Effects Of Anorexia Nervosa

It is apparent that with the increasing popularity of social media today, there has been a shift in dietary changes within our society. Individuals are subconsciously changing how and what they eat. The question arises, why are so many young women dissatisfied with their bodies, despite their size? Although there are several forces believed to play a role in this dissatisfaction such as peer criticism and parental influences, the thin-ideal body is dominating the media (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008). Thinness is largely emphasized and praised for women in magazines, television shows, movies and commercials (Stice & Shaw, 1992). Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder that stems from this ubiquitous obsession to be thin and is often associated with a pathological fear of gaining weight, distorted self-body image and emaciation (The American Heritage® Science Dictionary).

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

Today’s society is a consumers’ society in which trying to obtain perfection is one of the fastest selling businesses (DeLaMater Pg. 12). Mass media, advertising, and fashion industries are being accused of feeding off females dissatisfaction with their bodies by portraying unhealthy thin role models in order to sell their products. This unachievable physique and lifestyle has led today’s adolescence down a dark path of such extreme eating disorders as anorexia and bulimia. Although it may sound nice to be societies perception of thin, there are consequences to these eating disorders such as cardiac failure that lead to horrifying defects or even death.

According to the internet, 10 million American women suffer from eating disorders? Eating disorders are serious illnesses which are caused by irregular eating habits and concerns about body weight. As a result, eating disorders are caused psychological and environmental behavior which can often result in a fatal illness. This is what Kathryn Arnett experiences in her life. She explains how she developed an eating disorder in her essay, “Media and Advertisement: The New Peer Pressure.” The factors that contributed to Arnett’s eating disorder was media idolizing and portraying fake body images, teens developing and having low self-esteem, and parents not being present in their children's’s life.

In Jonathon Raders article, “Does the media cause eating disorders?”, he argues that eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia, include a high mortality rate, higher rate than any other illness. The author claims that 69% of girls say that that photo shopped magazine pictures influence the perfect body shape to them. Rader also points out that the mannequins and models are growing thinner, even the plus size models are shrinking in sizes. The runway models are beginning to meet the body mass for anorexia, which, he argues, is a very unhealthy BMI level. The author also

Imagine waking up every morning, struggling to get out of bed and hating to look at yourself in the mirror. Girl’s will look into the mirror for hours and criticize every last inch of their body with the words “fat, ugly, worthless” echo in their head. They think their body isn’t good enough and want to look skinner like the other woman in magazines or people they see on TV. The media has a big part in self-image toward young woman. The message being sent to these women on the media is that they are not pretty enough or thin enough. Which results in people having an eating disorder.

Women in the American society become so obsessed with the idea of being thin and looking like the magazine models that they will go to extremes in order to achieve their goal. In other words, the obsession can sometimes lead them right into an eating disorder. However, solutions to these illnesses do exist.

According to the article entitled, The Fashion Industry May Be Linked to Poor Body Image and Eating Disorders, psychologists and eating disorder experts say the fashion industry has gone too far in pushing thin image ideals on women and young girls. Professor of psychiatry at Rush Medical College in Chicago and Vice President of the American Psychiatric Association states “we know seeing super-thin models can play a role in causing anorexia.” This article argues that the common thin, sexy ideal in our culture and society has caused many women and girls to dislike their bodies and have poor self image, a body dissatisfaction that can lead to unhealthy weight control behaviors and

Promotion by the media of the extraordinarily thin body types has been linked to the steady rise of eating disorders, especially among adolescents (Ballaro & Wagner, 2017). Experts believe that there are more than ten million females suffering from some sort of eating disorder and that the problems are happening in patients of younger and younger ages. The gap between the average woman’s body and the ideal body is much larger than before (Spitzer, Henderson, & Zivian, 1999). Ninety four percent of characters in the United States media, are thinner than the average woman (Gonzalez-Lavin & Smolak, 1995). The average American woman is only 5’4” tall and weighs approximately 165 pounds (Martin 2010). The media depicts happiness, wealth and success associated to unrealistic body types (Tiggemann, 2002). Not only does the media display this image, it also exhaustively provides information to encourage achievement of it as well. Whether through dieting, exercise or mild to extreme cosmetic surgery for body sculpting, women are feeling the pressure that they need to be thin and often take even the most dangerous methods to obtain this. Considering that these delusional ideals are nearly impossible for most average women, without choosing unhealthy and harmful behaviors, eating disorder theorists have proclaimed that media is supporting these habits (Levine & Smolak, 1998). It is estimated that 10-15% of girls and women between the ages of 9 and 19 are affected by eating disorders. Though the death rates vary from different studies, one thing is for sure; eating disorders can have many health risks, including death. With the unrealistic ability to achieve the super thin body image many women are still turning to these harmful methods in order to try; thus resulting in death of someone every 62 minutes as a result (Eating Disorders Coalition,

People want to achieve a better looking version of themselves, furthermore the increase of ads for diet foods and products can cause them to feel the need to purchase these products. The article, Eating Disorder and the Role of the media, states that it found a significant increase in advertisements for diet foods and diet products for the years 1973-1996. (Spettigue and Henderson 1) This shows us that the “ideal” body image change over generations also causing products to increase due to newer trends replace older trends. Generations are only momentarily while “ideal” body images change by becoming more skinnier and with higher expectations. This can lead to the increase of diet products. Also in the article, Body Image of Women, it states

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

Even if anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe mental illness potentially resulting to serious ongoing psychiatric and physical health issues, there are not many clinical trial studies for treating AN published worldwidely focused on psychotherapeutic interventions (Birmingham et al., 2005; Herzog et al., 2000; Le Grange and Lock, 2005; Rome et al., 2003). According to Ale Grange and Lock (2005), of the interventions investigated for AN only the family therapy based approach developed by Dare and Eisler at the Maudsley Hospital, has been studied more than once in a clinical trial setting. Investigations completed at the end of treatment from the available studies of this approach suggest that it is effective in the short term,

Hudson, Hirripi, Pope and Kessler’s (2007) research indicates that the average onset of anorexia nervosa is 19 years old, but can develop as young as 14 years old, and women are more likely to develop anorexia nervosa than men. Some studies indicate that anorexia affects whites more than Hispanics, African Americans and Asians; however it crosses cultures and socially diverse populations (APA, 2013). According to the DSM 5, Anorexia nervosa predominantly occurs in developed, high-income countries such as in the United States, as well as in many European countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Individuals who present with weight concerns that develop eating and feeding disorders varies substantially across cultural contexts. One study indicated that that “the ‘spread’ of Western values regarding slimness (fat phobia) is primarily responsible for the development of anorexia nervosa in non-Western societies” (Rieger et al., 2001). Rieger et al (2001) also looked at the medical records of Asian women and found the absence of fat phobia; the rationale for dietary restriction was commonly related to other external factors. The WHO (2004) also reports that female athletes, ballet students, fashion models and culinary students are at risk of developing anorexia nervosa; unhealthy dieting and society’s

Advertisements may show to girls that in order for them to be beautiful, they need to look like the pencil thin models working with the clothing lines. As a result, most young women and teens would want to lose weight in order to look like them and be “beautiful”. In order to do so, women cut down their feeding and nutrition and encounter eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.

Young women are much more likely to develop eating disorders fueled by unrealistic cultural standards for weight in Western societies (pg. 448). We often see on television or on social media, what the “ideal” body looks like. Young women are looking at this and comparing themselves to what they feel like they should look like. In reality though, the “ideal” body is a complete sham. It’s not about how “ideal” a body can look or be, but rather how healthy you are as a person. A personal example of mine was when l was around thirteen years old and l looked at a fashion magazine with a bunch of beautiful models on the front cover. At the time, l thought to myself, “Oh, they’re so pretty! I want to look like that too!” But in reality, l was hurting myself by taking extreme measures to either be as skinny or as porcelain as these models. The truth is, l would never look like them, no matter how much l tried. My body was built a certain way, and of course l can be healthy and exercise and eat nutritious food, but if l was going to do that, it would be for my own personal reason and not to look like someone l wish l could be. Like me, a lot of young women go through this, but unfortunately, go through much more extreme measures like developing eating