Eating Disorders: Personal or Social Problem? Essay

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.

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.

As the "ideal" women’s body has become progressively thinner over the past decades, the eating disorder anorexia has become progressively more prevalent. Anorexia is a disease in which a person eats nothing beyond minimal amounts of food so that her body weight drops dangerously. It is no wonder with all of the cultural messages of thinness being aimed at women, that 90-95% of anorexics are female, 25.7% of all female ballet dancers are anorexic, and that the percentages are similarly high for female models and athletes (Malson, 1998). Six to eight percent of young women have been diagnosed. For some the disease takes a devastating and irreversible course; 20% of anorexic patients will die and as many as half of those will be from suicide

(HELGA DITTMAR, 2004) The National Eating Disorders Association reported that twenty years ago, the average model weighed 8 percent less than the average woman (129 pounds vs. 140 pounds). Today, the average woman is 160 pounds and the typical model weighs 23 percent less (123 pounds). (National Eating Disorder Association, 2009) This may not seem like a huge jump, but for a 5'10" woman (a typical model height), 129 pounds equals the 18.5 BMI cut-off and 123 pounds is underweight. Keep in mind that these are averages; the unsaid reality is that young women in the industry are often encouraged to lose "ten pounds." Go on “starvation diets” undergo surgeries. Too often young women in the industry shrink under insecurity and pressure to maintain an ideal size that is not realistic for their own bodies, it is even worse as they mature because agencies want them to maintain the same body weight they had at age sixteen which should not be. Research has shown that more than 72 percent of women in the United States alone wear a size 12 and above. (Corrigan, 2013) Fashion brands are supposed to project a more accurate image of what women look like, why are we still using size zero models to advertise products? If the customers on average are bigger, brands should use more realistic, diverse looking models.

Have you ever taken a second to compare the size of men and women today to the sizes years ago? Recently there is a huge new trend of becoming as thin and fit as possible and thinking this is how one becomes beautiful. No one actually knows where this idea has emerged from. In the past big has been known as being healthy and beautiful. Take for instance Marilyn Monroe, she was the pin up girl for many men and wasn't exactly thin to today's standards. Today's celebrities wear sizes 0 - 2 and are the supposed poster girls of what beautiful looks like. There are many factors that are causing people young and old to get caught up in the new health and fitness craze. One of these factors affecting almost everyone is the media. Celebrities are

For many years there has been size discrimination amongst the fashion industry. Some companies want to say that women are too big or too skinny. Yet this may be true in some cases, this does not mean that their assumptions should affect who can and cannot model. When fashion industries are picking models, they should consider that not every woman is the same size and their weight, if healthy, should not affect their chances of becoming a model.

Advancements in technology has allowed for leaps and bounds in the medical field, in science and just our day to day lives. With the media at an all time high, our youth is surrounded by it constantly. With their smart phones, and computers, not to mention TVs, they can't seem to get away from it. Young women are bombarded with photos of stick thin models, the stores they shop at have borderline underweight manikins modeling their clothing. It is quite fitting that these young girls want to be like them. They have to be thin like the pretty girls on the magazines. Only what they are trying to achieve does not exist. With all these new photo shopping techniques, these models are nearly unrecognizable in person. So these women are

         Americans obsessions with their bodies has become a hot topic lately. From personal observation and research, I have seen the obsession become more severe. Web sites dealing with eating disorders are some of the most commonly visited web sites. We have a problem. The obsessions are becoming too serious, even fatal. Americans today have become slaves to the diet and fitness industries, resulting in an increased number of eating disorder cases over the past few years. If Americans are not educated about the complicated causes and effects of eating disorders then the plague of the 90’s, eating disorders, is going to continue to kill. The following paragraphs are a start to the education. They deal

Why should we as women be shamed into conforming to a size that is pleasing to others? All of us have different body types and builds some of which can never meet these unrealistic expectations set forth by the media. This barrage of perfect images has damaging effects on girls and women’s self-esteem. We should encourage one another to love ourselves and our unique beauty.

People everywhere especially young girls, and women look at magazines and dream to one day look like the models in the pictures. They do this because thin, beautiful women are what they are used to seeing everywhere. There are rarely advertisements with curvy, real looking women on them. Plus size models are also scarce and compared to the ultra skinny models, they are not looked up to. What is happening to society? Size ¾ is no longer considered thin. There are double zeros and negative sizes that are taking over the clothing racks. Changes need to be made with the media and the fashion industry immediately. The rampage of being so thin that your rib cage is clearly seen and you suffer from many health issues is not in. Thin is not in! Healthy, real looking girls and women who are happy with their figures is what's in. Being active and enjoying a normal lifestyle is in. There is no need to conform to the so called "perfect body image" when there truly is not one. Psychologists say the fashion industry has gone too far in pushing dangerously thin image in that women and even young girls try to imitate. In recent surveys 40% of first, second, and third graders want to be thinner. 80% of ten year olds are concerned that they will become fat. 50% of children ages eight through ten are unhappy with their current size and more than 50% of nine through fifteen year olds say that they exercise to lose weight and reduce

Have you ever looked at the advertisements you watch on tv and think to yourself about how those women look so much better in clothes and they look so different on you? Retailers only appeal to a small fraction of the United States when they could be appealing to a way bigger and wider variety of people. Everyday women struggle with the way clothing fits. Not all clothing fits every single body that tries the apparel on. According to ssu.edu the average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds and the average American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds. Every year magazine companies spend billions of dollars on diet and exercise advertisements to put in their magazines. Women averagely see and hear around 400-600 advertisements per

A woman called "Twiggy" by the press was one of the most popular fashion models in the 1960's. Twiggy was a very appropriate title for her, considering her stick-thin body. She slowly began exposing more and more of her skeletion-esque stature to the camera, and to the world, no doubt inspiring young girls to become like her, because she was in style, yet she was strikingly different; but perhaps most importantly: She was "beautiful." The ultra-skinny image, although not a healthy one, is still consistently portrayed today in the media. While researching articles for this paper, I came across a magazine headline that read, You Can Never Be To Thin, in bold, capital letters. Unfortunately, some women actually began believing that statement, and a great deal of them have since suffered from Anorexia nervosa and some have even died of starvation. Can you imagine starving yourself to death? It is terrifying to me that young minds are so easily driven to take drastic measures when they are told that they will be accepted and loved by society as soon as they are thin. Teenagers are directly targeted because, being at a very impressionable time in their lives, they tend to conform to whatever is currently considered fashionable by their society. <p>Alison Bell hit the nail on the head when she wrote in an article for "TEEN" magazine in 1999, "We live in a society where it is considered standard for a teenager to worry excessively about her body especially at

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.

Because we are constantly surrounded by the media, the average person is less confident about their body image. Women criticize themselves everyday. Many develop what is called the “too” syndrome, in which they think of themselves as being too short, too fat, having too much acne, etc. Due to the fashion industry, there are more and more opportunities for women to compare themselves with others, and it is a lot of pressure to think we have to keep up. The British Medical Association states that the gap between the ideal body type and the reality is becoming wider and wider; The models are getting skinnier while the rest of the world is getting heavier. The average woman is 5’4 and 140 lbs, compared to the average model who is 5’11 and 117 lbs. This gap is creating less and less self esteem is many women.