Media's Influence On Eating Disorders

The media now a day is very important and has great control when it comes to influencing the public to do, buy, or make something. While it could be of great use and a great tool, sometimes it’s the total opposite. While advertisers could use the media to make healthy communication campaigns, images in the media do influence the rates of anorexia and bulimia, lower self esteem, and show that an "ideal body" is to be skinny. Anorexia and Bulimia as you may know are very harmful and dangerous eating disorders. Of the many effects that the media has on these eating disorders one of them is that they are driven by the culture and society rather than the genes. According to the article written by Megan Ogilvie "How Biology Trumps Image As Cause
It also affects you mentally because you lower your self-esteem. You make yourself uncomfortable with the body you have and think your physical appearance is not where it's suppose to be. In the article "The Impact of the Media on Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents", written by Anne Morris., and Debra Katzman, they inform us that “many researchers have hypothesized that the media may play a central role in creating and intensifying the phenomenon of body dissatisfaction and consequently, may be partly responsible for the increase in the prevalence of eating disorders.” Not only this but they also did a study and it came out to be that 44% of adolescent girls believed they were overweight and 60% were actively trying to lose weight even though the majority of these girls were within normal weight ranges. Don't you think this is really sad? To know that many girls are not happy with what they look like and their body. It’s even more surprising to know that animated cartoons and children’s videos, emphasize the importance of being attractive. At such a young age kids who watch cartoons or shows are already being taught to differentiate between someone who is the stereotype (skinny people) and someone who is different. In the long run when they grow they are going to have in mind that skinny is the way to be, and they are not going to
Not even have they noticed but they are actually doing something about it. It might not have a big of an impact right away but it surely does help just by the simple fact that they don't discriminate people with some extra pounds. The article “France's Ban on Super-Thin Models: Who Will It Really Help?”, informs us on a plan France has to criminalize the use of dangerously skinny models. They say this could actually go a long way to root out anorexia in the fashion industry. Although it’s not only France who is doing something about it, Also Spain and Italy have voluntary industry standards against employing super skinny models. Mr. Veran explained why they did this he said, "This will also help protect our adolescents at risk, because teenagers are under social pressure from the image these models convey to always be thinner and thinner". After this how can you not realize that the media is a really big contributor to the increasing rates of anorexia and bulimia. What other proof is needed when you have countries like France, Spain, and Italy trying to get rid of extremely skinny models just to stop anorexia and bulimia. It’s more than obvious that it is because they noticed that setting the example that the “skinny type” is the ideal is