Every one wants to be glamorous and look good,

When you a teenager peers seem to be very important in our life’s and they certainly where for me. that’s how it all started,

the DIET. It seemed very innocent at first.

This gave me a “Pygmalion effect” which is beneficial positive feedback.

Perhaps influence of media did help as well, looking at all those gorgeous models. They were so skinny and all of the sudden that’s all I wanted to be “skinny”.

The Johari Window,

represents our sense of

self, then is powerfully

influenced by our

involvement in

communication with

others.

However having that “role model” in my life become very important to me. It was almost like a goal that I can reach with a bit of dieting.

Rogers (1961) would see in role modelling evidence that we have a number of layers of self-consciousness. The modelling of ourselves in terms of other ,often public and famous people, is a part of a process that creates, presents and maintains our own ‘public self’.

However I soon realised that my diet is not glamorous and actually it become very hard to concentrate on anything but that.

My peers also become very judgmental on my appearance and it just felt like I didn’t fit it anymore. However it is likely that I have been dominated by the influence of other people, those who's responses make a difference to me.

I thought that being skinny would get a good respond, so I followed that. Then, when I later started to get negative responses, my opinions soon change. It didn’t make me stop completely but made me more conscious about my actions and in a way helped me get better.

These interested others act as a validation of our behaviour, reflecting the kinds versions of ourselves that we think we are projecting. This is what Cooley (1992) called “looking-glass theory”. When wee get dressed up for a night out, we partly see ourselves in other people’s reactions to us. The theory is similar to “the-self-fulfilling prophecy” in that expectations is created by response.

Cooley was interested in

the ways we modify

behaviour according to the

differences between

‘reflections’

Eventually it got to the point, where I got very ill from the dieting, it become my obsession.

The skinner I got, more ill I become. People called me “stupid” and “attention seeking” which effected my self-esteem badly.

Coopersmith (1967)

defines self-esteem as

‘a personal judgment of

worthiness’

However physical appearance, of course, includes not only things with which we cover or adorn our bodies, but its also the shape and size of our bodies. The preoccupation with body shape and size is reflected by practices such as slimming, body building and cosmetic surgery. It is the body’s capacity to communicate aspects of an individuals identity which makes us so aware of our physical appearance.

People judge you on what they can see, and I have learned the hard way that when your change your appearance people, seem to judge you on that and change towards you.

There’s a video I would like to share with you :

http://youtu.be/bjKiZEr9nCc

Bernstein said

socialisation how “the

biological is

transformed into

cultural being”.

For me it was the reaction of others that changed the way I was behaving – by others reacting to the way I looked, I was in a process of socialisation. I was wanting to ‘fit in’ and so I changed my behaviour in order to ‘fit in’.

However The British sociologist Basil Bernstein said that socialisation is a ‘process of making people safe’. So in my case trying to ‘fit in’ made me feel safe. Almost like a comfort zone where you are accepted and that’s what makes you feel safe.

When I got better, surprise, surprise I got all my friends back and was treated “normal” again. So what I’m trying to say is people will treat you different, when you change your appearance and that can really effect the person.

However according Goffman we identified ‘social role’ as a significant theme to the responses, Goffman’s theory shows that we have different masks and depending on who we with, we play different roles in front of our friends for example, whether it is to ‘fit it’ or to ‘show off’ . Goffman sees the parts we play as an organising principle of our self-presentation. He would see most of us moving from role to role across the day. However the research by Kuhn and McPartland (1954) also indicated that ‘definition by role’ becomes more prominent as we mature.

Over all I think there’s to much focus in our society as how women look or how women should look. Women are constantly being bombarded with new diets in

colourful magazines, where the image of the women is to be skinny and glamorous. Partly that’s what effected me as every girl wants to have this

perfect body like all those models in the magazines. What have changed my opinion was my illness, dieting its not fun, and skin and bones are not

glamorous. I think media is sending the wrong message especially to young girls, how skinny is good and pretty. However you don’t have to kill yourself to

be skinny.