FREE ESSAY ON MEDIA AND EATING DISORDERS

MEDIA AND EATING DISORDERS

Eating Disorders and the Media's Role.
It is not surprising that eating disorders are on the increase due to the value society
places on being thin. In modern Western culture, women are given the message at a very
young age that in order to be happy and successful, they must be thin. Every time you
walk into a store you are surrounded by the images of emaciated models that appear on the
front cover of fashion magazines. Women are constantly bombarded with advertisements
catering to what is considered desirable. Thousands of women and girls are starving
themselves this very minute trying to attain what the fashion industry considers to be
the ideal waif-like figure. During this paper I will mainly be discussing the effects on
females, though males are afflicted with eating disorders, the causes are different than
those in the opposite sex. The average model weighs 23% less than the average woman.
Maintaining a weight that is 15% below your expected body weight fits the criteria for
anorexia, so most models, according to medical standards, fit into the category of being
anorexic (Brumberg 205). Women must realize that society's ideal body image may in fact
be achievable, but at a detrimental price to one's body. The photos we see in magazines
are not a clear image of reality. Adolescents and women striving to attain society's
unattainable ideal more often than not, increase their feelings of inadequacy.
In contemporary society young women easily cling to dieting precisely because it is
widely practiced and an admired form of cultural expression. In the twentieth century,
the body—not the face—became the focus of female beauty. As a consequence of
this media portrayal of beauty, dieting has moved from the periphery to the center of
women's lives and culture. Dieting has manifested in two noticeable and important ways
that have consequences for eating disorders. First, upon comparing physical appearances
throughout the twentieth century, the female body size has become significantly slimmer.
According to Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of "Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia
Nervosa," (1988) society 
experienced a "brief flirtation with full-breasted, curvaceous female figures during
1950s, our collective taste returned to an ideal of extreme thinness and an androgynous,
if not childlike, figure." Our cultural tolerance for body fat has diminished over the
years, causing an infiltration of these feelings to adolescents and young women, the
group most afflicted with eating disorders. Second, society projects an image that being
thin is tied to attractiveness, popularity with the opposite sex, and self
esteem—all primary ingredients in adolescent culture. Nearly 50% of all women are
on a diet at any given time (Bordo 140). The fact that women have such strong concerns
about attractiveness is compelling evidence for the power of dieting message. Given
western culture's longstanding admiration of thinness, it is no wonder that so many young
women resort to dieting and that eating disorders have become part of the psychopathology
of females.
Diet commercials are constantly appearing on our television screens telling us that once
we lose the weight, we will be happy, content, and successful. You stand in the check out
line at the grocery store surrounded by magazines claiming to have the newest and best
diet. Each month another new diet appears claiming to be the diet to end all diets.
Whatever happened to last month's diets that claimed the same thing? Dieting has become
an obsession in modern western culture. Many of the diets on the market right now are
unhealthy. They deprive you of the proper nutrition your body needs to survive and can
lead to health problems.
The diet and fashion industries are not totally to blame for society's obsession with
thinness. We are the ones keeping them in business. We buy into the ideal body image. We
allow ourselves to believe the lies being thrown at us constantly. We buy their
magazines, diet books and products, hoping that this time they will work. We are 
throwing away our hard earned money trying to live up to the standards that society has
set for us. Be prepared to spend lots of money on your quest for the perfect diet and be
prepared to never find it, because there isn't one.
Eating disorders were first diagnosed in the 1950s or early 1960s and have spread rapidly
over the following decades (Brumberg 3). Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa, the two
officially recognized eating disorders, have become major focuses of attention among the
public due to rapid increases in occurrences. Both of these diseases are associated with
one overriding desire: all encompassing drive to be thin. (Chernin 28). The causes of
these disorders are numerous. Some are biological, but the strongest causes are due to
sociocultural factors. There are several sociocultural causes of eating disorders. For
instance, an improvement of the economic conditions of woman, family characteristics, and
visual exposure to ideal image of the female body in the media would influence eating
disorders (Bordo 52).
First, eating disorders are culturally specific. More than 90% of the cases of severe
eating disorders are found in young, white female of middle to upper socioeconomic status
who are living in a competitive environment. (Bordo 53). Anorexia is also more likely to
occur in professions where there is a culture of slenderness like dancing, athletics,
modeling, etc. In the 20th century, there has been a huge change in the concept of
attractiveness. As women had more chances to get higher education and enter into better
professions, there was prejudice against women in the workplace. In the sense that
heavier women began to be perceived as lacking competence. Slender women became the
standard of attractiveness for women who were 
graduating from college and entering their professions. This change of ideals would help
women to fit in with the male-dominated workplace. The following was collected from Home
Journal, 
Playboy magazine, and Miss America participants by Garner, Garfinkle, Schwartz, and
Thompson. According to this data, 69% of Playboy centerfolds and 60% of Miss America
participants from 1959 to1978 had weights 15% or below the average weights for their age
and height (Brumberg 254).
Second, an ideal body image differs among different ethnic groups. The research of
Madeline Altabe, a psychologist at the University of South Florida, indicates that
Caucasian and Hispanic-Americans showed more weight-related body image disturbance than
African-Americans and Asian-Americans. African-Americans had the most positive general
body image. Ethnic groups were similar in their ideal body image traits (Bordo 53).
Third, there are common family characteristics among eating disorder patients. Many of
the patients are from middle and upper class backgrounds whose parents are high
achievers. The typical anorexic family seems to be hard-driven and concerned about
external appearances including physical ones. To accomplish these goals, family members
often deny negative feelings and tend to attribute their problems to other people. In
Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body statistically proven data
suggests that among eating disorder patients there are significant differences of
cohesion and expressiveness. Cohesion and expressiveness are the degree of unity among
family members. Comparing with normally functioning families, those with eating disorder
patients scored lower on cohesiveness and expressiveness. (54)
Fourth, and most importantly, visual media appears to have an effect on the frequency of
eating disorders. After the 1920s, the number of diet articles in fashion magazines has
increased. Many young women have role models in media images of very thin women.
Extremely thin 
runway models influence young women to develop eating disorders. A study was conducted to
show whether visual exposure influences the formation of an ideal body image or not. This
study found that congenitally blind women had the lowest levels of body image
satisfaction and disordered eating attitudes compared to those women blinded later in
life. Sighted subjects showed significantly higher levels of both body image
dissatisfaction and eating attitudes. (Bordo 35)
On the other hand, there are other points of view with a biological dimension. Genetic
factors are correlated with eating disorders by showing the high inheritability of
anorexia. Neurobiological abnormalities also appear like increased seratonin function in
the brain. However, there are some fallacies in accepting these as factors because the
inheritability estimates were based on identical twins and tend to exaggerate the effect
of genetics in the population. Also the study about neurotransmitters does not show any
specific neurotransmitters. There is a question as to whether the neurobiological
abnormalities exist as the cause or effect of eating disorders. In some ways, they can be
a result of semi-starvation or the binge-eating cycle; thus they are not causes. Few
cases of anorexia nervosa were found outside the western world. For instance, six cases
were identified in the Caribbean Island of Curacao. If these cases were caused by
inheritability, this can be an example of how sociocultural influence can be factored
into eating disorders by the small number of incidents. Compared with people in the
western 
culture, people in Curacao were not exposed to many sociocultural factors; therefore,
despite their biological vulnerability, few people were afflicted with disorders. 
Throughout the research about the causes of eating disorders, there are many factors. As
we have seen, sociocultural factors contribute a lot to form an ideal body image, which
never 
seems to be achieved. However, to know more about eating disorders, an integrative
approach is more useful rather than the one-sided approach because of the complexity of
these disorders. 
It is clear that a very large percentage of American women are unhappy with their bodies,
says Joan Jacobs Brumberg, author of The Body Project: An Intimate History of American
Girls, (1998). That kind of unhappiness begins very, very early in life, she says. 
The rise of plastic surgery, the prevalence of dieting and the high number of women in
therapy are examples prove that women still suffer from self-esteem problems. Women still
feel unhappy about the way the advertising industry portrays females. Fashion magazines
deliberately promote fantasy, says Mary Peacock of Women.com, a Web site for women. A
typical fashion magazine reader can't afford the clothes or achieve the body depicted in
these publications, she says. Peacock says women's magazines have regressed in their
portrayal of realistic body images since the heyday of Ms. magazine, which she helped,
found with fellow feminists in the 1970s. They formed Ms. in reaction to the male-edited
women's magazines that dominated the market at the time. Today's magazines pay lip
service to issues like anorexia, but it's embedded in the advertising, she says. But
Peacock cautions against blaming the media outright for women's self-esteem issues.
Magazines may portray women in a manner that upsets the feminist consumer, though the
problem can also be traced to the readers. Readers do not seem to understand that the
images conveyed throughout the pages are not the norm. The 
problem is not the magazine, necessarily, says Peacock. The problem is also the readers.
People don't understand what physical freaks models are."
The 90's saw a new trend emerge dubbed "heroin chic" because of the ultra-thin,
strung-out appearance of models like Kate Moss and Shalom Harlow, the look dominated 
fashion capitals such as New York, London and Paris until trends began changing in early
1998. But with the popularity of heroin chic, came controversy over the dangers of
becoming too thin. Though many have criticized the trend, young girls starved themselves
trying to attain the waif-like figure. Even though heroin chic no longer dominates the
market, women remain uncomfortable with the media's depiction of their bodies. Though
women speak up about this dissatisfaction, they still seem to be getting less and less
happy about their appearance.
Society is brainwashing young people into believing that being thin is important and
necessary. It's unfortunate, but in today's society, people have forgotten that it's
what's inside a person that counts, not what's on the outside. We need to start loving
and accepting each other for who we are not what we look like. Next time you decide that
you are going to start another diet because you feel you are too fat, stop; sign up for a
self-esteem class instead. That would be money well spent. If we learn to love and accept
ourselves, we will also begin to love our bodies, no matter what size we are.
We also need to teach our children to be proud of whom they are. We need to remind them
that people come in all shapes and sizes, and we need to teach them to accept everyone
for who they are. Parents need to also teach their children the value of healthy eating
and not send the message that being thin is important. Many children, under the age of
10, are becoming obsessed with dieting and their bodies. They are afraid of becoming fat.
They don't just learn this 
from the media; they also learn this from their parents. If their mothers are constantly
dieting and expressing their desire to be thin, these young children will start to
believe they also need to be thin. We need to encourage and support our children,
especially teenagers. They need to feel good about themselves and their accomplishments,
they need your approval and they need to 
know that you are proud of them. If a child is raised to love and accept who they are and
what they look like, they will be less likely to strive to fit into society's
unattainable standards.