Media's Influence On Eating Disorders

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Eating disorders are everywhere in the world, and affect tons of people's lives. According to Gerard P. Prendergast “More than 5 million Americans suffer from eating disorders. Five percent of females have anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorders.”The most common eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia; most young girls suffer from these kind of eating disorders because of socicites social norms on how a woman is supposed to look. Furthermore, eating disorders are usually caused by the photoshopping of models; the media makes models have the “ideal body image everyone should want. Also advertisements show diet ads, and make it seem like if your skinny you’ll feel good and live a happy life. Eating disorders also come from athletes, and …show more content…
Moreover, society and media have a big contribution to eating disorders because of the photoshopping on models, the advertisements on being skinny, and societal pressures on athletes.
The use of photoshopping media uses on models creates insecurities on young women that causes eating disorders. According to Caitlin Emily Whelan said” It is almost impossible to go anywhere without seeing an airbrushed model on magazines.” The fact of the matter is that every model is photoshopped, which means everywhere young girls turn they will always think “oh I need to look that way” or “I need to be skinny like her” . This is not okay because if these models are photoshopped these young girls are trying to achieve a body image that isn’t even possible to get without harming their bodies. Along with one of Healthy Place staff writer said “ The average model weighs up to 25% less than the typical women and maintains a weight at about 15 to 20%. Some models go through plastic surgery, some are “taped up” to mold their bodies into more photogenic representations and airbrushed. This shows how magazines …show more content…
A staff writer from health place said “ One study of Saturday morning toy commercials found that 50% of commercials aimed at girls spoke about physical attractiveness, while none of the commercials aimed at boy referred to appearances.” This shows how the way society and media views women is by their looks, and this makes it harder for women to be comfortable with the way they look because they feel pressured into looking that way. Gerard P. Prendergast said “Advertising often presents an attractive female body to the viewers in the process of selling product. Most of their ads extos, beauty, vitality, sexuaity, and slimness.” Although they advertise attractive women to sell their products this shows how they must be using attractive women because society has planted this idea that the standard image of girls and women is to be thin. While advertisements are a big deal, dieting advertisements lure in young women and say they can lose weight if they do these diets or take these dieting methods. Colleen Thompson said that “Diet commercials are constantly appearing on our television screens, in magazines, and on internet pop ups, telling us once we lose weight we’ll be happy.”Therefore these dieting advertisements end up tricking our minds into thinking the way we are isn't good enough, and since they pop up everywhere it's difficult for young women to
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