Eating Disorders

The Fashion Industry is affecting the way many people look at themselves. In today’s society there is always an ad promoting fast food, clothing brands, Cars. Etc. almost all of them have a model to promote their products. These fashion models are usually, extremely thin, tan, tall, and gorgeous. This set a negative standard for many women on what they should look like and can often cause to self-esteem issues. The Media is having a negative effect on body image by choosing to settle toward an unrealistic persona. In Addition, this has created many young girls, to have eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia, and fasting. However, some businesses have started gravitating toward plus size models to stop the affects it has on society. Plus, also many companies are limiting the amount of photo shopping and airbrushing. The issues are far from being resolved but numerous people are working toward making a change.

Under society’s norms for decades, young women have been put under the pressure and anticipation to have perfect bodies. That is, thin and curved, beautified by applying pounds of the makeup to their face but not appear ridiculously overdone. Who’s responsible for these standards imposed on young women? When a young girl picks up the model along the cover of Vogue being called flawless, it’s easy for her to then aspire to be a real-life imitation of the photocopy. These companies produce magazine covers shown with girls’ images daily. As if keeping the perfect body wasn’t hard enough our culture also forces girls into the forever expanding world of composition, however, body image is a pressing issue for young women. Advertisements and posters of skinny female models are all over. Young girls not only could be better but need to be more upright and feel driven to throw the perfect figure. Moreover, girls are evaluated and oppressed by their physical appearances. With supplements and apparel designed to enhance a facial expression; social media, magazines, and marketing campaigns and advertisements add to the burden of perfection. The fashion industry is a prime object of body image issues, as they believe clothes look better on tall and svelte women. Established on a survey participated by 13 to 17-year-old in the U.S., 90% “felt pressured by fashion and media industries to be skinny”, with more than 60% routinely compares themselves to models, while 46%

Model’s work so hard to have the perfect body for magazines and other things but it is not enough for people they have to photoshop everything that is natural for a girl and it makes girls self conscious about themselves. The interest in this topic is that this is a serious problem,girls should be proud of there body but people think that if a girl is fat then that girl does not care and if a girl is too skinny that girl is trying too hard. In the 1840’s people were fat because it showed that that person was wealthy and could eat a lot, and if a person is skinny you could not afford to eat. But by the 1920’s dieting and calorie counting were apart of daily life. There is way too much pressure on girls to have the perfect body because girls think they are not as pretty as the girls in magazines, society is also the problem because society thinks if a girl is not skinny that girl is not pretty, they always try to change girls because nothing is

When Victoria’s Secret is allowed to have models prance around on screen but Lane Bryant Ads (lingerie for plus size women) is banned then there’s a problem. The media is portraying these models who are thin to the point where it is unhealthy. And the media is feeding society lies. A perfect example is of Gerran Tyler. Tyler was a 12 year old supermodel. She walks the run way for clients like Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, and Betsey Johnson. She’s tall, thin, the perfect model because she hasn’t hit puberty yet. She walked during New York Fashion Week and posed for these designer brands advertisements. This body type is unachievable for almost all adult women (Roberts). Somebody in their twenties or thirties doesn’t have the ability to look like a twelve year old girl, but this is how these designers are telling us to look. Tyler had an amazing career and high expectations but the fame didn’t last long. As she got older and hit puberty she began to develop boobs, hips, and curves. She began getting less and less bookings. Her supermodel career was virtually over. “Eighty percent of 10-year-old American girls say they have been on a diet” and the, “Number one magic wish for young girls 11-17 is to be thinner” (Missrepresentation). This self-esteem problem with young girls is a result of these unobtainable ideas of beauty. Jennifer Siebel, creator of the documentary Missrepresentation, says

The problem is millions of teens believe the lies that these models have not been airbrushed or weigh twenty three percent less than the average woman. So because of this they resort to unhealthy measures to try and fit themselves into this impossible mold. What do we do? We should have more social groups to help younger girls with body positivity and body acceptance.

Fashion magazines and the media are filled with beautiful women that appear to be extremely thin. Every time someone turns on the television or looks at magazines they see some kind of advertisement for fitness programs or some method of dieting. There is a strong emphasis on dieting and maintaining some ideal weight. Looking at these ads full of “skinny” women gives other women a sense of insecurity about themselves, making them think that thin is the way to be. Society in general tends to think that all women are supposed to appear to look like these surreal images that we see on television and in magazines. You hardly ever see plus size models on TV or in magazines advertising a product. It seems to me that if you are not a Cindy Crawford, Tyra Banks, or Naomi Campbell then you don’t have a chance of succeeding in this fat phobic world.

1. Death, osteoporosis, anemia, heart problems such as mitral valve prolapse, abnormal heart rhythms and heart failure, increasing risk of fractures later in life and gastrointestinal problems are just a few of the complications one might experience.

Fashion Industries all over the world are the cause of so many deaths and eating disorders of models with their force of having to be skinny. Many anorexic models are often found on the catwalks are pressurized to be below average size and weight with around 40% of models are found with some type of eating disorder. Many even have been told by their managers that they are too ‘fat’ and need to lose weight if they are to keep their jobs.

As you’re walking down a street you may notice a young group of girls or women walking and they see a huge billboard of a beautiful model. They might stop and stare at her and then discuss about her perfect her body is. Not knowing in the next five minutes they’ll be comparing their bodies to the model and feeling bad about themselves wishing that they had her body. Not to mention, that the photo may be photoshopped to make it seem as her body is perfect, or she had plastic surgery to fit the idea of having the perfect body. The fact that the media thinks they’re encouraging young girls and women to embrace their beauty, they’re influencing them that they have to have a perfect body in order to get attention. The media has put a lot of pressure on young girls and women to look perfect and second guess their bodies, when plastic surgery is never the answer to build their self-esteem up.

In the media, women are constantly made to look almost perfect. There are never any blemishes, wrinkles, cellulite, and the women always look extremely thin. No wonder women of all ages might have some type of body image issue, including eating disorders. A study showed that almost half of girls ages six to eight want to be skinnier. These girls are too young to be worrying about if their body and how it looks. When girls this young are already having body image issues, it is obvious that this is getting to be a major problem.

Adolescence is a period of transition between childhood and adulthood. It is a time of rapid physical, cognitive, social and emotional development. This period usually begins at about age ten and lasts until the late teens or early twenties. Adolescence is commonly seen as a period in life in which individuals are trying to find and develop their identity, and their actions can easily be influenced by their peers and the media. The importance of eating disorders to pediatric nursing lies in the fact that adolescents are in the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage of psychosocial development. This is a vital time, and care must be taken to protect the child's sense of identity by preventing or treating eating disorders.

Throughout the years, models have been progressively been getting skinnier. "Size 6 (UK size 10) was a normal size" (Littlejohn). There are many downsides to the super thin models of today. They cause unattainable standards of beauty for people which leads to eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating. This is affecting models and teenage girls the most, peoples health is being sacrificed for "fashion", and it needs to stop.

A large contributing factor to this problem is that many people in the fashion world encourage the use of overly thin models in editorials and fashion shows. For example, as Kathryn Shattuck, What's On Today: [The Arts/Cultural Desk], mentions that Kelly Cutrone, world renowned fashion publicist, encourages, “Clothes look better on thin people. The fabric hangs better” (1). The fashion industry’s emphasis on being thin and its use of extremely underweight models in unacceptable. Many people would agree that the fashion industry plays the majority role in eating disorders, but Lisa Hilton, British Vogue writer, disagrees. Hilton argues, “Its objective is selling clothes, and the consensus remains that in order to achieve this, models need to be thin . . . Fashion is about fantasy, about impossibility, about, dare we say it, art. Most women can’t tell the difference” (1). Hilton condescendingly continues to refute the criticisms that models are too thin and the fashion industry encourages eating disorders.

“There are over 30 million people in the United States of all different ages and genders suffering from an eating disorder.” (“Eating Disorder Statistics) The percentage of teens that are constantly skipping meals or have eating disorders have slowly been rising in recent years. There is intense pressure from today's society to be thin and things are starting to get out of hand. How much longer will it be until skipping meals becomes what is normal across the entire country, starting with today’s teens?

Through out the decades, our definition towards beauty has been altered dramatically. We no longer value people from all shapes, sizes and skin colour. The underlying cause is the portrayal of beauty standards in the media in this generation. One of the focus on beauty standards is body image. In order to be accepted, you have to be thin or else there is no place for you in Hollywood or the world of modeling. These beauty standards set by the mass media has impacted women and young