Describing Social Injustice and Cultural Identifiers

Body Image for K-12 Students
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation
Body Image for K-12 Students
1 Describe the cultural identifier and why you chose it. Explain your connection to your choice of cultural identifiers.
The cultural identifier will be body image for K-12 students. Body image is the way individuals think about their physical appearance. It constitutes someone’s self-perception or mental identity or representation or an organized definitive knowledge concerning oneself that possibly manages the social, behavioral inclinations (Tallat et al., 2017). A healthy body image is critical for building self-esteem among children and teenagers. Unfortunately, some students have poor body image. They consider themselves not “good-looking enough” because they do not appear as someone they see on TV or social media. The choice of body image arises from the increase in the number of teenagers with low self-esteem because of their appearance. It is critical to ensure that K-12 students have the right body image (Tallat et al., 2017). Students need to feel good in how they appear without allowing external factors like peer pressure and media to dictate that.
Body image constitutes a controversial issue impacting K-12 learning, and its ramifications persist among the younger populaces. This occurs despite the institution-centered prevention efforts in implanting programs that support all students’ wellness, particularly in classroom settings. Body image is comparatively perception-centered since it is based on actions and feelings derived from social conduct responses. It also refers to how individuals view their physical self, especially how good-looking they are or feel about themselves (Winter, 2018). Body image is an appropriate study topic since it raises concerns among researchers and schools alike, particularly considering potential causes and dangers linked with it.
2 Summarize the key historical events that have significantly affected your specific cultural identifier.
The media has been critical in influencing how children construct their body image. Both traditional and social media have contributed to the idea that being thin is beautiful. The conventional press shows advertisements of thin individuals and displays them as more attractive. A majority of teens seek body image validation from their peers. Social media is a quick way to get immediate feedback. School-going children with access to smartphones spend more time trying to capture photos at the right angle. Once they post them on social media, they gauge their appearance based on the number of likes the photo receives. Unfortunately, the increase in instances of cyberbullying has led to some teens receiving negative comments like body shaming, which has affected their self-esteem (Tallat et al., 2017).
A great deal of extant literature about body image and K-12 education focuses predominantly on adolescents with negligible emphasis on younger populaces. In addition, there is significant emphasis on activities people engage in due to their body image, which also incorporates their behavioral inclinations as driven by self-perception. In the past, research indicated that body image dissatisfaction and disorder start at t...