Media's Effect On Eating Disorders

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.

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).

As of the year 2013, an estimated 805 million people worldwide suffer from Hunger. This number represents a group of people who suffer from food insecurity. This means they have inadequate access to food and don’t know when their next meal will be. This being said, an estimated 70 million people worldwide suffer from some sort of eating disorders as of 2015 with 30 million being made up of Americans. Eating Disorders can be defined as any eating habit that negatively affects ones overall health. Media has had a large impact on how both males and females see their bodies.

The aim of this literature review is to describe the main causes of eating disorders among teenagers aged 12 to 18 years old in high schools globally, and to also explain to what extend do some of these causes influence eating disoders. Recent studies have indicated a major increase in the eating disorder habits and body dissatisfaction in adolescence over the past few decades. This crisis seems most prevalent in females`` than males with 20 percent high school females exhibiting poor eating habits and about 60 percent undergone weight loss attempt (Pritchard and Wilson, 2005). Most affected youngsters endeavor various solutions to cope with this dilemma and in most cases, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide are the worst

The opposing side to this topic says that media does not play a role in anorexia because of environmental factors, exercising, and dieting. People that support this side like Adam Cresswell and Sarrah Le Marquand state that anorexia is not caused by society or the media world. Cresswell states “Eating disorders are a product of epigenetics is good news for parents and carers, who often “wring their hands, asking: ‘what did I do wrong’””(Cresswell 1). Cresswell is wrong by this fact in the actual fact that if a young teen is suffering from anorexia, then the parents should be worried about their child and get that child help. No child or adult should have to suffer from such disease. Cresswell also states “These can be early-life pressures, stress, and ultimately dieting,” he says. “For some people, dieting can be really dangerous behavior. The reduction in certain nutrients can alter gene expression “” (Cresswell 1-2). Cresswell is right about how dangerous dieting can be, because it is, but television advertises all of these new diet methods and how to exceed these plans, internet sites give lists of different dieting options, and these are examples of how media pushes some people that live in this

An eating disorder is an illness that involves an unhealthy feeling about the food we eat. “Eating disorders affect 5-10 millions Americans and 70 million individuals worldwide” (www.eatingdisorderinfo.org 1). They also affect many people from women, men, children, from all ages and different races. People who have eating disorders usually see themselves as being fat when they really aren’t. This usually deals with women or teenage girls mostly. They watch television, movies, read articles in magazines, and see pictures of the celebrities whom they want to be like because they have the “ideal body” that everyone wants and craves for. The media makes us all think we need those types of bodies to be happy with ourselves, be more successful

Symbolic Interactionism is a theory focusing on the approach that has evolved from social behaviorism and that stresses the symbolic nature of human interaction (p. 46). In society, there are norms and expectations that people are expected to follow and live by and trying to achieve this ideal self-image, people sometime behave in a self-destructing behavior. Because the media creates an image that we are suppose to fit, people will go to the extreme measures to meet this look even if it involves developing an eating disorder (DeGroat).

The media plays a very important part in our lives, we see ads that help us know what we want to buy and we get entertainment from television or movies. While the media has many benefits, it also has a very consequential downside. The media puts too much pressure on teenage girls to have perfect bodies by showing them unrealistic examples causing eating disorders.

JADE stands for Joint Advocates for Disordered Eating. Today during class, we had the opportunity to discuss eating disorders and the psychological effects it has on the body. We were asked to describe our own perception of how the media influences the way we look or feel about our body. Furthermore, individuality is not properly expressed in the media; rather this perfect body image is imbedded into our heads.

When it comes to disturbances in a person’s diet or food intake where the person is afraid of eating and becoming overweight, it is hard not to feel spiteful towards the media (Spettigue & Henderson, 2004). Many researches have tried to figure out who are the individuals at risk towards the media’s messages. Eating disorders are psychological disorders that are distinguished by abnormal or disturbed eating habits. The most common types of eating disorders are anorexic nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating. Victims of such disorders are usually teenagers who are unhappy with their own body shapes or sizes, especially in females. With the constant evolution of technology, media now plays a huge role in advertising and it seems to be playing a huge role in placing importance on how ideal body shapes should be like.

Many people can relate to media being the blame for eating disorders because they’ve either dealt with this or know someone who has had an eating disorder due to what the media says you should look like.

In the recent past, eating disorders have become prevalent in the society especially among teenagers and young adults.The rate of development of new cases of eating disorders has been increasing since 1950’s. Many have deemed the media responsible for the upsurge in cases. According to the Oxford dictionary, media is defined as ‘communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, information are disseminated’.It is very important to discern eating disorders from disordered eating.Disordered eating involves an abnormal relationship with food; while, an eating disorder is a psychiatric illness that has more to do with a complex set of emotional and psychological issues, than with food and nutrition.Eating disorders are

The media is great at hiding the truth. There is no one on TV who shows their true beauty. Television cakes the make up on, actors wear wigs or extensions, fake eyelashes, fake teeth, airbrushed abs, and the perfect angles are picked to record. Teenagers spend hours staring at the television envisioning their future. As they stare at the Victoria secret models walking the run way or watching keeping up with the Kardashians, they are aspiring to become them. But they do not realize all the editing that occurred before airing it on television.

It is funny how so many girls and women today are led to believe that the only way to feel attractive and be beautiful is to have their bodies consist of nothing but skin and bones. Women are dieting more today then they have ever been before. They are striving for an unattainable body figure that is portrayed by the media as being the ideal standard for today's women. It gets worse. Not only are women dieting unlike ever before, but they will ruthlessly harm their bodies in order to achieve these inaccessible standards. This ruthless harm that haunts so many women today just so happens to be what we call eating disorders. Anorexia and bulimia are the primary diseases that go in the category of eating

According to the National Eating Disorder Association the media has a major influence on what a woman’s body should look like. Every print and television advertisement suggests that the ideal body is extremely thin. However, most women cannot achieve having a super-thin body that the media favors. The resulting failure leads to negative feelings about one’s self and can begin a downward spiral toward an eating disorder (National Eating Disorders Association).