Views of the Media from the perspective of 15 year olds

Since my last blog my documentary has progressed very rapidly. On Wednesday 9th March I met with four 15 year old girls in order to gather first hand information about their view on the media and body image. The first major point that was made during our meeting was that all the young girls admitted that they not 100% happy with their body. Three of the four girls further admitted that they started wearing make up from as young as 12 years old. The girls now say that they would never leave the house without make up and it takes them roughly 45 minutes each morning to get ready before they feel comfortable.

"So where do these pressure come from?"

When I asked this question to the young girls the immediate discussion was revolved around TV and Magazines. TV programmes such as 90210 and Hollyoaks were the topic of discussion to which they immediately noticed how they were all obviously beautiful and portrayed to be the idea of the perfect body. The girls said they felt most pressure from the images they see everyday because that is what they believe they should look like and aspire to be. Ella, one of the young girls in the group, made a very intersting statement when she said that the are never any happy stories related to larger women in magazines. Furthermore, they only appear happy in magazines if they are revealing their story about how they have lost a large amount of weight. The discussion that followed this intriging statement revolved around the problem pages commenly found in the latter end of magazines. One of the stories which I found most staggering was titles 'I'm 13 years old and I think i'm fat'.

I asked the girls how they consider women to be represented in the media. Their immediate answer was 'skinny, perfect hair, perfect make up and sexy'. The girls noticed how there is a certain lifestyle that appears to come free with looking beautiful- Wealth and success.