Every day, thousands of teenage and college-aged girls flip through the pages of tabloids and fashion magazines, admiring the glossy images of models and celebrities. While this habit is seemingly casual and innocent, for many it becomes an obsession that is interlinked with a struggle to attain an ideal yet unrealistic body image.
In their articles, Meredith Baker and Walter Vandereycken discuss the media’s influence on young women, agreeing that media exposure has a strong negative impact on young women’s self-esteem.In her article “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder; Body Image; Skinny on a Weighty Issue”, Meredith Baker points out that almost ten million Americans, mostly teenage and college-aged girls, are currently dealing with anorexia or bulimia. She blames the fashion and entertainment industries for contributing to the problem by showcasing celebrities and models that are unusually skinny. Baker then goes on to share her own experience with an eating disorder and how she overcame it.She believes the United States should follow France’s example and ban stick-thin models from all advertisements.
She cites the fact that cultures that value full-figured women have fewer eating disorders and hopes that media outlets in the United States will also begin to provide more realistic role models in advertising. In Walter Vandereyckens article, “Media Influences and Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women”, he states that, “the influence of society and culture is putting young female adolescents at risk for developing an eating disorder”(Vandereycken 5).He discusses the cause-effect relationship between the idolization of celebrities with slim figures and low self-esteem and poor body images in teens. He emphasizes that with such unhealthy behavior, it is inevitable that adolescents would take necessary steps to achieve slim figures. Vandereycken argues that the mass media affects young adults differently based on sociocultural backgrounds and predisposed vulnerability. One possible solution for this problem is for schools and parents to help teens better understand the media and be able to view images from a more critical standpoint.
Despite some minor differences in their perspectives, both authors successfully address some of the issues that contribute to the problem of eating disorders among young women. Although Walter Vandereycken establishes a better appeal to ethos in his article, overall Meredith Baker’s use of logos and pathos makes her article more rhetorically effective. Of the two authors, Meredith Baker more effectively utilizes logos throughout her article by explaining her claims logically and using facts and statistics to support her arguments.Although she stacks the evidence by ignoring the other side of the argument, she still succeeds at persuading her audience by positioning her evidence strategically so that each argument she makes is reasonably supported. At the beginning of the article, Baker claims, “many girls my age (I am 17) suffer from a weight problem at the opposite end of the scale”(Baker 3).
She refers to the fact that in an era where childhood obesity is a worldwide concern, teens facing eating disorders are often lost in the shuffle.Baker then informs, “some estimates report as many as 10 million Americans are affected by anorexia and/or bulimia, which can be just as damaging as childhood obesity”(Baker 3). This statistic helps to legitimize Baker’s previous claim about teens with eating disorders because it provides actual proof that there are millions of girls out there who deal with eating issues. In another instance, Baker uses logical evidence to support her ideas about setting new standards for an ideal body image in the United States.
After suggesting that the U.S. follow in France’s footsteps by banning advertisements featuring “stick-thin models”, Baker cites the fact that “studies show that there are fewer eating disorders in cultures that value full-bodied women” (Baker 3). Once again, Baker’s evidence enhances her argument by supporting her suggestion as a logical one.
Overall, her article is quite persuasive because the facts reinforce every one of her claims. Interestingly, Vandereycken is less persuasive because he seems to use logical evidence to create a claim rather than to support one.For example, at one point in his article, Vandereycken sites the fact that “unlike males and older females, girls between 14 and 17 years of age were found to show a relationship between increased body consciousness and the worship of a celebrity whose figure they admired” (Vandereycken 5). After stating this fact, he goes on to suggest that this female obsession with celebrities is part of a cycle that leads to low self-esteem and, in many cases, eating disorders.
While this may be true, Vandereycken’s presentation of the argument suggests that he purposely tried to pull a logical claim from an interesting piece of evidence discovered by British researchers. In addition, Vandereycken’s article is so full of facts, that there is little original thought. He presents logical information discovered by various sources without expanding much on his own arguments. Unlike Baker, Vandereycken’s use of logos actually overpowers the persuasive element of the article.In regard to ethos, Walter Vandereycken establishes immediate and obvious credibility, whereas Baker proves herself to be reliable over the course of her article. Upon first glance at Vandereycken’s byline, the audience can immediately see that he is an expert in his field.
He is both a medical doctor and a doctor of philosophy who has published this article in “Eating Disorders Review”, which is presumably an academic journal dedicated to the topic of eating issues. Vandereycken’s credibility adds to his rhetorical effectiveness because he immediately appears to be a very knowledgeable, believable source of information.On the other hand, Meredith Baker is a 17-year-old high school student who has published her article in a city newspaper, The Houston Chronicle. Her age and status as a high school student make her credibility more questionable than Vandereycken’s because she appears to be less educated on the topic of eating disorders.
However, upon reading her article, the audience discovers that Baker not only has personal experience with an eating disorder, but also has carefully researched the topic and has crafted her argument persuasively.So, while Vandereycken possesses stronger extrinsic ethos, Baker uses evidence to establish intrinsic ethos. Both authors end up being credible sources, but go about creating their reliability in different ways. As for pathos, Meredith Baker effectively appeals to emotion throughout her article while Walter Vandereycken completely fails to do so. In her article, Baker shares her personal experience with an eating disorder. She recounts, “I counted calories so often that I no longer enjoyed food.
Too little would leave me feeling empty and too much would leave me feeling guilty”(Baker 5).By revealing this to her audience, she invokes feelings of sympathy and sadness. This contributes to Baker's argument because it pulls readers into the article by making them identify with her. Baker also utilizes pathos to emphasize her claims.
Specifically, in her article Baker describes the appearance of one particular celebrity, Mary-Kate Olsen, as “bony, fatigued and stuck with the body of a fourth-grader” as well as “sickly and malnourished”(Baker 5). By using descriptive vocabulary to describe her image, Baker appeals to her readers' feelings of disgust.As a result, readers gain a better understanding of the images Baker is criticizing and she persuades them to agree with her idea to eliminate these images from the media. Conversely, Vandereycken relies entirely on logos and ethos to persuade his audience. His excessive use of facts and statistics, combined with his scarce use of his own claims, makes his article more factual and less emotional. While Baker's appeal to emotion is the most persuasive element in her article, Vandereycken's lack of emotional appeal is replaced with his appeal to logic and authority.
While both authors succeed in presenting rhetorically effective articles, Baker's use of pathos makes her overall argument more convincing than Vandereycken's. Meredith Baker's use of pathos is her strongest appeal because it allows her to connect with her audience. In combination with the facts she uses to support and legitimize her claims, she makes a very persuasive argument. Although Vandereycken's external ethos is impressive, closely followed by his use of logos, he does not appeal to pathos at all in his article, making his words seem less passionate than Baker's and somewhat impersonal.Because Vandereycken fails to touch the reader in the same way Baker does, his article is not quite as rhetorically impressive.
Rhetorical Situation Meredith Baker’s article “Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder; Body Image; Skinny on a Weighty Issue” targets the media. This includes the people involved in creating advertisements, selecting the cast for TV shows and movies, and those who decide what images to put in magazines, to name a few. The article is published in a city newspaper, The Houston Chronicle.Walter Vandereycken’s article “Media Influences and Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women” targets the college and medical community.
More specifically, his audience consists of scholars who are studying or specialize in the field of eating disorders. The article is published in Eating Disorders Review, a scholarly journal. Works Cited * Baker, Meredith. "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder; Body Image; Skinny on a Weighty Issue. " The Houston Chronicle 10 June 2008: 3-3.
LexisNexis Academic. McKeldin Library, College Park. 9 June 2009 http://www. lexisnexis. com.
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do? risb=21_T6746998999;treeMax=false;sort=;docNo=1;format=GNBFULL;startDocNo=0;treeWidth=0;nodeDisplayName=;cisb=;reloadPage=false * Vandereycken, Walter. "Media Influences and Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women. " Eating Disorders Review 17 (2006): 5-5. Academic Search Premier.
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