Media and Eating Disorders

Anorexia is an eating disorder in which the patient has extremely low body weight, achieved by starvation. An anorexic has a distorted image on how they view their own bodies. They have an obsessive fear of weight gain. The main populations who have this disease are female adolescents to middle aged women.

Anorexia can be linked to stress, anxiety, impulse control, and mood.

Societal and cultural studies have highlighted the role of cultural factors, such as the promotion of thinness as the ideal female form in Western industrialized nations, particularly through the media. The media and fashion world stress all the time the glamorous image of being thin. The world idolizes thin and detests fat.

Many cultural forces in our society have a profound effect on girls and young women. Large numbers of young girls are constantly influences by the ubiquitous media messages to be thin. These influences are persuasive in western societies and have spread to other developed countries as well. Ten million Americans suffer from eating disorders.

Among other factors that help set the stage for anorexia nervosa in young girls, cultural values that favor thinness have perhaps the greatest impact in our society. These values are ubiquitous in magazines and on television, the fashion industry of ultra-slim models, and most teen idols are thin too. Young students are more likely to be influenced by media advertisement and by their peers rather than well-intentioned adults.

50% of anorexics that don't get treatment die within 10 years. Seventy million people worldwide suffer from eating disorders.

In a world that communicates through every click of the remote and turn of the magazine, the body is constantly being critiqued. One example is Jessica Simpson when an unflattering photo was issued in magazines and talked about every where on celebrity news channels and websites, people were talking and saying she had gained weight, and they never had even met her before, but were so obsessed with this photo. Another person whose weight has been a hot topic recently is Kelly Clarkson, she has been called fat and criticized countless times for her recent weight gain. This is so sad that instead on focusing on her great singing voice, the attention was turned to her outward appearance.

It's no secret that in the fashion world and modeling world appearance is absolutely everything, that is what this industry is built upon, a market to beautify your appearance. There are serious problems with having healthy body and being happy with it. Recently in the news, there were a couple stories about two Ralph Lauren models, one was turned away because they said she wasn't skinny enough, and she was five foot eleven and 126 pounds, a size two. Another model with the almost exact same size (five