Summary Of ' Wasted By Marya Hornbacher Essay

The author of this article begins her analysis of the rise in eating disorders by acknowledging America’s obsession with being the ideal weight. From an extremely young age, American children are being taught that women in movies and on the covers of magazines possess the ideal figure. The author states “Children are being taught…being fat is the worst thing one can be” (Bordo 1). This is disturbing to say the least. There many attributes worse than being overweight: dishonest, cruel, and murderous to name a few. Bordo also uses an example in the first paragraph of her essay that is appalling. Alicia Silverstone, the lead role in Clueless, was completely bombarded with insults about her weight, though she had only gained a few pounds since her starring role. The advertisers did

Food. It is essential for survival. Without it, people die. However, oddly enough, many struggle to live without it to accomplish the standards that our culture has created for us. We are taught that being thin is perfection and will lead to a happier life. However, lurking are the health risks that one pays for obtaining the “perfect body”. Still, along with a distorted body image, others struggle with keeping weight down and fall into the diet fads that the world parades. From movies, magazines, and television, the media also sends us messages that being fat is bad and unhealthy while being thin and beautiful is acceptable. The impact of such influences has increased eating disorders in America. These disorders do not

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).

Once upon a time, women were celebrated for their curves. Weight was a symbol of wealth and fertility in a woman. During this time, women were subjugated to being a housewife and nothing more. As time and society progressed, a woman’s prison became her body and no longer her home. Women had the freedom to vote, work, play, but could no longer be fat. This new beauty standard of thinness affects women in many ways. In “Add Cake, Subtract Self Esteem” written by Caroline Knapp, she describes her own personal experience on how this impossible standard affects women’s eating which leads to eating disorders and an unhealthy relationship with food. In “The Beauty Myth” written by Naomi Wolf, she describes the mental effects on women from a

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

In other words, the more an individual is exposed to certain images – even alarmingly unhealthy ones – the more desensitized one becomes; in fact, what may have once been considered “ugly” may actually become desirable, if widely accepted and glamorized by the fashion industry. Furthermore, in the title of Bordo’s article, “Never Just Pictures,” we are given to understand that this prevailing cultural sickness is merely a “symptom” of more systemic issues. For example, Bordo touches on “deep anxieties” stemming from “Western philosophy and religion” which have been linked to eating disorders in America today; in fact, for those who are unfamiliar with her book, Unbearable Weight, a greater elaboration on this aspect would have been desirable. She also reveals other subtle messages underlying fashionable face-value images, many of which create powerful currents surrounding the development of eating disorders. According to Bordo, the endless barrage of images (regarding what the fashion industry deems perfection in appearance) serves to strongly communicate “fantasized solutions” to our challenges in life. It is a false narrative which goes something like this: “achieving the body- and beauty-ideal will magically make everything in my life right with the world; I’ll be beautiful, popular, strong, admired, in control, etc . . . .” Bordo’s point is that these types of fantasies may become potently motivational to the individual striving for “the cultural ideal” through starvation and other extreme

The article Never Just Pictures, written by Susan Bordo, is about how the media’s usage of images of beautiful people with no body fat or imperfections cause the youth to develop eating disorders, and feel insecure about their own image. Susan begins by telling us about how the media targeted the nineteen year old star of Clueless, Alicia Silverstone, when she attended an award show a little bit heavier then the public was used to. She says that we are led to believe that “fat is the devil” and that having any excess fat is bad. She claims commercials and ads staring people with ideal bodies embed the idea that being fat is bad in our minds. One way she proves this is she uses a study that asked ten and eleven

Demi Lovato once said, “I’m not going to sacrifice my mental health to have the perfect body.” However, today we find that many individuals are doing the completely opposite. In Susan Bordo’s, “Globalization of Eating Disorders” essay, they fall into the media trap, the self-image trap, where they are concerned of what people may think about them. Americans nowadays have pageants, modeling, and media to thank for this absurd notion. Fit women, along with strong men give this motivation to others to want to be like them. Most people should be comfortable with their own bodies. Americans are mesmerized with media and enthralled by one’s body image, and ,as a result, face ramifications like eating disorders and anorexia.

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

Hundreds of girls everyday begin some form of eating disorder. Dieting to purging are all dangerous, especially for adolescent girls. Many forms of media promote skinny, thin, and extra thin, not allowing girls to think about their own body shape and appearance positively, “Field et al. (1999) studied 6,928 girls aged 9 to 14 years and found that attempting to emulate the appearance of females on television, in movies, and in magazines was predictive of beginning purging behavior at least on a monthly basis and that the risk for this behavior increased per category increase in frequency of trying to look like females in the media” (Lawrie, Sullivan and Davies 356). Television, movies, advertisements, and magazine all promote thinness without mercy. Every magazine headline advertises some form of calorie burner workout or dieting pill right in grocery store isles, “Restricting calories and taking diet pills were associated with reading beauty and fashion magazines in female high school students 15 to 18 years of age” (Lawrie, Sullivan and Davies 356)

“To be happy and successful, you must be thin,” is a message women are given at a very young age (Society and Eating Disorders). In fact, eating disorders are still continuously growing because of the value society places on being thin. There are many influences in society that pressures females to strive for the “ideal” figure. According to Sheldon’s research on, “Pressure to be Perfect: Influences on College Students’ Body Esteem,” the ideal figure of an average female portrayed in the media is 5’11” and 120 pounds. In reality, the average American woman weighs 140 pounds at 5’4”. The societal pressures come from television shows, diet commercials, social media, peers, magazines and models. However, most females do not take into account of the beauty photo-shop and airbrushing. This ongoing issue is to always be a concern because of the increase in eating disorders.

Our culture says, “Thin is beautiful. Thin is smart. Thin is in (in style). Be thin.” Thousands of impressionable (will believe in anything) young people – mostly young women – decide to do just that. They diet and exercise to get this thin body. Generally, they do not become too thin, but not always. Usually, the brightest and most agreeable children are the ones who decide not just to be thin, but to be the best at being thin. This can become an obsession (the only thing they think about), a disease known as “Anorexia Nervosa.”

According to Mary Pipher, PhD, “In a city of strangers, appearance is the only dimension available for the rapid assessment of others. Thus it becomes incredibly important in defining value” (216). “Beauty is a defining characteristic for American women” (Pipher 216). She later goes on to say that, “When unnatural thinness became attractive, girls did unnatural things to be thin” (217). One of the most common unnatural things girls did to be thin were develop two popular eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia. “A person may have anorexia nervosa when she diets to the point of weighing only 85 percent of ideal weight” (Kirby 68). “Unlike the anorexic, who is excessively thin, the bulimic is usually

Ultra-thinness then becomes their preferred state of health and they are driven to lose weight. This leads to self harming behaviors and a declining academic performance (“Dishonest” 1). Yet satisfaction is still unfounded after one has succumbed to an eating disorder. The magazines construct the belief in them that anorexia revolves around “control, discipline, abstinence, transcendence, and denial” while depicting bulimia as “out-of-control, undisciplined, greedy, and indulgent” rather than as illnesses and present dangers that they are (Whitehead and Kurz 347). 1 out of every 100 adolescent girls develop anorexia (“Dishonest” 1). Along with bulimia, it is the most prevalent disease attributed to the use of heavily edited images in teen magazines (Whitehead and Kurz 350+). Pathogenic dieting was also greatly attributed to it. Participants in a study by Steven R. Thomsen, Michelle M. Weber, and Lora Beth Brown responded that 52.2% restricted calories to 1200 or less a day (Thomsen et al 2). Fifty-one percent reported that they skipped two meals a day (Thomsen et al

Because of this, modern society defines beauty by how aesthetically pleasing one is. Families, peers, schooling and work environments all reiterate the idea that only the beautiful and thin are, happy, loved and successful (Hesse 80). Thus, children are being raised to be body conscious not just health-conscious. The obesity epidemic in western countries due to sedentary lifestyles and easy access to unhealthy food is putting more pressure on younger generations to be obsessive over what they’re eating and reaching the physical standard in society rather than being fit and healthy. This then leads to obsessive measures to maintain low body weights such as starvation or purging food before it digests fully. No matter how determined people may be, some are physically incapable of reaching society’s ideal body types and perceive their body as less than satisfactory. Distorted body images, then contribute to the aggravation of the severe measures to maintain low body weights, and the development of eating disorders.