The Media and How it is Killing America’s Future Essay

Teenagers at risk for eating disorders more than double to 29 percent. The number of high school girls

Many people are unaware of the background of eating disorders. Women are more likely than men to develop an eating disorder and they usually develop in childhood before the age of 20 (Ross-Flanigan 1). Women as well as men can develop an eating disorder; it is just more likely for a woman to develop one. Eating disorders are usually developed in adolescent or childhood years when a person is influenced the most. Also “Eating disorders are psychological conditions that involve overeating, voluntary starvation, or both. Anorexia nervosa, anorexic bulimia, and binge eating are the most well-known types of eating disorders” (Ross-Flanigan 1). Many people assume that an eating disorder is when a person staves themselves; they do not realize that it can involve overeating as well. Some eating disorders also involve purging, but not all. People with an eating disorder fear gaining weight even when they are severely underweight. They do not lack an appetite (Ross-Flanigan 1). These people are

Real beauty is found in a person's heart, not in their appearance, but the media rarely portrays this though. Most magazines and television shows feature only excessively thin people. Unfortunately, this causes teenagers whose bodies don't match those same proportions to look at their selves with hatred. Every lump and bulge becomes despised, and soon, they have a full-blown eating disorder.

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.

According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), as many as 60 percent of children between ages 6 and 12 worry about weight gain, and half American teens think they’re overweight. (Turner, 2014) Girls want to lose huge amounts of weight because they think they will feel prettier when all there doing is damaging the inside of their body. Among adolescent girls, 1% to 3% have bulimia and 1% have anorexia. Only 5% to 15% of all people with anorexia or bulimia are male. (Harris, 2004) Most young females and males go through some type of eating disorder. A study in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that more than half a million teens have an eating disorder. (Turner, 2014)

Eleven million women in the United States suffer from eating disorders- either self-induced semi-starvation (anorexia nervosa) or a cycle of bingeing and purging with laxatives, self-induced vomiting, or excessive exercise (bulimia nervosa) (Dunn, 1992). Many eating disorder specialists agree that chronic dieting is a direct consequence of the social pressure on American females to achieve a nearly impossible thinness. The media has been denounced for upholding and perhaps even creating the emaciated standard of beauty by which females are taught from childhood to judge the worth of their own bodies (Stephens & Hill, 1994). To explore the broader context of this controversial issue, this paper draws upon several aspects on how the media

“ Over fifty percent of 9 and 10 year-old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet(3), even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that only 18 percent of adolescents are really overweight. About 80 percent of girls in this age group say that they have dieted in an attempt to lose weight.”--Mirror Mirror Eating Disorder Help. Unrealistic body images on social media can lead to eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression in adolescents.

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

A novel on the causes of eating disorders says, “Typically, media images often portray unrealistic images of both males and females. Those individuals portrayed often represent a statistical minority or are engaged in extraordinary (and potentially harmful) behaviors to achieve this ideal body type” (Selby). Pictures of models and celebrities observed in the media show practically unachievable physiques, but the world seems to define beauty and health based off their thin statures. On the contrary, these physiques are actually rather unhealthy. The UK National Centre For Eating Disorders says, “The ideal body size epitomized by ‘Gerri Halliwell’ ‘Posh Spice’ or ‘Ally Mcbeal’ is unrealistically thin, their body mass index (BMI) is on the borders of what a clinician would regard as anorexic” (Jade). When the people and bodies teens are idealizing are at the level of anorexia, it is no doubt that they will resort to extreme methods to achieve what is an extremely thin, abnormal size. Studies show that exposure to these body standards may lead to eating disorders. Pediatrics and Child Health says, “Body image was significantly more negative after viewing thin media images than after viewing images of either average size models, plus size models, or inanimate objects. This effect was found to be stronger in woman younger than 19 years of age” (Morris). After

Eating disorders may not seem like it’s that big of a deal. In America, we hear about a lot about people who contract illnesses such as cancer, but eating disorders isn’t talked about much. Over thirty million people suffer from these mental illnesses, such as anorexia or bulimia. Even though these disorders have the highest life span of any mental illness, they can lead to death due to organ failure, heart failure, starvation, or even go as far as committing suicide. Things such as peer pressure, sports, body image, and low-self esteem can drive teenagers towards eating disorders.

Poet Allen Ginsberg once said that “whoever controls the media-the images-controls the culture”, and nothing could be truer than this. Media plays a larger role in society within this generation more than many of us are aware of. It can easily impact people’s lives through aspects such as sports, fashion, movies or hobbies, but unfortunately, one of these impacts is how we view our body. Media constantly posts images and messages promoting a nearly unachievable and unrealistic image of what beauty looks like and it almost always has negative fallout when we struggle to meet this. This is known as an eating disorder. An eating disorder is a psychological sickness that results in dangerous eating habits and both short and long term affects on the body. People with eating disorders generally have a negative perception of their self will try to control their weight through unnecessary dieting, exercising or purging. But how does this illness begin? Social media sites, advertising, celebrities and other forms of media through society are all social pressures that are influencing people to be “perfect” and causing this expanding matter.

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

To begin with, we need to know about the different types of eating disorders and why people develop them in order to find a solution. Anorexia is a type of eating disorder that involves people refusing to eat or eating extremely tiny amounts of food and exercise vigorously. Researchers hypothesize that anorexia may be caused by biological, psychological, and social factors (Ross-Flanigan 1329). One possible cause is that the parents of the people that develop anorexia are too overprotective and have set impractically high expectations from them (Ross-Flanigan 1329). A reason why this may cause people to develop an eating disorder, is that they are under such immense pressure to fulfill their parents’ ideals. Because of this pressure that they feel, they could start to think that not eating is

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

One of the basics things people are taught growing up is that eating gives you the energy you need for the day. Growing a little older and a person becomes aware that eating too much causes you to grow bigger (or fatter). Then if a person wants to become thinner, the most logical place to start would be the diet. A study conducted by Duke University showed that 40% of all nine and ten year old girls have already been on a diet ("Self Image/Media Influences"). Surveys by the Centers for Disease Control in 2004 reported that in adolescents approximately ages fourteen through eighteen, more than 59% were trying to lose weight and that 18% of girls had gone without food for twenty-four hours (“Body Image”). Children at their pinnacle of growth development are destroying their bodies to achieve a ridiculous beauty standard. And it is not just children who fall for this. Over 90% of women surveyed at a college campus admitted to “attempting to control their weight through dieting” while 22% of those admitted to “dieting often or always” ("Eating Disorder Statistics").