A World Riddled By Social Expectations And Beauty Ideals

Within countries that were once untouched by unrealistic societal standards, eating disorders and psychological problems have become a not just a local, but a global phenomenon. Bordo is able to give credible examples and evidence on why they have become a problem, such as recounting previous personal excursions and providing statistics.

Incidences of Anorexia Nervosa have appeared to increase sharply in the USA, UK and western European countries since the beginning of the 60s (Gordon, 2001). The increasing prevalence of the disease has led the World Health Organisation to declare eating disorders a global priority area within adolescent mental health (Becker et al. 2011). Anorexia has in many ways become a modern epidemic (Gordon, 2000) and with a mortality rate of 10% per decade (Gorwood et al. 2003), the highest of any mental disorder (Bulik et al. 2006), it is an epidemic that social and biological scientists have been working tirelessly to understand.

In the essay “The Globalization of Eating Disorders” by Susan Bordo speaks about eating disorders. In society today appearance is a huge factor. Even though appearance has always been a major thing but now day’s people take it to the extreme when trying to have a certain body image. Now day’s people think beauty is whatever is on the outside, instead of the inside and the outside. Most people go on crazy strict diets, surgery and some go through starvation in order to become a certain body size. Eating disorders are becoming more in effect now and not just in the United States , but happens to be going worldwide and not only with just the women, but now with men as well. Within the essay Bordo’s explains about how the body image, media, and culture influence the standard of the beauty leads to eating disorder. Another factor is family that causes someone to form an eating disorder. Those four factors are the main key roles that play apart on how eating disorders are being used.

For many the term “Anorexia” conjures up memories of bone thin, weight obsessed teenage girls, models, and actresses. However, as the spotlight has been shined on Anorexia bringing this secretive and quiet disorder to a wider public perception, many still suffer in silence: either too ashamed to seek treatment, or because of an improper diagnosis.

“It’s almost normative for 16-year-old girls to loathe their bodies. That’s certainly a byproduct of the culture… I don’t think the culture causes eating disorders, but it absolutely contributes to it” (Prah 126). The example shows that culture, and a person’s surroundings do, even slightly, lead to eating disorder triggers as he denied before. Bunnell stating this as a “normative” also shows how popular eating disorders are considered as they spread through

Literature regarding eating disorders in non-Western cultures in general is scarce. Very few studies address disordered eating in cultures outside of the Western and Westernized world. This could be because of the perceived lack of eating disorders in non-industrialized countries or even because there is an overwhelming amount of concern over eating disorders in Western society. However, there have been several studies done on binge eating and dietary restraint in non-western citizens and in non-Caucasian women in the United States. Women who are not from a Caucasian background face different societal and traditional pressures than do Caucasian women in Western cultures, but some of the women in those cultures were found to have binge

Although a great deal of early research on body image and eating disorders focused on upper/middle class Caucasians living in America or under the influence of Western ideals, many researchers are realizing that eating disorders are not isolated to this particular group. They are also realizing the differences in body image between occur in different races and genders (Pate, Pumariega, Hester 1992). Recently, several studies have shown that eating disorders transcend these specific guidelines, and increasingly, researchers are looking at male/female differences, cross-cultural variation and variation within cultures as well. It is impossible to broach the concept of body image without

In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, it talks about how Junior’s girlfriend Penelope has bulimia an eating disorder. The book said Penelope says she’s bulimic with her head held high. It has though being bulimic gives her a sense of achievement. The book makes you think that Penelope is honored to be bulimic. Then Junior said there are anorexics that are proud to be skinny and starved freaks (Alexie & Forney, 2007, p.107). With that being said, the issue being looked at for this paper is eating disorders among women of different human races.

In her essay, “The Globalization of Eating Disorders,” Susan Bordo informs her audience of the growing trends in eating disorders. Through her argument, Bordo illustrates the cruel identity of body-image distortion syndrome while she searches for a solution to the eating-disorder problem by looking to its birthplace in culture. Making use of several examples and scenarios, facts and statistics, and appeals to pathos and logos to construct her argument, Bordo shows a strong intent on eradicating the growing crisis in a reasonably sound argument.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that consists of self-regulated food restriction in which the person strives for thinness and also involves distortion of the way the person sees his or her own body. An anorexic person weighs less than 85% of their ideal body weight. The prevalence of eating disorders is between .5-1% of women aged 15-40 and about 1/20 of this number occurs in men. Anorexia affects all aspects of an affected person's life including emotional health, physical health, and relationships with others (Shekter-Wolfson et al 5-6). A study completed in 1996 showed that anorexics also tend to possess traits that are obsessive in nature and carry heavy emotional

The first article, “Anorexia Nervosa in Adolescent Girls: A Culture-Bound Disorder of Western Society?”, focuses on the talking about anorexia adolescent girls in western society. This article would be labeled the social science and discipline because there are clues given from not only the title, but also within the article itself. Social sciences are a mixture of the humanities and natural sciences which means there are not only human experiences, but also scientific evidence to rely on. First, we would start with the structure of the article. When the article is shown it is in the APA format which is widely known for this form of discipline. Even if it was not known you see how the author set up the information for the readers to know the

Hudson, Hirripi, Pope and Kessler’s (2007) research indicates that the average onset of anorexia nervosa is 19 years old, but can develop as young as 14 years old, and women are more likely to develop anorexia nervosa than men. Some studies indicate that anorexia affects whites more than Hispanics, African Americans and Asians; however it crosses cultures and socially diverse populations (APA, 2013). According to the DSM 5, Anorexia nervosa predominantly occurs in developed, high-income countries such as in the United States, as well as in many European countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Individuals who present with weight concerns that develop eating and feeding disorders varies substantially across cultural contexts. One study indicated that that “the ‘spread’ of Western values regarding slimness (fat phobia) is primarily responsible for the development of anorexia nervosa in non-Western societies” (Rieger et al., 2001). Rieger et al (2001) also looked at the medical records of Asian women and found the absence of fat phobia; the rationale for dietary restriction was commonly related to other external factors. The WHO (2004) also reports that female athletes, ballet students, fashion models and culinary students are at risk of developing anorexia nervosa; unhealthy dieting and society’s

Historically, eating disorders have been associated with upper-class, Caucasian women but as the global phenomenon of “westernization” has spread, so has the idea of body ideals. Kathleen M. Pike, the executive director of the Global Mental Health Program and supervising psychologist in the Eating Disorder Program at NYSPI, recently came up with the theory that an increase in

We live in a technological world and a society that is ruled by social media because anywhere and anytime that we are, we have our laptops, iphones, or ipads. We are constanly chasing and running from all different directions in order to catch up on what’s going on in social media such to find out how many “likes” and how many “followers does Kim Kardashian has?.” With that being said, our society have redefined beauty based on how much “likes” a person received on their Instagram pictures, a number on a scale, a premanufactured clothing size, an hourglass shape, slender thighs, or victoria’s secrect models. The society’s standards of beauty are unrealistic and impossible to achieve. As a result, unrealistic beauty standards affect girls

Genetic deficiencies could impair fat cells’ ability to produce leptin, an appetite-suppressing hormone, or the body’s ability to respond to it. People with such genetic deficiencies, thus, tend to eat more increasing their chance of obesity. Many obese people, however, have high levels of appetite-suppressing hormones. Appetite-controlling hormones affect the hypothalamus and body’s pleasure systems. They prompt and inhibit eating by controlling pleasure signals that are triggered by the body’s reward system. Pleasurable effects of modern, highly tempting food could sometimes overpower the appetite-suppressing hormones, and thus, increase the desire to eat despite the negative consequences. This weight gain causes the body to increase the