4.3 Assignment The Media, Culture, and Middle Adulthood
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4.3 Assignment: The Media, Culture, and Middle Adulthood
Margaret M. Badgerow
Indiana Wesleyan University
SWK-342:
Human Behavior in the Social Environment I
Ellen Crozier, MSW, LISW, LCSW
November 6, 2023
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Middle adulthood is a time of change for both men and women. This is a time in life
where a person’s physical appearance, mobility, and reproductive systems start to have
substantial changes. “There are enormous individual differences in the timing and intensity of the
changes, but some changes affect almost everyone, such as presbyopia (inability to focus sharply
for near vision) for both men and women and menopause for women” [ CITATION Eli19 \l 1033
]. Cultural influences have a great effect on one’s reactions to their biological changes that occur
during middle adulthood.
One of the most common complaints about middle adulthood is weight gain. Our culture
dictates what kind of food we should eat, how active we should be, and what kind of activities
we should do. Culture can dictate stress and stress can affect a person’s sleep patterns. Diet,
stress, and sleep can all affect a person’s biological changes and weight gain, loss, and stability.
Middle adulthood is a time of hormonal changes for both men and women.
Men and women gain weight differently. “
Men tend to gain fat on their upper abdomen
and back while women tend to gain more fat on their waist and upper arms”
[CITATION
PHY22 \l 1033 ]
. A person’s culture and cultural experiences can play a huge part in creating the
ideas they have on body image. The United States culture believes that to be beautiful is to be
thin. As women age and gain weight, they can become depressed or feel as if they are not
beautiful. This self-belief can lead to low self-esteem and a deterioration of a women’s mental
health.
Culture can play a part “
on whether people even seek help in the first place, what types
of help they seek, what types of coping styles and social supports they have, and how much
stigma they attach to mental illness”
[ CITATION USR21 \l 1033 ]
.
If a woman does not seek
help this can lead into further implications into their problem.
3
Middle adulthood is also a time of climacteric
for men and women. This is when a man’s
ability to reproduce starts to decline and women lose their ability to reproduce when they start
menopause. Men may experience high blood pressure during this time which can lead to erectile
dysfunction while women who are going through menopause may find sexual intercourse
painful.
“
In addition to feeling embarrassed, communication problems between partners, low
self-confidence, self and partner blaming, and feeling older, also inaccurate information and
limited understanding”
[ CITATION Bet21 \l 1033 ]
of the aging process and biological changes
taught by cultures could prevent men and women from seeking help.
Menopause is a time when a woman’s body starts to change in several areas. Women
might gain weight, experience hot flashes, have mood swings, back and joint pain, poor memory,
less interest in sexual interest, and breast enlargement and pain. “There has been a popular
tendency to erroneously attribute frustrations and irritations expressed by women of menopausal
age to menopause and thereby not take her concerns seriously”
[ CITATION Laz20 \l 1033 ]
Cultural influences seem to play a role in how menopause is perceived. Some American women
see menopause as a liberating experience while a woman from Kenya stated
“We do not have
this in my country or if we do, it is not a big deal” referring to menopause in her psychology
class according to Lazzara (2020).
Images of our culture’s ideas and expectations of middle adulthoods biological changes are
represented all over the tv, movies, newspapers, magazines, and social media. These platforms
have a clear perception of beauty and body image.
“Advertising often reinforces and perpetuates
these expectations. And technology has worked to make what we see even more unattainable and
literally unrealistic”
[ CITATION Jac23 \l 1033 ]
.
Media shows women with hourglass figures,
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thin waists, long legs, and beautiful skin without wrinkles as the perfect imagine of a woman.
These images are typically achieved with filters such as those found on Snapchat and photo
manipulation.
The natural biological change of menopause for women is rarely talked about in a serious
manner. Media makes jokes towards middle aged women who seem cranky or irritable
insinuating they must be in menopause or going through the change. “The absence of menopause
in popular culture shows that it remains taboo, it is rarely shown in cinema. Aging, itself, is taboo
for women. Actresses often must start playing mothers of teenagers before they even hit 40”
[ CITATION Suz18 \l 1033 ]
. This leaves women with the idea that they will look young, be
active and be physically fit when they are mothers of teenagers.
Men build their idea of an ideal
partner from the imagine our media is providing of women. Movies and television shows
typically depict women as moms or wives or career women by the time they are in their middle
adulthood; these are their identities. In shows where a woman is shown to have it all they tend to
show a woman as married or divorced with children, white, straight and thin. “All of these trends
suggest there is a certain set of expectations of what women must have achieved by the time they
reach middle age, and those who don’t conform are largely left out of our stories” [ CITATION
Lis22 \l 1033 ]. This leaves women feeling inadequate and lost between fantasy versus reality.
Erik Erickson’s theory on middle adulthood is generativity versus stagnation. Adults during
this stage of life, according to Erickson’s theory, are building families and taking care of the next
generation. Erickson’s believed that adults in this stage of life need to be taking care of and
building up the next generation or they would become stagnate in life and loose their purpose.
This corresponds with today’s pop culture representation of women. Pop culture shows women
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in middle adulthood taking care of children, helping people in the community, and taking care of
their aging parents.
Cultural influences play a vital role in the reactions of individuals to biological changes in
middle adulthood. “
Cultural health beliefs affect how people think and feel about their health and
health problems, when and from whom they seek health care, and how they respond to
recommendations for lifestyle change, health-care interventions, and treatment adherence”
[ CITATION LNi04 \l 1033 ]
. Images of these changes are represented in the media in the United
States by means of social media, television, and press. Today’s pop culture supports Erickson’s
theory of middle adulthood by representing women in this stage of life as nurtures and if they are
not nurturing a family member then she does not fit into the image of a women in her middle
adulthood years.
6
References
(US), R. (. (2021, August).
Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity: A Supplement to Mental
Health: A Report of the Surgeon General.
Retrieved from National Library of Medicine:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44249/#:~:text=More%20often%2C%20culture
%20bears%20on,people%20impart%20to%20their%20illness.
Bettocchi MD PhD, C., Dewitt PhD, M., Carvalho PhD, J., Corona MD PhD, G., Flink PhD, I.,
Limoncin PhD, E., . . . Van Lankveld PhD, J. (2021, December 9).
A Psychosocial
Approach to Erectile Dysfunction: Position Statements from the European Society of
Sexual Medicine (ESSM).
Retrieved from PubMed Central:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8766276/#:~:text=In%20addition%20to
%20feeling%20embarrassed,their%20partners%20from%20seeking%20help.
Hutchison, E. D. (2019).
Dimensions of Human Behavior.
Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications,
Inc.
Jacquelyn Ekern MS, L. (2023, March 7).
How Cultural Traditions Can Shape Body Image
.
Retrieved from Eating Disorder Hope: https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/how-
cultural-traditions-can-shape-body-image
Lazzara, J. (2020).
Middle Adulthood
. Retrieved from Maricopa Community Colleges:
https://open.maricopa.edu/devpsych/chapter/chapter-10-adulthood/
Moore, S. (2018, March 15).
Let’s see menopausal women on screen – in all their glory
.
Retrieved from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/15/menopausal-women-screen-
glory-representation-menopause-popular-culture
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Nielsen-Bohlman, L., Panzer, A., & Kindig, D. (2004).
Health Literacy: A Prescription to End
Confusion.
Retrieved from National Library of Medicine :
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216037/
Physical Development in Middel Adulthood
. (2022). Retrieved from NSCC:
https://pressbooks.nscc.ca/lumenlife/chapter/physical-development-in-middle-
adulthood/#:~:text=Normal%20Physiological%20Changes%20in%20Middle,gain
%20(Lachman%2C%202004).
Whittington-Hill, L. (2022, July 28).
Pop Culture’s Problem with Middle-Aged Women
.
Retrieved from Catapult: https://catapult.co/stories/lisa-whittington-hill-pop-culture-
middle-aged-women-and-just-like-that-yellowjackets-hollywood-midlife-crisis