Women/Girls and Body Image:
Women often compare their own body to those others. It has been suggested that seeing idealised body images results in women feeling dissatisfied and unattractive in them self. Some alarming facts:
• It is believed that 75% of women who are of normal weight actually believe they are overweight.
• 90% of women overestimate their own body size.
• The most sought after wish for girls aged 11-17 is to be thinner.
• Girls who are as young as 5 years old have stated they are scared of getting fat.
• 80% of 10 year old girls have at some point been on a diet.
• 47% of girls are affected by images in magazines and only 29% of these were overweight.

Men/Boys and Body Image:
Although issues related to body image are usually linked to women, there is a growing concern of the pressure men have to appear muscular. This has resulted in an alarming rise in the obsession of weight training, the use of dietary supplements and anabolic steroids. Although the majority of eating disorders in teenagers are linked to girls (90%) it is suspected that more boys are affected than known, as boys are less likely to come forward with such an illness.

We now have high definition television that can give up real life close up’s without any loss of quality. This kind if technology is great when watching a football match but when we are watching the news, we can often see images that we may only see after the 9pm watershed.

The gore that is now seen on the news channels sometimes could rival horror films. We are often now shown video footage of war zones, animal cruelty and in some cases dead bodies. We only need to turn the TV on and we are exposed to some horrible sites. Although we know these things go on, it’s hard to stomach as you are about to tuck into a steak and chip meal.

Recently on the entire major news channels, we were shown images of Colonel Gaddafi’s dead body after he was shot. Although I was no personal fan, we are starting to see a rise in people that can celebrate a man’s death. Times have moved on so much in the media industry, we are now asking the question “Is there too much gore on TV”