Figueroa's Framework

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Human bodies are truly amazing and no one is exactly alike. So why is ‘body image’ such a big problem? In society today our body image or how we see ourselves is becoming a major problem (reference). Youth are becoming more self-conscious about the way they look; this is mainly because of unrealistic expectations forced on to them by everything around them. Figueroa’s Framework is a tool developed to evaluate various issues within society of which there are five levels. It is imperative that we can fight against low levels of self-esteem and what issues come of having a low self-esteem. Body image has a huge impact on young people’s minds. For a lot of teens, how they look is everything (reference). It has the power to build up someone’s personality…show more content…
Other influences on body image include family and friends, rules and religious views, one’s personal attitude or ethnic background, role models and stereotypes. All these factors fit into the five levels of Figueroa’s Framework; Cultural, Structural, Institutional, Interpersonal and Individual. Each level is a different part of someone’s life and how that shapes them. The Cultural level includes factors such as ethnic background, traditions within that culture, and the type of clothing that is suitable, this affects people because they want to be ‘accepted’ and found attractive in their culture. The structural level is how media, advertising or role models, affects people because it tells you what you should look like and it’s everywhere. The Institutional level includes religious views and rules, school scene; this has an affect because (sentence structure) of the expectations placed upon you by these things, such as you should dress very modest at church, school uniform rules and education programs. Expectations placed on you as well as any interactions with your partner, family, friends or other relationships fall under the Interpersonal and finally the Individual level is influenced by personal attitude, and values or…show more content…
It all starts at a young age. If you give your children a strong belief in a healthy body image they will carry that through to their teenage years. If they know what true beauty is, it’ll be harder for all the fake images around them to have an influence. Look more into your child’s ability than appearance. (Are you saying that it is up to the parents and therefore the Interpersonal level to combat this?) If you build up your child’s self-esteem from a young age, it’ll make them a lot stronger in the years to come. Surrounding children and teenagers with healthy images (media?) will help them to feel ‘normal’ and accepted. This falls under the interpersonal level, where you would depend a lot upon the parents. (Good!) On the structural level, if modelling agencies weren’t allowed to hire models past a healthy normal weight or photo shopped certain things, (How could this happen?) it would mean a lot more of the images around would be healthier for the human mind. Filling your mind with unrealistic images isn’t going to help, but being surrounded by normal averaged sized men and women will help people to feel happier about their
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