Eating Disorders In Teenage Girls

In today's society, body image is more than just the mental picture people have about themselves, it is also how others make them feel through peer pressure. Young girls are faced with a loss of confidence when others are trying to make them live up to major expectations. Most of these expectations consist of being slim while also having right amount of curves. All of the expectations coming from social media pictures posted by models and celebrities. Almost all girls are expected to stand out in a world full of male dominance. With this type of pressure, girls can start to binge drink and form an eating disorder to try and get rid of the stress that is piled on top of them. Many teens are pressured to be perfect by wanting

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

In America, many teenagers are suffering with multiple eating disorders. Once they begin to monitor what to eat, they tend to perform many exercise routines followed by the lack of not eating, these situations should be alarming to the parent that something is not right. Thus, what can we do to resolve this situation among teens? Parents should first become informed towards the issue which their child is facing and take action immediately to save their child from the dangerous activities. It is important for them to realize that their child is in great danger once they begin to do any of these tasks. Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are psychological problems which mostly affect teenagers and causes them to become conscious about their

Eating disorders are subjective to each individual’s personal experiences, with that said; there are common influences which may contribute to the disorder. The transition into adolescents can be a confusing time for the individual, both physically and mentally. As the adolescent’s body begins to rapidly change during puberty, this physical transformation can lower self-esteem and raise self-consciousness. Adding to this confusing time for the adolescent is pressure from society. Adolescents are exposed to various media outlets where the ideal body image is promoted and often times reflect a thin or smaller appearance. This exposure leads to the adolescent comparing their changing physically appearance to the standard set in the media.

Being acceptable not only in specific social groups but in society is highly important to adolescent girls. Body image is highly important to many adolescent girls because according to the media having an “ideal” body would make one more acceptable in contrast to having a body image that is rejected and not viewed as sexy or attractive. In order to have this achievement many adolescent girls would try out eating disorders. Without recognizing it many adolescent girls are risking their health as well as their lives. Media has a huge contribution with eating disorders but no one seems to notice it. Media’s message is loud and clear: acquiring thinner bodies is “ideal,”; everyone, especially adolescent girls should want and achieve the ideal

Searching for what society sees as the perfect body has caused a risk of eating disorders. Anorexia is where someone doesn’t eat at all or very little, one way a girl would accomplish ‘’the perfect body’’. When one has anorexia it can cause them to die from starvation. bulimia is where someone will eat then will proceed to make themselves throw up. If someone is to go into bulimia it causes their insides to be destroyed. Depression is where one is unhappy to an extreme and has self conflict. That can be the start of anorexia or bulimia . This brings a lot of pressure on girls to have perfect bodies and the public doesn’t help them.

What is the definition of an eating disorder? Why does it affect so many of American young teens? Many individuals would believe that an eating disorders are a fad diet or an experiment to lose weight, but they are serious complex disorders that can take many years to recover from. Per statics eating disorders affect five percent of women and one percent of men in the United States. The South Carolina Mental Health Department reports that five to ten percent of girls with eating disorders will die within ten years of having the disease ("Eating Disorder Statistics," 2006). Individual whom is concern about their body imagine and low self-esteem the individuals will turn to food by over eating or not eating at all. Moreover, Doctors and Scientist have shown that eating disorder is a mental illness that individuals develop over an extend period.

Eating disorders appear to be something that is more common in this country and ignored. Media portrays people do be a certain body frame and it is talked about who has the right body shape and who does not. This makes it extremely difficult for people, especially women. Media and other people put a huge pressure on women and young girls to have a certain body image and shape to be “beautiful” or more attractive especially to the other gender. This can be a lot of the times when eating disorders come into play. From the video on the dancers, they talked a lot about how it was ideal to be extremely skinny. A woman was so skinny that her bones were popping out and other dancers were jealous and envious that she had that body and they did not. Others want to know how she got to be that way when it was truly unhealthy. One thing that people and society needs to pay attention to is these stigmas and pressures them put on other people. People can go to great lengths and put themselves at risk to live up to this unrealistic idea.

Our curriculum is largely responsible for triggering and facilitating eating disorders among teenagers. Teachers don’t notice, or don’t care, when students show signs of an eating disorder- this allows it to progress even further. Teachers talk about eating disorders like they’re hush-hush, or avoid the subject all together. When taught about eating disorders in health class, it can trigger eating disorders within students.

70% of girls don’t feel good enough; that the bar is set too high for them to reach. Girls’ self esteem plummets at around age 12 and usually doesn’t recover until their 20s because media exposure tells them who to be. Many girls believe that happiness is a size and to be happy or feel good about themselves, they will do anything like plastic surgery, or even develop eating disorders. Although many factors impact how a girl perceives herself, such as genetics, the media, peers, the impact of the world can really push them over the edge and could lead to depression. Although youth and being skinny is glamorized, women should love and support their natural body types instead of changing their bodies through makeup and plastic surgery, making

People who have a distorted body image, characterized by a development of food rituals and refusal to eat certain foods are at a higher risk of low self-esteem and depression, because they are constantly obsessed with their body weight and figure. The food and exercise rituals of those with an eating disorder tend to socially isolate themselves, causing them to lose friends and with-drawl from normal activities. Eating disorders can also lead to medical complications such as, “problems with concentration and memory, bone density loss that lead to osteoporosis, gastrointestinal problems, loss of tooth enamel from purging, kidney and liver disease and/or failure, fluid and electrolyte imbalances, increased risk of seizures, and irregular heartbeat

I had no idea of how many girls suffer from eating disorders. These girls are both physically and mentally ill. It was very interesting to follow their story and see how supportive they can be to one another.

When people are surrounded by images of young celebrities who are painfully thin-or very slender with large breasts- girls growing up in todays world feel the pressure of having to meet the standards. While trying hard to look just like their famous idols, a lot of those people will fall prey to an eating disorder, and some will even abuse drugs that will help them lose weight. Also it may lead to self-doubt, depression, extreme dieting and even at the worst an eating disorder. Everywhere you go there is something around them that is advertising weight loss such as TV ads, weightloss ads, shakes, diet pills, weight loss apps are popping up like crazy. Statistics stats that 5 million or more girls and women in America are estimated to suffer from anorexia and other eating disorders. Anorexia affects up to 3.7 percent of the female population at some point in their life. Just because they want to look like all the famous models. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 11,326 girls aged 18 and under got breast implants last year-which tripled the number from 2010. Most board-certified plastic surgeons say they usually won’t preform implant surgery on girls under 18 unless one breast is smaller then the other. However, a lot of girls want this surgery as a graduation gift. Shows just how much young women will do to be perfect in society eyes.

A problem which has become more and more of a dilemma in recent times has been eating disorders amongst young women. This is a prime example of how our society depicts what we should and should not look like and decides our perspective of health and what a healthy body should be. This infatuation with body image in our society stems from gender roles in which females were believed to look attractive for their husbands. Still females are viewed as more delicate and attractive beings and the constant advertisement of young attractive models promoting products is a major reason as to why many young girls in Australia and all over the world are experiencing problems illnesses with obesity, bulimia and anorexia nervosa. Bulimia is where someone throws up the food in which they have already digested for rapid weight loss, anorexia is similar except in this disease the individual has an intense fear of gaining weight and in many occasions refuse to eat and have a false impression of their appearance.

Thirteen percent of 10th graders have reported vomiting, or using laxatives and diuretics to lose weight (Champion and Furnham 214). Many teens have resorted to eating disorders to shed extra pounds and in recent decades anorexia nervosa has increased. Adolescents who develop eating disorders tend to also have low-self esteem, a negative body image, and feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, social dysfunction, depression, and moodiness (Valois et al. 271). Body dissatisfaction can cause eating disorders, and eating disorders can then cause even more negative body image perceptions. Many teenage girls are turning to eating disorders to relieve their body dissatisfaction, but these behaviors will eventually damage their physical and emotional health, self-esteem, and self-control which will not improve their perception of their body image.