand why this could be published. I think the strategy they use here is to gather attention regardless of what people may think. Critical opinions spread with a lighting speed due to the widespread use of the Internet. So I might want to say that this second advertising succeeds in terms of gathering peoples' attention, but does it effective in terms of promotion? I would like to know how my classmates react. But we have to note that "the diet industry rakes $ 33 million per year" (Cortese 56).

I think this is ok to set out to have an ideal body. However, it is not right that mass media set our ideal body image. Cortes states, "It is important to expand media literacy in order to endure the invasion of media images, messages, and displays that are flooding our senses" (52). I think it is absolutely true. It is really important to know how the "healthy" body image. As this news article shows, even 4-year-old kids nowadays think thinner body is more beautiful than average-weighted body. This means we should start teaching it to younger kids. Otherwise they may be going to have serious problems which harm them not to grow up healthily.