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    Watch Media Distort Our Perception Of Beauty: Dove Evolution Video

    10.6KViews Modified: Oct 22, 2021 · Published: Jan 10, 2013
    By Jacqueline 11 Comments

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    Watch Media Distort Our Perception Of Beauty: Dove Evolution Video. Going from average to billboard-worthy

    Media and marketing profoundly influences the lies we tell ourselves. In movies, television, and in advertisements, we are fed information about who we should be.

    (This post is not about wearing or not wearing makeup. It is about valuing yourself rightly and being at peace with who you are on the inside.)

    For most woman living in mainstream American culture, attaining the perfect appearance has become core to our value. It’s essential that we look eternally 20 years old with big eyes, perfect skin, bouncy well-managed hair, perfectly white teeth, and a very slim yet decidedly feminine figure. If not this ideal, we feel unattractive, and there is nothing we can do to make up for it. 

    No matter how hard we try, we cannot be smart enough, clever enough, nice enough to compensate for our imperfect looks—we will never be as valuable as the “beautiful woman” sitting next to us.

    For a man living in the American culture, you have slightly more flexibility than women around how to be culturally valuable. Your gender is most tied to your physical strength, money, position, or your intelligence.

    Dump The Body-Image Lie

    This is the big body-image lie: “If I can change something about my body, others will finally like and accept me and I will be able to like and accept myself.” It is so easy to base our self-worth on our looks or appearance because it is the first thing others see in us.

    We need to be armed with knowledge and capable of helping our young girls (and boys) to know that there is an real enemy who deals in lies and fakery.

    He lies through Media which is one of his useful tools! Let this short, fast-speed (1 min.) video clip, “Dove – Evolution”, expose the truth.

    Fight back and show this to your children.

    Do you think the clothing industry and marketing firms know that most consumers are dissatisfied with their bodies and would like to look different than they do?

    “In fact, the goal of most mass marketing and consumerism is to make us feel badly about ourselves. We are encouraged to lie to ourselves about our true value because the worse we feel, the more we will buy! For after convincing us that we are less than ideal, the media will offer us endless products that claim to fix our prescribed faults. For example, if marketers convince us that we are not good-looking enough and then offer us products to fix our flawed appearance—make-up, anti-aging products, dieting aids, hair growth serums, plastic surgery—we are more likely to buy them.” (source)

    We have a massive preoccupation with ‘thinner is better’. Almost everywhere we went as we shopped in a upscale mall in a metropolitan US city, we saw mannequins clothed in trussed-up off-the-rack merchandise. That is, pulled back and pinned or tied.

    Watch Media Distort Our Perception Of Beauty As Seen In Dove Evolution. Mannequin display

    We found this to be a very widespread practice. The apparent fit we see on the mannequins is NOT really how the clothing is made at all. It gives the illusion of tailored thinness, but each garment is quite a bit bigger than what you think you are purchasing.

    This goes for men’s as well as women’s clothing.

    Once we get this piece of clothing home and put it on, of course, we be unhappy with our body shape.  ‘But it looked so nice on the model.’

    Consciously or Subconsciously

    No matter what we buy, we won’t be happy with our looks as long as we believe a lie. Did you know that after three minutes of looking at fashion magazines, 70% of women reported feeling guilty and inadequate? Have you ever feel that way? I know I have!

    Did you know one study showed that…

    1. 24% of women would sacrifice 3 years of their life to be thin
    2. Girls as young as five have expressed fears of getting fat
    3. 90% of high school junior and senior girls diet regularly even though only between 10-15% are considered overweight.

    A large body of research suggests that mass media is doing an convincing job of making us feel pretty bad about ourselves. As we internalize cultural values and ideals of appearance, we become more dissatisfied with ourselves. We are lead like sheep to the slaughter to spend enormous amounts of our personal resources – money, time, and energy – attempting to fix our flaws.

    The Truth: We need to become more discerning consumers of media. We need to think critically about the messages that we learn from a very early age. We must determine whether we aspire to be a certain way because we believe it is right or because we were culturally-conditioned to believe it is right.

    Prompt: The next time you watch television or a movie, ask yourself: What messages is this show promoting about my fundamental value as a human being? Have I internalized this message? If so, perhaps it is time to change.

    5 Powerful Ways To Be Proactive With Media

    {Warning: This could be harder for the adults than for the children}. This is not by any means a complete list.

    1.) Consider stopping catalog/magazine media coming to your home. This is a entry for exposure we often overlook. We stopped getting this type of media years ago when I began comparing myself to what I saw. They also fed my materialism.

    2.) Prayerfully consider getting rid of or monitoring media coming into your home on your TV or cable service. The internet is outside the scope of this post, but our whole family uses Covenant Eyes for all our accountability and filtering. We ALL love it and are so thankful for it!

    3.) Pray about the dolls and toys your children play/identify with.

    4.) Show the Dove Evolution video above to your family and discuss it over a meal. Ask them what they have seen in our culture that seems fake or deceptive to them.

    5.) Apply the Word of God and discuss what it means to trust in Him for our self-worth.

    “Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” ~ John 8:32

    “All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you.” ~Song of Solomon 4:7

    Watch Media Distort Our Perception Of Beauty: Dove Evolution Video. Going from average to billboard-worthy

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    Hi! I’m Jacqueline!

    Thanks for being part of this journey with me.
    Welcome to my own little place on the internet! Home is where I love to be. I feel there is no greater place to incubate souls. These days you’ll find me using my experiences here to write about herbal remedies and natural health research — a big passion of mine. But being a wife and mother is not easy. It is challenging and potentially lonely. I get that. I wanted to create a place to connect with and support other moms for creating a natural, healthy, and fulfilling home life.
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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Andrea @ HomeHeartFamily

      February 28, 2012 at 9:56 am

      I read your entire post at Raising Homemakers. Very well-written and also very true. Thank you for sharing it!

      Reply
    2. ~ Shannon

      February 28, 2012 at 11:35 am

      Wow, what a great article! I’ve seen the Dove video before, and I’m so grateful that they made it. Even though I know that magazine models are airbrushed (and probably unhealthily skinny), it is still so easy to compare myself to them. I especially appreciated the pictures you took showing how clothing is pinned onto mannequins! I’ve seen it so many times, but rarely take the time to think about the implications. Thank you for writing such an excellent and thought provoking article!

      Blessings,
      Shannon

      Reply
    3. Laura Mae

      August 28, 2013 at 8:24 am

      Thank you for the article. It is so helpful! I will be sharing it with my daughter. The photos of the clothing pinned upon mannequins is a great reminder that when the same clothing is worn by a person, it will not fit the same way. Also, the video of the young women being transformed is amazing on how much the media deceives people. After the gal in the video has makeup applied, her hair done, she then is altered on a computer. Wow! How often when I see billboards I forget about these things. It isn’t real!!! My husband and I have done many of the things shared for a family to eliminate the lies from media including no “Barbie’s”, but as Shannon has commented, it is sometimes difficult to not want to be similar as to what a person views others as. A wonderful reminder is that when confronted with negative feelings of not “looking” like others is to turn to God and His Word. The Scriptures you shared are inspiring. I have found Romans 12:2 very helpful too…”Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

      Reply
    4. Erin

      January 10, 2016 at 2:05 am

      At 41 I am content with how I look. It was a long process and the first step had the biggest impact: no more fashion/beauty magazines. I stopped reading them after college and I not only felt better about myself, I lost around 10 pounds. Crazy! Also, as you pointed out, they feed materialism. Getting over myself, striving to be healthy rather than thin, focusing on living for God, and putting my family’s needs over mine have, ironically, given me what I wanted in my early twenties.

      Reply
      • Jacqueline

        January 10, 2016 at 5:32 pm

        That’s a great truth you shared, Erin! THANK YOU for sharing your heart 😀

        Reply
    5. olivia

      January 11, 2016 at 7:46 am

      Thanks for sharing, if only i had realized this truth during my teen years…life would have been so much more easier.

      Reply
    6. RobinP

      January 11, 2016 at 9:12 am

      I love this post. I’ve had my struggles in my 20’s with this, but thankfully let it go many years ago. One thing that distresses me now is watching those of us who are not as young as we used to be try to hang on to our youth. I’m 52 years old. I will NEVER AGAIN have the body I had at 16! But I have many acquaintances who, upon turning 50, begin frantically trying to regain someone’s idea of a youthful image. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and we should care for it. But we also need to embrace our season in life and be those Titus 2 mentors our younger generations desperately need.

      Reply
      • Jacqueline

        January 11, 2016 at 2:26 pm

        Oh, yes, RobinP,
        You are so right, but when we have that relationship with Christ, we can be free from the bondage to vanity, etc. I think we all struggle with it, but we can rest in the truth (while still taking care of ourselves, that we are fearfully and wonderful made. God only gives good gifts! Thank you for sharing 🙂

        Reply
    7. Kelly Spiro

      January 11, 2016 at 9:53 am

      A young girl brought me a website yesterday before church showing women who had gone to such extremes as to have ribs removed and surgery to make themselves look like Barbie dolls. It is so sad that we are facing such vanity, pressure and temptations to feel such a need to please the eyes of “man” where if we would only look to the Word and our Heavenly Father we would see how very much we are loved and created in HIS image, which is perfect!

      Reply
      • Jacqueline

        January 11, 2016 at 2:23 pm

        Oh, my goodness, Kelly. That is terribly sad. We can be so deceived by the world. I am glad you are in the lives of that young girl! xoxo

        Reply

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