Body Image Pressure

In a recent survey done by the National institute on Media and the Family, fifth graders, ten year old boys and girls told researchers they were dissatisfied with their own bodies after watching a music video by Britney Spears or a clip from the TV show “Friends.”(4) If this isn’t shocking enough, the research group reported that at the age of thirteen, fifty-three percent of American girls are “unhappy with their bodies.” This grows to seventy-eight percent by the time the girls reach seventeen. Also, eating disorders are beginning to start at an alarming young age. Statistics show that girls are developing eating disorders at the age of six.(1) Young girls that are exposed to appearance focused television programs, and magazine shows feel that they need to look like the models that they see. Most of these girls are not even have fully developed bodies yet and are already trying to perfect themselves. One girl had even shared how one of her best friends discovered that her fifth grade cousin was bulimic. Girls at that age should not even be concerned with their bodies yet and eating disorders being developed is a harsh wake up call as to how young girls everywhere are being effected by the media each and everyday.

Beauty standards in the media are one of many reasons feeding and eating disorders are a rising problem. The unrealistic body types of being extremely thin, in pop culture, are influential factors for many teens, especially teen girls. According to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5), anorexia nervosa is a “restriction of energy intake, intense fear of gaining weight, and a disturbance in the perception of one’s body size” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Individuals diagnosed with anorexia tend to place a high value on their shape and weight, which can interfere with their daily lives. Individuals diagnosed tend to view of their body shape in a distorted representation. The motivation to become

Girls especially are told that they are supposed to look how famous people look, but are not told how vastly edited and corrected the models in the pictures are. Today, women as young as 11 and 12 have began developing eating disorders due to the constant media bombardment telling them to look a certain way—incredibly skinny—which forces them into starvation. Psychologists have coined the new disorder ‘”body image disturbance syndrome” or BIDS. BIDS is characterized by the incessant feeling of being ‘fat’ when someone is perfectly healthy usually turning to one of two options: anorexia or bulimia. Anorexia is the act of not eating to achieve a body image, but this often results in gross malnourishment. On the other hand, bulimia is characterized by binge eating large meals followed by self-induced vomiting. The motivation behind bulimia is that if they keep the food in their body just long enough to absorb the nutrients, they can vomit the actual bulk of the food that makes them look overweight. The sad reality of the fact is that not only are the nutrients not completely absorbed until they reach the intestines, but the stomach acid brought forth with their vomit virtually rots away their

According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), as many as 60 percent of children between ages 6 and 12 worry about weight gain, and half American teens think they’re overweight. (Turner, 2014) Girls want to lose huge amounts of weight because they think they will feel prettier when all there doing is damaging the inside of their body. Among adolescent girls, 1% to 3% have bulimia and 1% have anorexia. Only 5% to 15% of all people with anorexia or bulimia are male. (Harris, 2004) Most young females and males go through some type of eating disorder. A study in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that more than half a million teens have an eating disorder. (Turner, 2014)

Along with the unrealistic body images on social media it drags along obsession with dieting, food, and appearance in young adolescents creating eating disorders. “Adolescents diagnosed with serious eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia often report that their symptoms can be linked to the bullying they received from their age peers as well as the unrealistic media images presented as an ideal for them to follow.”(www.phycologytoday.com) The unrealistic body ideal that they feel they need to follow has a big impact on the way teens look at what they are eating, and their weight and shape which can lead to serious eating disorders. “Adolescent females who are unable to conform to the ideal being put forward by movie, television find themselves taking extreme measures to be more like their role models.” (www.phycologytoday.com) Teens feel that it is important to become like their role models that they see on social media and go to extreme measures to become the ideal weight and shape

In the United States alone, 40-60% of girls in elementary and middle school are worried about gaining too much weight and not being accepted by anyone ("Prevalence vs. Funding" 1). Adolescents and women are surrounded with the idea of culture’s “perfect body type” where girls are stick thin and gorgeous. Culture is obsessed with outer beauty and being as flawless as you can be, and often leave out how important inner beauty is. This idea of outer beauty often results in women trying to warp their body image to please the people around them ("Prevalence vs. Funding" 4). Adolescent girls use the media to help figure out how they should look and act, which consequently mirrors how their eating patterns change and evolve. Adolescent girls are targeted by culture, pressured by their peers surrounding them, and taunted by their own self-consciousness, often leading up to acquiring an eating disorder. When the eating disorder is acquired, it often had many damaging physical effects on the person’s body.

Today, a large majority of women will admit to being dissatisfied with the way their body looks. This is because of a thing called body image. Body image is the way one thinks their body should look like, and how they think others see it. This has become a major issue mainly because of the media. The media effects body image because they use women with what is considered the “perfect body” for advertising purposes. They are all over social media, on television, and on the cover of magazines. Since the media only shows women with one certain body type, this puts pressure on other women to look that way. The media should stop pressuring the perfect body type because it can lead to self-esteem problems in women, anemia or bulimia, and can even

“Michelle M. Lelwica author of The Religion of Thinness: Satisfying the Spiritual Hungers Behind Women’s Obsession with Food and Weight declared that ‘Thinness is worshipped in American culture. Unrealistic body images are promoted in the media and entertainment resulting in greater numbers of women and men who feel ‘too fat’ and suffer from eating disorders’” (Shell 1). Eating disorders are characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating. Eating disorders have several causes including behavioral, psychological, and social factors, and they frequently appear during adolescence or early adulthood, but it may also develop earlier or later in life. In today’s culture media has a more powerful presence than ever before; this causes the individual to be constantly bombarded by what the media portrays as a “good” body. The mass communication transmits both positive and negative messages about body image to the public. The general public unaware of what a positive or negative body image can do in mental and physical health end up trying to meet those unrealistic standards, thus, so inducing harmful lifestyles. Eating disorders can be caused by sociocultural incitements such as unrealistic standards, set by society and culture, and lack of knowledge about positive and negative body image, but regulations and education must be established to help reduce the problems.

As many as 20 percent of those who suffer from anorexia will die early from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems. While there are many possible causes and triggers for these disorders, the media’s influence on body image cannot be overlooked. "My problem is the top of my legs and my bottom, which sticks out. I would like a smaller bottom because I find it difficult to fit into some jeans." Harriet’s obsession with her body scares her mother, sadly Harriet is not the only one who faces this problem daily. 40% of girls aged between 6 and 12 want to change their appearance. Don’t you think this is wrong? Kids who should be worried more about spelling words and math problems are being wrapped into the Medias image of a perfect body. Teens are more afraid of gaining weight than they are of cancer, nuclear war, or losing a parent.

The media’s false portrayal of body image has a great influence on the development of eating disorders. There are three types of eating disorders; anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating. Eating disorders are major issues in today’s society. Instead of people using the media to influence good eating habits, they use it to influence bad eating habits. The numbers of people who have an eating disorder are rising at an alarming rate. It affects not only women, but also men, teens, and young children of all ages. It is not surprising that the number of young children who have an eating disorder is increasing each year. This is an issue that people do not take seriously. The media gets the attention to continue to

Ever since the development of the media such as television, the internet, various fashion magazines and commercial advertisements, society focused more and more on personal appearances. Not only were runway models becoming slimmer but the viewers that watched and read about them were becoming more concerned with their weight. In the past fifty years the number of adolescent girls developing eating disorders increased just as television, advertisements, and magazines were becoming a social norm that was easily and often available. Today, more than ever, adolescents are worrying about weight, shape, size and body image and. It does not help that these children are growing up in a world filled with media material emphasizing dangerously

Today, more than ever, teenagers and adolescents have many concerns about their weight, shape, size, and body image. Studies have suggested that eating disorders among adolescent girls have increased over the past fifty years. Approximately 1% to 5% of young girls meet the criteria for bulimia nervosa (Johnson, Chandra). Although the media’s emphasis on diet and fitness was designed to help people become healthier, it influences bad eating habits, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorders.

“11 facts about body image”, concludes that approximately 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape and only 5% of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media. The women who do not portray the “ideal” body type decide to do fads, diets, and if those don’t work, some women/girls decide to go to the extreme. Anorexia and bulimia, are a few of the major things women/girls decide to do if diets don’t work for them. Media, not only makes girls feel bad about themselves, but it makes them go to the extreme to reach that “Body Goal” type of body. According to “What is Body Image?

Athletes on the collegiate level are constantly exposed to significant pressures that may adversely affect healthy eating and body image. These pressures can be embodied within both external and internal demands on appearance as well as performance and can cause athletes to unhealthily strive towards, leanness, thinness and/or gender norms. This literature review will give present facts as to the necessity of this study displaying the affects of the constant pressure athletes are faced with on a daily basis. In reading through the literature in is apparent that body image concerns constantly effect athletes. Typically, collegiate athletes experience greater body dissatisfaction from body

Today every girl wants to be “perfect” or be close to perfect. One of the requirements is to have a nice body. It is easy for any girl to reach this goal by changing their diet. Girls often have to deal with many different issues such as eating disorders, low-self esteem, body image issues and so on. Many of these issues are influenced by all the advertisement on social media. Some girls are not aware of the consequences that they will have to face after “fixing” their bodies. There are different ways teen girls harm their bodies such as eating and then purging which is called bulimia nervosa. Another eating disorder is starvation which is known as anorexia nervosa. Anorexia in teenage girls is very important to be aware of because young women