Media Influence on Eating Disorders.
People are all too aware of the need for a normal healthy body, to maintain a good weight to height ratio, and avoid being over weight or becoming obese. But the mass media seem to be obsessed with dictating to us that we should all have slim, slender bodies.
Influence by the media has resulted in the beliefs of an ideal body image, which realistically is often undesirable, even it was possible for everyone to achieve such an image.
The influence has reached such a degree that many people, especially young teenage girls, have developed eating disorders as a direct result of trying to achieve this ideal body image. Deliberate and unnatural weight loss has lead many people to suffer both physical and psychological upsets as a result of such media influence, in their efforts to attain the right appearance of ‘skinniness’
The ideal body image as seen by the media, is continually being emphasized in newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV. The internet is full of slim and slender models, and the young who are consistently browsing the web pages become heavily influenced.
Why dos the media focus on slimness and slender body shape. The TV adverts for toothpaste, hair shampoos and most other products are full of skinny models. The only time one sees a slightly overweight model is when a weight reducing product is being promoted.
While many of the slender models thrown at us by the media undoubtedly have healthy slim bodies often achieved by good exercise and dieting. Equally there are many who obviously suffer from eating disorders of some kind. The danger being of course that young people influenced into achieving similar ideal bodies, will suffer the same kind of eating disorders with all of their ramifications.
Some Typical Eating Disorders.
- Anorexia. This condition shows as an abnormal fear of gaining body weight. A considerable number of teenage girls having been influenced by the media into having an ideal body shape will often go to extreme lengths to achieve this. Often they will avoid food intake, or go on crash diets which results in anorexia.
- Bulimia Nervosa. Consists of eating large quantities of food, then feeling guilty at such self indulgence, and then purging the food, by self induced vomiting, followed by periods of fasting.
- Compulsive Overeating. In this eating disorder the person literally eats as much as possible and cannot exercise any control over food intake. They have no interest in self purging, and will happily gorge food even when not hungry. The result of course is obesity.
The most common eating disorder among the young, especially females, brought about by media influence and their continual exhortations about slim, slender, ideal body shapes is undoubtedly the psychological disorder known as anorexia.
Written by admin on June 6, 2011 under Media Influence.
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