Health Essay 2

Annie O’Donnell

Health-5

December 5, 2003

            The media has a huge affect on how teenagers act, think, eat, dress and much more, but is this influence always a good one? Sometimes it can be very misleading and harmful especially the media’s model of sexual behavior. The example of sexual behavior portrayed in our media often leads to problems in real life, like higher risks of getting sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, eating disorders, and the lack respect towards women.

            The media often says that sex is cool, but never do they mention any of the harmful consequences of it. AIDs and HIV contracted from having unprotected sex is one of the most common killer diseases throughout the world and there is no cure yet to be found. Many people are unaware of how deadly this disease is and how commonly it spreads. Also since sex is portrayed in our media so much, many kids are having sex at a younger age and contracting HIV earlier. Not only do they contract HIV but many kids are getting sexually transmitted infections (S.T.I.) such as gonoria, syphilis, and chlamydia. It is true that one out of four sexually active teens has an S.T.I.

            Tall, beautiful, skinny models are what the media promote as the perfect image and what all girls should look like. This puts a lot of pressure on young teen girls because they feel that is what they should look like. While models average at about 5’10 and 110 pounds, the average woman is about 5’5 and 145 pounds. This causes eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia. The media also says that being sexy is “in” and that everybody should act and look like Christina Aguilera or Brittany Spears. Girls will often interpret this information that if they are sexy then they will get guys, but it isn’t always necessarily true.

            Lastly, the media has diminished the respect toward women with offensive and demeaning pictures and songs. For example in this rap song named “Hoes” by Ludacris, he says “You doin ho activities, With ho tendencies, Hoes are your friends, hoes are your enemies, With ho energy to do whacha do, Blew whacha blew, Screw whacha screw”. He refers to women as things with no feelings at all. This is just one of the many different songs that discriminate women and treat them in a lesser way.

            In conclusion, you can see that the media’s model of sexual behavior creates problems such as diseases, eating disorders, and the lack of respect towards women. I hope that some day the media can portray a more positive influence to teenagers throughout the world.