Eating Disorders in the Developing Woman Essay

What is a feminist approach to understanding eating disorders? Not all feminists have the same understanding of eating disorders. There are many different theories that are prevalent in feminist literature today. This web page will explore some of the different feminist perspectives about the cause of eating disorders in our culture.

In the past few decades researchers have focused on eating disorders, the causes of these disorders and how they can be treated. However, it has mainly been in the last decade that researchers have started looking at eating disorders in children, the reasons why these disorders are developing at such a young age, and the best recovery program for these young people. To understand this growing problem it is necessary to ask a few important questions:

Food. It is essential for survival. Without it, people die. However, oddly enough, many struggle to live without it to accomplish the standards that our culture has created for us. We are taught that being thin is perfection and will lead to a happier life. However, lurking are the health risks that one pays for obtaining the “perfect body”. Still, along with a distorted body image, others struggle with keeping weight down and fall into the diet fads that the world parades. From movies, magazines, and television, the media also sends us messages that being fat is bad and unhealthy while being thin and beautiful is acceptable. The impact of such influences has increased eating disorders in America. These disorders do not

Bingeing. Purging. Calorie counting. Excessive exercising. These are actions that are most commonly associated with eating disorders, which are psychological conditions affecting an individual’s eating habits. Though these conditions can appear in any age or gender group, they tend to be most prevalent in adolescent women. A large population of these young women happen to be college students dealing with problems such as body image issues, food insecurity, and other mental health disorders. Unfortunately, the number of college students with eating disorders is steadily rising in the United States, which is why it is important for colleges and universities to find solutions for it.

The media plays a major role in the way our society sets certain standards and forms opinions. No matter where we go, the media is everywhere. The message that the media illustrates today is that “thin is in”. When was the last time you flipped through a magazine or through the television channels without seeing some type of advertisement promoting a new diet or new product being promoted by a super thin model or actress? Young girls are the main targets for new products. It is common for young girls to be obsessed with what is “in”. The message that young girls are getting from the media is that having bones sticking out is the way to look. They then become preoccupied with their bodies and self image. “ The exposure to ideal images coincides with a period in their lives where self regard and self efficacy is in decline, where body image is at its most fragile due to physical changes of puberty and where tendency for social comparison is at its peak” (www.eating-disorders.org.uk/docs/media.doc). The media illustrates to young girls an “idealized” shape which leads to being beautiful, popular, successful, and loved but which is not realistic to have unless you have the “idealized” shape. Therefore, they believe that their lives will be perfect as long as they are thin and have the “idealized” shape. The two main sources of media that reach young girls are television and magazines.

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%

The subject of this article are young girls, mainly who are in their teenage years, but also the parents of teenage girls. However, anyone can be impacted and learn from this article. This article questions why society drills the idea of thinness into the minds of people, and every reader can take a different stance and have a different opinion on the issue. Some people may take a stance and say that individuals, themselves, are the only influence on their body image. However, others may take the stance and say that society, as a whole, has a huge influence on an individual and their body image. The author of this article, Erica Goode, includes many quotes from parents of teenage girls, who feel as if they need to go to extreme measures to fit in with society. In this case, the author is creating the stance that society plays a role when it comes to influencing an individual. Goode also provides many

Real beauty is found in a person's heart, not in their appearance, but the media rarely portrays this though. Most magazines and television shows feature only excessively thin people. Unfortunately, this causes teenagers whose bodies don't match those same proportions to look at their selves with hatred. Every lump and bulge becomes despised, and soon, they have a full-blown eating disorder.

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 largest forms of media we encounter in our daily lives are the advertisements and commercials we see on TV, the Internet and in magazines. One of the key strategies used to reinforce the feminine image is to depict every woman to be “thin.” This strategy is used all over the media and this depiction of “women should be thin” is negative. For example, “Seventeen” magazine, Pretty Little Liars star Troian Bellisario is featured on the cover captioning, “Get an insane body – It’s hard, but you’ll look hot.” This idea that the media is portraying to all women and girls is publicized wrongly. Everyone thinks that being thin is hot and if you are not thin, you don’t belong to society. However, this happens because women and girls are too taken away by getting slim,

In the world today, the media makes it hard for a girl to be ok with her body. Society, in general, persuades young women to feel that any size above a two is too big or that a women needs make up to be beautiful In 1950, when televisions were first finding their way into homes, the media’s portrayal of “the ideal” female was drastically different than what people portray today. At that time, mannequins and models reflected the average woman’s size. Mannequins and models have grown thinner by the year, increasingly desperate with the average women’s physical form. This problem causes many young women to starve themselves to get to the perfect image we have created for them today. One in two hundred American women suffer from anorexia; two

Therefore, the commendation of such look and shape commercializes unhealthy body image and procreates eating disorders. Unfortunately, at present the commercialism of a perfect body is encountered by almost everyone on everyday basis. The public is bombarded daily with images of glamorously thin women in commercials, on billboards, in movies in magazines and etc?According to Melanie Katzman, a consultant psychologist from New York, the media has actively defined the thin ideal as success and treats the body as a commodity. (Rhona MacDonald, 2001) It is evident that the persistent advocating of the media and the society produced a constant pursuit of thinness, which became a new religion. A study conducted by Harvard researchers has revealed the effect of media and magazines on adolescent girls in high schools. The children were exposed to fashion magazines and television commercials, and a while after were given self-rating surveys. The study found that sixty-nine percent of the girls said that magazine pictures

Eating disorders have numerous emotional, psychological, and physical consequences; despite this, many affected individuals refuse to admit that they have a problem. One of the more serious problems associated with eating disorders that may convince a young woman to seek treatment, is the negative effect disordered eating can have on fertility, pregnancy, and child rearing in general. In multiple studies anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and eating disorders not otherwise specified, have been associated with infertility, low maternal weight gain, low birth weight in infants, increased neonatal morbidity, and problems in infant feeding (Stewart, 1992). Women who are afflicted with an eating disorder at

In modern culture, women and men are becoming less satisfied with their body shape. According to a report that was done by the Federal Trade Commission, seventy percent of Americans are either trying not to maintain their weight or are trying to lose weight (Kittleson 75). To compensate for being over weight, an individual will develop an eating disorder. According to Mark Kittleson, eating disorders are when an individual eats way too much or way too little (1). There are three different types of eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. According to Jessica Bennett, twenty-five million people in the United States suffer from binge eating disorder and ten million women and one million men suffer from either anorexia or

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.