How Does Bulimia Affect Young Girls?

On top of this, 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures and runway models influenced their idea of a perfect body shape (only 5% of the female population naturally has the body type portrayed as ideal in advertisement). This is obviously a problem because, growing up, girls everywhere are told that they’re pretty and that being pretty is the most important thing about them and they start basing their worth on their looks. But then, every single woman they see on TV, in movies, in magazines, any woman considered “hot” and “beautiful” doesn’t look like them anymore, which brings on deadly disorders like anorexia and bulumia that wreck the lives of young girls. Since 90% of people with eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25, we should be asking ourselves “what is causing my child to develop destructive habits at such a young age?” The answer is that they’ve been told that the type of body

Societal pressure also comes in the form of body shaming, which is defined as the criticism of another person’s body shape or appearance. According to a 2016 study, there is correlation between body shaming, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorders, all of which happen to be most prevalent in young women (Mustapic p. 447). In recent years, body shaming has become a huge problem due to the popularity of social media platforms. Women of all shapes and sizes are ridiculed on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and other sites for not conforming to societal normalities. The 2016 study also assessed eating disorders in relation to age and body mass index (BMI) of participants (Mustapic p. 449). Age did not have much effect on the data, which is unsurprising due to the fact that all participants were close in age. What is more surprising, however, is that BMI also had little effect on the data. One would think that women with greater BMIs would

Being a woman of twenty, I know how much this can affect young girls. Body image influences are everywhere, social media, television, magazine and unfortunately for us, the current presidential election. Kim, Kim and Moon describe body image as “a plastic, constantly changing concept, continually modified by bodily growth, trauma, or decline, and significantly influenced by the ever-changing interaction with the social environment” (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). This is an extremely true statement for young girls in today’s society. With the shows on television today and social media such as Instagram and Facebook, everyone is forced to be at their peak physical fitness and look their best all the time. The only way someone can achieve a realistic body image is when their self perceived body weight is the same as their current body weight. An unrealistic body image is the result of their self perceived body weight being different than their current weight (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). What some people fail to realize is how deeply body image can affect a persons emotional being. Having an unrealistic body image can cause people to contract eating disorders, emotional issues, anxiety, low self esteem and finally, depression (Kim, Kim, Moon 2011). These feelings can cause suicidal thoughts and behaviors especially in young adults. Multiple studies have presented evidence that adolescents who commit suicide are more likely to have different body attitudes than those who do not, though it is not always the case(Kim, Kim, Moon

In her article “Never Just Pictures,” author Susan Bordo analyzes how deeply teenage girls of today are effectively told how to look by mass media. Girls of the 21st century are constantly struggling with their own confidence and overall happiness simply due to the celebrities they see on TV and

Researchers have discovered that “ongoing exposure to certain ideas can shape and distort our perceptions on reality.” (Mintz 2007) Because young girls are subjected to a constant display of beautiful people in the media, they have developed a negative body image of themselves. Those who have a negative body image perceive their body as being unattractive or even hideous compared to others, while those with a positive body image will see themselves as attractive, or will at least accept themselves and be comfortable in their own skin. During adolescence, negative body image is especially harmful because of the quick changes both physically and mentally occurring during puberty. Also, young girls are becoming more and more exposed to the media and the media keeps getting more and more provocative. Young girls are looking to women with unrealistic body shapes as role models. It’s hard to find, in today’s media, a “normal” looking

“Bulimia” Have you ever looked at the cover of a magazine and seen a beautiful woman that just looked so thin, and thought “How in the world did she get that way?” Well like me I’m sure millions of girls have wondered the same thing. Many of them becoming self-conscious, what with our society placing so much emphasis on being thin in order to be attractive. But how thin is too thin? Many girls in this country use some kind of diet or exercise plan but, others take it too far. Bulimia is exactly what taking it to far means.

According to recent study at Harvard, young girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer, or losing their parents(Photoshop). In recent years it has seemed that the media, and society in general are praising unrealistic beauty standards and claiming them to be ideal. Any person can take a quick look in a magazine, on the internet, or on television and see any number of pictures of people with extreme features that society claims make them superior. This has made an impact on today’s generation in such an extreme manner that “80% of 10-year-old girls have dieted and 90% of high school junior and senior women diet regularly.” (Photoshop). Girls and boys both, across the globe are striving have what they see as

Eating Disorder: Anorexia and Bulimia Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa is a serious issue in the world today. I feel that the issue of eating disorders does not gain enough attention from society especially because of its relevance to young females. These unhealthy eating habits are a social injustice issue because the various types of media that disperse an unrealistic image of female beauty. Society takes these images as a standard of how a woman should look. Women will go to the extreme to meet those qualifications to fit society’s female image.

Having this unnecessary amount of pressure to have perfect bodies can affect people negatively in a health-related way. One example that supports this is that girls can gain eating disorders. In an attempt to not gain any weight, young women can develop eating disorders called anorexia nervosa (restricting their food intake and becoming afraid of food in fear of gaining weight). Anorexia nervosa affects nearly 75% of females. Bulimia Nervosa, more commonly known as “binge and purge” is also seen in females (Moreau). This is important because the pressure at home and from society can cause girls to feel as though they need to change when in actuality they are perfect. Another example that shows that girls can develop health problems because

“Adolescent girls represent the intersection of two vulnerable groups, where the social consequences of body size are most apparent (Crosnoe).” Females see what they should look like based on ideals of thinness and sexiness, instead of on the girls’ behavior. Women learn through a process of socialization to base their self-worth on their appearance. Being unhappy with body image in teen girls causes them to undergo plastic surgery procedures such as breast implants and liposuction. “In the U.S., girls between the ages of 12 and 19 spent $8 billion dollars on cosmetics and beauty

Negative thoughts about one’s body can be found in girls as early as six years old. Even girls at this young of an age have reportedly wanted to look “sexy.” For many adolescent girls, they have always been exposed to the media. It is a part of their lifestyle. Ultimately, what they see through the media, is what they believe to be true. When they see the media promoting the perfect body, they truly believe that is how their body is supposed to look. Since young people spend more time on social media, they are more inclined to seeing images of the ideal body every single day. Through social media, teen girls get attention, or praised on their appearances through likes and comments. “27 percent feel stressed out about how they look when they post pictures. 22 percent feel badly about themselves when nobody comments on or “likes” the photos they post” (Naylor). The worst possible outcome due to body image dissatisfaction in adolescent girls is for one to develop an eating disorder. Anorexia is an eating disorder in which one will starve themselves in order to lose weight, or not gain any. Bulimia, is an eating disorder where one will binge eat, and then purge everything they have ate. One more eating disorder that many people don’t recognize as one, because honestly it doesn’t make sense is binge eating in which one will eat large amounts of food and won’t be able to stop themselves. All of which can be very life threatening. “In the United States, the discrepancy between the extraordinarily thin body type promoted in the media and the reality of average women's bodies has been implicated in the steady rise of eating disorders, especially among adolescents. Experts believe that today, more than ten million women and girls suffer from anorexia, bulimia, or related illnesses, with the onset of such problems occurring in patients of younger and younger ages” (Balarro and Wagner). Since the body mass

70% of girls don’t feel good enough; that the bar is set too high for them to reach. Girls’ self esteem plummets at around age 12 and usually doesn’t recover until their 20s because media exposure tells them who to be. Many girls believe that happiness is a size and to be happy or feel good about themselves, they will do anything like plastic surgery, or even develop eating disorders. Although many factors impact how a girl perceives herself, such as genetics, the media, peers, the impact of the world can really push them over the edge and could lead to depression. Although youth and being skinny is glamorized, women should love and support their natural body types instead of changing their bodies through makeup and plastic surgery, making

Bulimia and anorexia can be an issue that many teen girls go through today. Bulimia and anorexia are similar sicknesses except bulimia is when you eat large amounts of food then you throw it up, and anorexia is when you eat small portions of food and rarely eat at all. These are all caused because these teen girls want to have that beauty ideal. Their eating behavior starts to change dramatically wanting to get thin, and lose weight. In this case when these teen girls suffer from anorexia they tend to think that they feel fat or they hate their body when in reality their body isn’t healthy when they get to that point of having anorexia or bulimia. This can be dangerous to their body they’re thinking that vomiting or eating small portions

When people are surrounded by images of young celebrities who are painfully thin-or very slender with large breasts- girls growing up in todays world feel the pressure of having to meet the standards. While trying hard to look just like their famous idols, a lot of those people will fall prey to an eating disorder, and some will even abuse drugs that will help them lose weight. Also it may lead to self-doubt, depression, extreme dieting and even at the worst an eating disorder. Everywhere you go there is something around them that is advertising weight loss such as TV ads, weightloss ads, shakes, diet pills, weight loss apps are popping up like crazy. Statistics stats that 5 million or more girls and women in America are estimated to suffer from anorexia and other eating disorders. Anorexia affects up to 3.7 percent of the female population at some point in their life. Just because they want to look like all the famous models. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 11,326 girls aged 18 and under got breast implants last year-which tripled the number from 2010. Most board-certified plastic surgeons say they usually won’t preform implant surgery on girls under 18 unless one breast is smaller then the other. However, a lot of girls want this surgery as a graduation gift. Shows just how much young women will do to be perfect in society eyes.

We are bombarded by ads that give us unrealistic expectations, and expectations that have gotten exceedingly smaller over the years. The influence of the images and the focus of what we should look like has been extremely damaging on the way in which women view themselves. As the research has revealed the overall media has most definitely taken part in having young girls acquire eating disorders. As a society we need to focus on ways to counter-act the negative distresses that the media is having on the way we view our bodies. This will hopefully in-turn help girls have more confidence and self-love towards