Globalization And Westernization

Within countries that were once untouched by unrealistic societal standards, eating disorders and psychological problems have become a not just a local, but a global phenomenon. Bordo is able to give credible examples and evidence on why they have become a problem, such as recounting previous personal excursions and providing statistics.

In the essay “The Globalization of Eating Disorders” by Susan Bordo speaks about eating disorders. In society today appearance is a huge factor. Even though appearance has always been a major thing but now day’s people take it to the extreme when trying to have a certain body image. Now day’s people think beauty is whatever is on the outside, instead of the inside and the outside. Most people go on crazy strict diets, surgery and some go through starvation in order to become a certain body size. Eating disorders are becoming more in effect now and not just in the United States , but happens to be going worldwide and not only with just the women, but now with men as well. Within the essay Bordo’s explains about how the body image, media, and culture influence the standard of the beauty leads to eating disorder. Another factor is family that causes someone to form an eating disorder. Those four factors are the main key roles that play apart on how eating disorders are being used.

It has been found that eating disorders are most common in the western and industrialized culture where food is abundant. This is because these individuals attach a lot of importance to their physical appearance and are willing to do anything to get the dream figure. An eating disorder is not just watching what one eats and exercising on a daily basis but is rather an illness that causes serious disturbances in eating behaviour, such as great and harmful cutback of the consumption of food as well as feelings of serious anxiety about their body shape or mass. They would start to stop themselves to go out anywhere just so that they could work out and burn all of the calories of a meal or snack that they had scoffed earlier. Two of the most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The regular description of a patient with either disease would be a youthful white female, with an upper social standing in a predictably socially competitive environment.

When one thinks of the ideal physique and what it takes to achieve this, most simply go to diet modification and exercise. However when it comes to adolescents, the need to fit in is immediate and often time fast measures are taken to achieve what they consider as the perfect body. Adolescent culture is ever changing but when combined with home cultural views the stress that it can place on a teenager to conform can lead to development of disordered eating. There are few studies on Asian American’s (AA) and their cultural views on weight, however much is being learned. AA’s have always been pen-pointed as being the group that have maintained cultural values through the generations. AA with disordered eating have shown the need to please parents and achieve not only academically but also in appearance (i.e., presenting oneself in a certain way), and this is linking family pride is linked to their children’s achievement and appearance (Tsong & Smart, 2015). Even with all we know, pathways to disordered eating are complex and have various outliers, and still are not very well understood (Streiegel-Moore & Bulik, 2007) Just about all patterns of disordered eating begin with dieting, unrealistic outcomes, and problematic views of the world around (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016).

“It’s almost normative for 16-year-old girls to loathe their bodies. That’s certainly a byproduct of the culture… I don’t think the culture causes eating disorders, but it absolutely contributes to it” (Prah 126). The example shows that culture, and a person’s surroundings do, even slightly, lead to eating disorder triggers as he denied before. Bunnell stating this as a “normative” also shows how popular eating disorders are considered as they spread through

One example of how social media has impacted the eating disorder problem comes from Fiji. In 1998, Television became available to the residents who called Fiji home. In just that year, eleven percent of girls started throwing up and went on dietary programs. Bordo argues that now more than ever, we are taught how to live through the demonstration of pictures. Our would has become digital and we are constantly being shown the “way we are supposed to look.” Bordo also discovered that eating disorders now have been pushed onto men as well, just in a different way. Men take steroids, are constantly working out, and always are looking at ways to become more muscular. With so many enhancement services the medical field has to offer, people think it is easier to obtain their “ideal” weight, when in reality it is just a way for the medical professionals to make a profit. Bordo concludes that families, racial, and cultural backgrounds all contribute to the way a girl wants to be perceived. Yet, until we can figure out how to halt the dysfunction and twisted view of ideal bodies through images and social media, this problem will never go

Susan Bordo, in her article, “The Globalization of Eating Disorders,” argues that images of “perfect people,” in media are causing everyone to change the way we see our bodies, which ends up causing eating disorders. She supports this claim by first giving an example of a girl who is on a no-fat diet because of all of the women that are in the media and portrayed as perfect, despite the fact that this girl is at a healthy weight, then she gives an example of an African-American girl and proves that this is happening everywhere in the world and to all races, then she gives an example of Asian countries and how there was no such thing as an eating disorder, but now when most of these countries have been westernized eating disorders have become

Globalization has created a strong tendency for young people around the world to follow a series of norms, generally attributed to Western civilizations, seeking to construct this idealized image of what beauty should be. Popular media, intentionally or not, has managed to successfully disseminate all over the globe. "The Globalization of Eating Disorders" written in 2003 by English professor and feminist philosopher Susan Bordo, makes some strong points that seriously need to be taken into account if we want to identify and subsequently fight to eradicate a variety of psychological problems, which are product from self-image insecurities a person

In longing to reach the norm many people fall victim to these detrimental illnesses. Sadly, women are more subject to these eating disorders than men, the number of men suffering from eating disorders is on the rise. Our culture puts pressure on each of its inhabitants to attain this ideal body type that is unrealistic for most people. The images that pollute television and magazines make us all feel inadequate if we don't meet the credentials of slenderness; therefore, continuing the role of our society in the development of eating disorders.

In her essay, “The Globalization of Eating Disorders,” Susan Bordo informs her audience of the growing trends in eating disorders. Through her argument, Bordo illustrates the cruel identity of body-image distortion syndrome while she searches for a solution to the eating-disorder problem by looking to its birthplace in culture. Making use of several examples and scenarios, facts and statistics, and appeals to pathos and logos to construct her argument, Bordo shows a strong intent on eradicating the growing crisis in a reasonably sound argument.

Eating disorders are not only developed by people in the United States, but in many countries around the globe. Some examples that Boeree talks about in his articles are “Bulimia Nervosa, Anorexia, and Obesity.” Many people probably have heard of these disorders. Bulimia Nervosa is a period of consuming a large amount of food in just a short period of time. Bulimia Nervosa also can cause you to vomit because of the amount of food that you ate in the short amount of time. Many people also use the disorder to reduce their weight. Studies have shown in the United States that 4% of females will live with this disorder and 3.9% will die from bulimia nervosa. People with this disorder as “Boeree says tend to suffer from depression, anxiety, and poor

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

Globalization is taking place across the world where people can either become globalization or stay local in the state or country. People are very controversial about globalization helping local economies and local businesses. Some people believe globalization is helping local businesses into the markets and then there are some that believe that multinational corporations hurting the local small businesses. What is globalization? “the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets” (). Globalization has started long before we were born.

There is controversy over when globalization began because there is no crystal clear start to globalization. Some people believe that globalization started when the Buddhist leader Chandragupta combined aspects of trade, religion, and military to create a protected trading area. Others believe that globalization began under Genghis Khan’s rule. The Mongolian warrior-ruler created an empire that had trade integrated into it. There are also some experts that believe that the rise of globalization was linked to 1492, the year Christopher Columbus made his first trip to the New World.

Globalization is commonly examined by simply dissecting its political and economic consequences. As a result, the effects on culture are often overlooked. According to U.S. Census projections, by 2043 non-Hispanic whites will become a minority consisting of 47 percent of the U.S. population (Barreto, et al 1). Examining the world as a whole, a 2015 study by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division found that between 1950-2000, an average of 2.8 million people per year migrated to North America and Europe. From 2000-2015, that rate accelerated to 4.1 million per year. What is more, this study projects that from 2015-2050, 91 million people are expected to migrate to high-income countries and produce an 82 percent increase in population in destination countries. Clearly, the prospect of steady migration and the continuing effects of globalization are expected to produce more multicultural societies. Unfortunately for many, “foreign” has become synonymous with danger (Rothkopf). The debate between cultural unity and cultural plurality dates back to the Greeks where they questioned universal human goodness and the differences between societies. More than two millennia later, the issue of a common versus diverse human culture remains contentious. This paper argues that a diverse human culture is more desirable than a universal culture because states and societies benefit from promoting and protecting diversity.