Society is filled with slim models plastered to the covers of magazines and made-up girls styling the season’s new trends. All the young women flaunt their size zero bodies with their airbrushed tans glistening in the glow of the artificial lighting. Young girls flip through the glossy pages of the latest magazines and admire the perfection of the models, striving to be like them. Media like magazines can push adolescents into dilemmas such as negative self-image and self-esteem.

“Models in magazines make it seem like you have to be thin and beautiful to be perfect,” said sophomore Alex Maceika.

Magazines, though very influential, aren’t the only offender when it comes to body image. Television, websites and clothing advertisements play a large part in how teen girls are negatively affected by the media.

“The media effects us through things in which we are so dependent on, so we get its messages clearly,” said junior Sarah Weldy. “That shapes how we thing about ourselves, others, and the world,”

A 2003 Teen magazine study showed that 50 to 70 percent of normal sized girls consider themselves to be overweight. Overall research indicated that 90 percent of women are unhappy with their appearance in some way. A study by the National Institute on Media and the Family reports that at age 13, approximately 53 percent of American girls are dissatisfied with their looks. The percentage grows to 78 percent by the time the girls reach age 17.

Messages given by the internet, shown on television, and featured in magazines tell ‘ordinary’ women that their looks are always in need of an adjustment.

“Everyone knows that they are judged to a certain extent by their appearance,” said Spanish teacher Elise Dykema. “Many people will do whatever they think it takes to look the way they want to look or be accepted by a certain group, no matter the cost to their physical or emotional well-being.”

Doing whatever it takes, however, can turn into a very expensive process. The diet industry alone makes its mark each year selling temporary weight loss solutions to women all over. The industry takes in about 60 to 80 billion dollars every year; money that is spent on the skinny models used in advertisements.

To advertisers all over the market, “thin is in.” The average model twenty years ago weighed eight percent less than the average woman. Today, however, models weigh an average of 23 percent less.

“More and more media images show people with sculpted physiques…physiques that are impossible for most people to attain,” said Alison Field, ScD, an epidemiologist in adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital Boston, in a news release.

The traps of media cause women to become self-conscious about their bodies as well as how they appear to other people.

“Girls are very conscious of their appearances and always feel like they need to be perfect,” said sophomore Julia Roskopf. “The media puts ideas about ‘the perfect figure” into people’s minds when really, everyone is perfect just the way they are.”