by Nina Lewis

Created on: June 30, 2008

Pop Culture has a major influence on how society thinks and feels. Body image has always played an important role in pop culture. The media can have a major impact on how women perceive themselves and their body image. The battle to remain thin amongst women is an ongoing war between women and the media. Some women decide to take action and go through extreme measures to create the illusion of a perfect body.

The media sends messages to women promoting that they should be thin. These images are seen throughout TV commercials, advertisements, movies and videos. People's Magazine 100 most sexy lists include a list of attractive women who all happen to be ideally skinny. However people like Sherri Sheppard and Kiristie Allie did not make the list, due to the fact that they are voluptuous women. Music videos feature women wearing scantily clad outfits and acting wild and reckless. A movie shows that a woman cannot be happy in love if she is overweight. The woman is miserable because she is fat, and once she loses the weight voila! A man appears and they live happily ever after. The images that the media creates for women are leading women to convert to desperate measures to remain thin. Anorexia, diet pills and plastic surgery are some of the measures that women have gone through to create the images they see in the media.

Diet pills have been popular since 1950. They were only available as a prescription from a doctor for the morbidly obese. When diet pills finally hit the market and they were able to be sold over the counter, the diet pill industry increased averaging about 30-50 billion dollars in sales annually. Diet pills instantly became the new rapid weight loss drug that was sweeping the nation. Women viewed these pills as quick fix to help them lose weight in a short amount of time. "The use of diet pills by high school-aged females has nearly doubled over a five-year period from 7.5 percent to 14.2 percent, according to a recent study by the University's "Project EAT" (Eating among Teens). Overall, the study found that 20 percent of the females surveyed had used diet pills by the age of 20". These statistics may show that women are becoming obsessed about their weight at a young age ,and going through extreme measures so they can look like the thin celebrities they see on television. Diet pills can create adverse side affects like high blood pressure, stroke, heart problems and even death. Women are desperately trying to create the image of perfection that

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