Bully In The Mirror Analysis

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Body image, or there lack of, has always been generally known as an issue that young women struggle with. Teenage girls battle with in their mind being too overweight and often develop anorexia or bulimia. The side of the issue that is not known is the one where the teenage boy perceives themselves to be too thin or too overweight, and they feel the need to look strong and muscular. I have known many young men who have looked in the mirror and not liked what they see whether they thought they were too skinny, or too overweight. Steven Hall is right when he says that “the cultural messages about an ideal male body, if not new, have grown more insistent, more aggressive, more widespread, and more explicit in recent years.” This article looks…show more content…
As the title of the article says, “The Troubled Life of Boys; The Bully in the Mirror,” Steven Hall believes that the bully to those with body image issues is in fact that person themselves. By starting the article by focusing on the 15 year-old Alexander Bregstein, Hall is really able to highlight the root of the young man’s drive to work-out and in his mind, fix any flaws he sees in his body. A lot of what drives Alexander was his weight, and the fact that he used to be overweight. When Hall asked him if he was teased about his weight, Alexander responded by saying “oh man, was I teased? Are you kidding me? When I was fat people must have gone home and done nothing else except come up with new material for the next day.” Bullying and taunting unfortunately is the reality every day for youth in America, whether they are a boy or…show more content…
Yet in America's culture today the message of perfection is greater than ever. Our various forms of media like television, magazines, and movies now have a larger effect on adolescent boys. Young boys go through the same issues of insecurities and physical self-image as girls do during young adulthood. Adolescent boys are highly influenced by magazines and other idolized figures such as athletes. We are seeing more of the "Barbie Syndrome” in boys, according to David L. Wheeler. This syndrome creates unrealistic expectations of our bodies. Researchers are starting to find that the typical self-imaging that we see in young girls is now becoming more evident in adolescent boys as well. But instead of wanting to look like Ken and Barbie, adolescent boys are persuaded by G.I. Joe like figures in popular media. The prevalent use of steroids in high school aged boys today is a very alarming sign of the lengths adolescents are willing to go to in order to look the way they believe they are supposed to look. Steroid usage in boys can be compared to anorexia or bulimia in girls because they are both ways that young people believe they can meet their self-image goals in the quickest possible
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