Preview

The Culture Of Thin Bites Fiji Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
469 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Culture Of Thin Bites Fiji Analysis
Do television shows portraying thin female actresses influence girls to develop a negative body image? Ellen Goodman’s, “The Culture of Thin Bites Fiji” makes a persuasive argument about how people's opinion of their physical appearance changes throughout the years. Goodman blames television for changing of teens and adult’s view of weight. Goodman uses the appeal of logos, ethos, and pathos as a persuasive technique in her article.
“You look wonderful! You’ve put on weight.” Goodman states that Fijians really did compliment one another about weight gain in their culture. Before1995 food was love and being thin was considered to be an indication of social problems that a person was not eating enough food. Goodman calls Fiji an "island paradise" (502), but Goodman uses this phrase because the people of Fiji do not worry about weight and instead welcome being heavy. She also calls the Fijians "a reverse image of our culture" (502), and for her this is changed once television comes to the island. Goodman speaks the character of
…show more content…
Why does television have effects on women and not on men? Goodman assumes that her readers have an awareness of the statistics of any eating disorders prior to the introduction to television in 1995 to Fiji. While Goodman says that our culture is molded by television, in actuality the way we view our self-image existed before television was a factor and uses the appeal of pathos to create an emotional response.
The purpose of Goodman’s argument is to use the appeal of logos, pathos, and ethos. Goodman gives an effective argument how a person’s opinion of their physical appearance can be significantly influence by western entertainment industry. The Fijian culture believed to be big was to be beautiful but was changed once television was introduce to the island which led to insecurities in the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Kelly Galicia Waxham ENG III H-1 February 26th, 2024. Body Image has always been a very controversial topic for most people. Some people think there is a certain look or size that will bring infinite success. The truth is, everyone has different opinions on what is and isn’t good enough. The author does a great job at explaining this and showing the bad side of this mindset by using many different rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, and logos.…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Johnson uses examples like Marilyn Monroe and Western female Samoa to show that in some cultures, women were admired for their natural form. In today’s society, women are expected to be skinny, and not be who they are biologically built as. He also emphasizes that women are vital…

    • 215 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this essay I will discuss how far sociologists would agree that the media causes eating disorders in women. Eating disorders refer to a group of conditions characterized by abnormal eating habits that may involve either insufficient or excessive food intake to the damage of an individual's physical and emotional health. Eating disorders include: bulimia, anorexia and obesity.…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jones and Buckingham found people with low self-esteem are more likely to compare themselves to idealised images portrayed in the media. Garner et al (1980) noted that the winners of Miss America and the centrefolds in Playboy magazine have consistently been below the average female weight and have become significantly more so since 1959. Thus the slender female perceived as being the cultural ideal might be one cause of the fear of being fat. A study by Becker of adolescent Fijian girls found that after the introduction of television to the island, these girls stated a desire to lose weight and to b like the women they saw on Western television; this lead to a significant increase in eating disorders over five years. Other research has shown that instructional intervention prior to media exposure to idealised female imaged prevents the adverse effects of media influences (Yamamiya et al). This suggests that the media can and does have an effect on the development of disordered eating and AN, but these effects can be avoided. In Groesz et al’s (2002) meta-analysis of 25 studies, they concluded that body dissatisfaction increased with media images of thin women.…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1995, a change in the Fijian view occurred. The main reason for this change was due to American television being brought into the island. “Suddenly, the girls of rural coastal villages were watching the girls of Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210, not to mention Seinfeld and E.R.” (Goodman 608-610). As the women and girls began to watch these shows, the appearance of being fat suddenly became hideous. Soon, all the Fijian…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In the article “The Globalization of Eating Disorders” Susan Bordo argues that the introduction of western media in foreign countries causes reported cases of eating disorders to skyrocket. According to Bordo: In 1998, just three years after the [western television] station began broadcasting, 11 percent of girls [in Fiji] reported vomiting to control weight, and 62 percent of the girls surveyed reported dieting during the previous months. (19) I agree with Bordo’s argument. Western media that glorifies hyper-masculinity and skinny body types puts pressure on viewers to diet, exercise, and in some cases starve themselves simply to be considered beautiful.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In today’s modern culture, many men and women suffer from a variety of psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety and anorexia. Many of these psychological disorders can be prevented if society did not have preset standards for us to follow. For example, our society from an early age tells us that all women have to have a slim waist and be curvy. The controversial issues amongst women and their outward appearance can be found in “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” by Dave Barry as well as “The Pitfalls of Plastic surgery” Camille Paglia. In these two essays both writers put an emphasis on how the media often demoralize women by having preset standards of beauty, that threaten the female identity.…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the novel The Edible Woman, author Margaret Atwood tackles the difficult subject of anorexia nervosa. Although this subject is often handled with kid gloves by many writers, Atwood’s novel candidly addresses how different food related stigmas affect the main character’s day to day existence. In the late 1960's, young women faced a society that expected them to conform to certain qualities in both appearance and demeanor. The portrayal of young women in popular movies, television and music of the time period led to internal conflicts among women who struggled to achieve the norm put forth by society. Young women everywhere were convinced they needed to look and act like Marcia Brady and turn into Carol Brady even if meant sacrificing their…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the Psychological report that I read, the authors really accentuated the point that media has made unattainable expectations for girls, adolescent girls, and young women and their bodies. Starting at the age of seven, young girls of all race and body have been thrown into the idea that their bodies aren’t as great as those in media. The media has forced many people to feel body dissatisfaction, causing physical and mental health problems. In this modern day and age, thin women are dominating media, such as movies, magazines and television. Being thin is consistently a more emphasized and rewarded aspect. While being thin is over-represented, overweight characters are underrepresented, and much more frowned upon in media. Most people don’t recognize that modern women in media are thinner than the population, as well as thinner throughout the decades, and because of this, the criteria for anorexia has become thinner as well. Fashion models, cartoons, movie and television actresses, Playboy Bunnies, and Miss America Pageants have all instilled the thought in women that media portrayals are reality. Because of media portrayal, body dissatisfaction has been the core aspect behind consistent eating disorders in women, such as bulimia, as well as low-self esteem, depression and obesity. Modern day media is showcasing bodies that are otherwise out of reach. These bodies are skewed and ingrained in women’s brains to adopt them into reality. Decreased satisfaction in bodies result in some negative eating behaviors such as dieting, bingeing and purging, as well as skipping meals. As mentioned in the report, different test have proven that such constant exposure to thin, or ideal, body images “shapes young women’s…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The media has over the years set a standard of body type - curvaceous and thin for women, and lean and muscular for men, which the average citizen does not possess, and which has a tendency to cause these people to subconsciously aspire to be what the media portrays as “perfect”. This is exacerbated by the fact that the media is around them wherever they go and there is no form of escape. Wykes and Gunter (2005, pg 13)…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The message sent by the concept of media itself is that one’s self-worth can be measured rather accurately through the perception of others. According to James (2013), “Beauty plays a significant role in women’s lives, but throughout the use of ideals, women’s perceptions can be easily altered in high levels of insecurities” (p.2); thus, depicting how socially constructed beauty standards, determine the existence of one’s self-esteem. The most prominent way of influencing a woman’s body image, is through media representations and advertisements. Since the development of technology, in particular photo-shop and airbrushing, media has strengthened its grip on today’s society. Since social media has employed the idea of associating fame with likes, in their absence people feel worthless, empty, and not beautiful. Additionally, despite one’s whereabouts and country of birth, they still have to abide to that society’s standards. Advertisements have taken over the idealism of consumerism, and are using the dangerous vanity found in various cultures, to inflict upon women, how beauty “should” look like. As James (2013) stated in her article, “Through advertisements on television and in fashion magazines, the media has embedded ideal Western appearances on women” (p.2), therefore they must be blindly followed in order to be praised and valued. In the frame of…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Several studies have shown that there are many ways in which a woman’s body image, eating patterns, and self-esteem is negatively affecting what audiences see and hear from the media. In 1996, an article titled, “Body Image: A Cognitive Self-Schema Construct, by Altabe and Thompson, indicates that “social endorsements” are inherent in how the media is portraying the “ideal body.” This has created a sense in women to examine the image of their body to determine if they need to radically alter their eating habits in order to offset that undesirable body. This, in turn, may have led to eating disorder. Also, Heinberg and Thompson (1995) indicated that females who were exposed to appearance-related media were less satisfied with their body shape than females who were exposed to non-appearance related…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    According to Brown University Education, negative body image can distort how someone sees themselves, and they often tend to feel that their size and shape is a sign of failure, therefore lowering their self-esteem as it is an important indicator of worth. Nowadays, media consumption starts at early age. CommonSenseMedia states that more than 80% of females on television shows aimed at children are below average weight. This impact has a lot of potential to do a lot of harm to our children’s self-esteem and their own perception of their…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the essay, “The Globalization of Eating Disorders,” Susan Bordo says images in magazines and other media influence young men and women. In order to be admired by their peers they would have to look like the fashion models in magazines and other media sources. I agree in today’s society these images do influence men and women because men and women are always in competition with one another to be respected, accepted, and admired by their peers. I know this from experience.…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The emergence of the slender body type as a beauty standard for women is especially salient in the mass media, and several researchers have demonstrated how the female body depicted in the media has…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays