Eating disorders and the Media
...at a beautiful person is defined as, This leads many impressionable teens, preteens, and young women to distorted body images, and looking for a fix for their flaws. The website speaks of a 50 year study that studied the incidents of anorexia nervosa, and found that the occurrence of anorexia nervosa among 10-19 year old girls paralleled the change of fashion and its idealized body image. The thin ideal advanced during the times when the rates of anorexia nervosa were highest. Looking at the television and magazines one can easily notice all of the ads and diet commercials claiming to have to newest and hottest diet. The advertised ideal weight keeps getting progressively thinner. It has stabilized at 13%-19% below the physically expected weight. This weight is unachievable for most and can lead to feelings of lower self worth, depression, and helplessness. Since the media is view as the “norm” or “desired” it makes sense that those who can not look like the “norm” or what is thought to be “beautiful” would only feel unaccepted by society, and ugly; which leads to negative views of self. According to the website; even though 61% of girls and 53% of boys say that personalities on television are thinner then women in real life; 7 out of 10 girls want to look like a person on T.V and 31% said they’ve altered their appearance to look like someone on television. Though it is rarely thought that men worry about the way they look, its hard for them to ignore when everywhere they look they are swamped by posters of men with bulging biceps, and chiseled abs. Even the once 1980 cartoon characters that are now coming back seem to have bulked up over the past 20 years. Men are facing increased pressure to meet the standard of the muscular defined body that is promoted in film and television, as well as by the fitness industry. Because of the increasing amounts of the objectifying of men in advertisements men are acquiring problems usually associated with women; eating disorders, body obsessions, and low physical self-esteem. It is very unfortunate that so many young women and men are starving their bodies...