Here's the news article review for this term

Sources: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/05/11/image.self.esteem.reut/index.html

This article reflects how outer appearance matters a lot to teenagers nowadays, and how it can affect their confidence and self esteem as well. It shows results that reflect the close relationship between body satisfaction and self esteem, particularly for girls.

Although this study is based in New York, it is evident that such instances exist in Singapore as well. Teenagers are mostly influenced by the images portrayed in the media. People featured on television and in magazines are more often than not an example of what is considered the “perfect” body now. For females, they are mostly shown skinny, sometimes to the extent of looking malnourished and for males; they are mostly shown with the so-called “good body” with six packs. These images can subconsciously set a standard in the teenagers’ minds for them to achieve.

Not too long ago, there were cases of secondary school girls competing to lose weight, and these girls ended up getting anorexia nervosa, some even had to be hospitalized. Not only in Singapore, there was a case in Spain where a 14 year old girl starved to death due to anorexia nervosa as she was trying to lose weight in order to attain her dream of being a model.

Things like bullying also occur due to self-esteem, and this further causes the victim to feel bad about her self-image. Not only does this happen to girls, it happens to boys as well. Every now and then, there are bullying cases happening.

The main reason that is indirectly causing teenagers to have low self-esteem is the influence from the media. This has escalated to many negative consequences and should not be encouraged. The media is feeding the wrong ideas into the teenagers’ minds, though it is not justified to say that all media is doing that, as there are times when issues like body image are addressed.

One thing that can be seen from the article is that Singapore is greatly influenced by the Western countries, as they are perceived to be more advanced and at a higher level than us Asians. The article mentioned that the blacks are less inclined to suffer from low self-esteem due to body satisfaction, and this shows how Western culture has come to influence Asian countries like Singapore, particularly the young generation.

It is not beneficial for teenagers to blindly follow Western culture, especially if it can be harmful to us. Teenagers should, instead, learn from the blacks and how they do not let their body satisfaction affect their self-esteem.