magazines do more harm than good

hey I was wondering if you could look at an essay I've done for english and tell me what you think about it. I'ts about Magazines do more harm than good



Magazines do more good than harm. I disagree! In my opinion magazines do more harm than good. I will be making you aware of the damage that teen fashion magazines cause. In addition I will look at advertisements, role of models, airbrushing techniques and the humiliation of others that magazines bring.

Evidence to suggest that magazines do more harm than good come from looking at the advertisement content of an actual magazine. I don’t usually read magazines but I bought teen vogue for the purposes of this essay. One of the things that shocked me the most was the adverts. In the two hundred page magazine one hundred and thirty nine pages were dedicated to adverts. Most of these adverts have mostly naked models advertising different products that have nothing to do with nudity. Some of the advertisements have models in provocative poses with other models to advertise perfume. Honestly I don’t think this is acceptable. These adverts are harmful to teens due to the fact that teenage girls are influenced by advertising. Most girls become convinced they have to wear particular clothes to belong in this society.
Models make teen girls feel inadequate about their bodies. The average model weighs one hundred and ten pounds and is 5’10 however the average women weighs one hundred and forty-one pounds and is 5’4. That means the average model weighs 23% less than the average women. Therefore its easy to see that this creates a colossal health risk for young girls. Seventy nine % of girls who have bulimia and seventy three % of teenage girls use diet pills are frequent readers of fashion magazines. Another study found that most teenage girls were more worried about gaining weight than getting cancer, nuclear war or losing their parents.

Airbrushing is another way that magazines do more harm than good. What most of these teens don’t keep in mind is that almost all photos in magazines have been airbrushed. Cindy Crawford once said “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford”. This quote proves that nobody should strive to look like someone from a magazine. Even they don’t look like that. Airbrushing teaches everyone to compliment people on their looks not brain. Therefore when someone compliments a child on their looks it teaches them that’s the only thing you notice about them. Consequently they’ll grow up thinking looks are the most important thing about them. You can’t judge a book by its cover. So why do you judge yourself just on how you look. Think about the people you admire. I’m sure you look up to them because of their personality and not how they look. This is probably why when nursery children were offered dolls identical in every aspect except weight they preferred the thin doll nine out of ten times.

Magazines do more harm than good by humiliating others. Our society thrives on it! Magazines quickly caught on for them for them it was another way to make money. For everyone else it’s a form of personal entertainment. These magazines write articles about who’s secretly gay? Whose marriage is falling apart? , who has an eating disorder? Or who is outrageously fat (even though she’s a sixe six). They didn’t care about the consequences were for anyone else as long as their article got published and they got payed for it. The things that are written in these magazines hurt people. Some of them even turn to drugs to make themselves feel better even though in the long run it makes them feel worse. If they get caught there are no repercussions for them. This is sending teens the wrong message. These magazines write stories about celebrities using drugs but they don’t tell you how bad it is or how to get help.

However I still feel that magazines do more harm than good. On the other hand some people see the good in magazines. Recently I asked a lady called Debby what good she sees in magazines. She said “I buy them to switch off from the world”. Debbie is a nurse who deals with cancer patients so she needs to relax. Debbie later went on to say “I don’t have to concentrate on a magazine. Sometimes I don’t even read the articles I just look at the pictures.”

In conclusion Magazines do more harm than good. This is due to advertisements, role of models, airbrushing techniques and the humiliating articles that feature in magazines consequently lowering teens self esteem. If you don’t want this to continue boycott these magazines. Our society runs on supply and demand If we stop demanding they’ll stop supplying.

Sorry it's long (*hug*)