Media's Influence On Eating Disorders

In our society, we tell little girls to love and to be true to oneself. As they grow up, this message begins to disappear because our culture contradicts this idea. As girls enter the world, they are already confined with how the media set unrealistic standards for the female population. This leads girls to harm their own body, including eating disorders such as bulimia, and anorexia. The most prominent cause of these acts is advertisements. Advertisements are everywhere and they have the power to promote, sell, encourage, and give unrealistic ideals of the common people. Advertisements and media images have a negative effect on the way women view their body image which leads to self-harm.

     Plato once said, "We behold beauty in the eye of the mind...." What some people consider beauty others may not. From the actresses that are shown on television, movies, models that are in magazines, and the pop stars that create hip and modern music videos, one could be under the impression that to be beautiful you must thin. Actresses such as Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Michelle Gheller, Clarista Flockheart, Courtney Cox and Debra Messing all have staring roles in their own television shows and are all extremely thin. The audiences of these shows being mostly women and adolescent girls, what kind of message about body image are they sending out?

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.

Eating disorders have become a major problem throughout the world, specifically in the United States. The key factor that has an influence on eating disorders is the media. Including people of all ages and genders, up to twenty-four million people suffer from an eating disorder in the United States (ANAD np). This is a huge problem in the world today but what makes it so much worse is the fact that it can be prevented and it is in our control to change it. Young adults look to these celebrities, which are often their role models, and try to look just like them. What they fail to remember is the fact that celebrities have a lot of money, money that can afford nutritionists and personal trainers. They also fail to remember the extensive measures the celebrities may have to go through to look the way they do. An example of extensive measures can be considered plastic surgery. Ultimately, this creates a false goal that is almost unattainable for the “average” or “regular” person. Overall, the media has overtaken a huge impact on what the “ideal” body image has become today. Eating disorders are still on the rise and it is proven that an eating disorder such as anorexia affects up to 5 percent of women from ages 15-30 years old ("Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders | National Eating Disorders Association np"). This may not seem that significant but it is also not considering other eating disorders such as bulimia. All in all, eating disorders

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “the body type portrayed in advertising as the ideals is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.” (“ANAD”) Body image has been a controversial theme because of the influence of the media. It is a widely known fact that eating disorder cases are on the rise. The concept of body image is a subjective matter. The common phrase, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,” holds true meaning in this sense. One’s view and value of their body is self-imposed. Falling into the destructive eating disorders reveals much about a person’s psychological and emotional state. Examining the mental, physical, and emotional conditions behind recognized eating

Media has greatly evolved since starting, but has bad evolved with it? Print media, digital media, and now social media surround everybody today. Media surround us when we go to the store and see magazines, when we sit and home and watch TV, and especially when we go online. Over time, media has created its own idea of beauty. Medias influence on body image can’t be overlooked. Media and eating disorders have a cause and effect relationship. In Helens article, “Eating Disorders: A growing problem on college campuses”, she expresses that, “In today’s media-saturated world, young women are bombarded with one message: be thin” (Helen, 2014, Paragraph 9). Today media shows that to beautiful you have to be an unhealthy weight. If media doesn’t change its view of beautiful, then the rate of eating disorders triggered by media will go up. We need to figure out a way to help now.

Everytime a person looks in the mirror they are confronted with a reflection of the person.To a stranger this reflection would mean nothing but to the person who is being reflected it means everything, Society in general influences the way people see and think about their bodies and one of the biggest influencers is pop culture. Pop culture is the glue that bings society together and promotes certain things and certain lifestyles. Because of this it is often the scape goat for unhealthy and sometimes even dangerout lifestyles. But is it the only cause? Pop culture impacts eating disorders and childhood obesity but it is not the cause of either body issue.

The media group that retouches images skews the “normal” body image of people through many of its outlets, including models in advertising and magazines, and actors in TV and movie productions. “The average model portrayed in the media is approximately 5’11” and 120 pounds. By contrast, the average American woman is 5’4” and 140 pounds” (Holmstrom, 2004). This statistic shows how the media manipulates consumers into believing that because they are not what the average model looks like, they are not living up to a certain standard which implies that they need to look like that to be beautiful. Another research fact that shows a similar concept is that, “In the United States, 94% of female characters in television programs are thinner than the average American woman, with whom the media frequently associate happiness, desirability, and success in life” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This association of female thinness and happiness, desirability and success makes consumers believe they must achieve this unrealistic thinness to achieve more ultimate goals and fulfillment in life. “The media also explicitly instruct how to attain thin bodies by dieting, exercising, and body-contouring surgery, encouraging female consumers to believe that they can and should be thin” (Yamamiya et al., 2005). This idealization of thinness in the media is seen so much, and is extremely harmful to women’s self confidence and is often associated with body image dissatisfaction, which can be a precursor to social anxiety, depression, eating disturbances, and poor self-esteem (Yamamiya et al.,

In this essay I will discuss how far sociologists would agree that the media causes eating disorders in women. Eating disorders refer to a group of conditions characterized by abnormal eating habits that may involve either insufficient or excessive food intake to the damage of an individual's physical and emotional health. Eating disorders include: bulimia, anorexia and obesity.

An article found on psychcentral.com believes that the media doesn’t lead to teenagers having eating disorders. The article states that, “In many ways, the media is to blame for the state of our body image. For our desire to diet. For a view that thinness leads to happiness for young girls - teenagers. For the idea that we must wait until we lose weight to do anything… But the media isn’t to blame for eating disorders” (Tartakovsky). The article then goes on the explain that most women and girls do not have eating disorders and that the media isn’t to blame for those children that do have an eating disorder. I think that it is a valid point that is made when the article states, “Although I think our cultural ideas and beauty obsessions and

The editing of images is not good for society it is prevalent because laws do not recognize the dangers of image editing. In the hands of the media, images can be seen by everyone including kids. A lot of images used in media can make kids believe in an unrealistic standard. The images used by the media can also be used to spread rumors that are not true.

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.

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).