Media Influence on Eating Disorders Essay - 1800 Words

With eating disorders on the rise today, the media plays an important role in affecting self-esteem, leading a large amount of young adults to develop eating disorders. Many adolescents see the overbearing thin celebrities and try to reach medias level of thinness and ideal body weight. Sixty-nine of the girls reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of the perfect body shape (Field). Not only is being thin associated with other positive characteristics such as, lovable, popular, beautiful, and sexy, but being overweight is connected with negative characteristics like fat, ugly, unpopular, and lazy. Therefore media is the distinct social pressure of operating to influence people to be thin and causing eating disorders.†¦show more content†¦Scientist have also found a new link that connects eating disorders to sever physiological problems. People with anorexia or bulimia appear to have deficient amounts of serotonin, a brain chemical associated with moods and emo tions, circulating in their brains. The lack of serotonin is also linked to people with depression (Chang). It is safe to state that another cause of eating disorders is depression. The causes of depression are perhaps when people see the beautiful models, they depressed because they dont look like them, so they long to look like them, and develop unhealthy eating habits. When people look at the advertisements, movies, shows, and commercials and compare themselves to the models, they look fat. They look and feel a lot larger because the models and examples they are comparing themselves to are so unhealthy and skinny. Model Kate Moss is dangerously underweight weighing ninety five pounds and standing five feet seven, this is thirty percent below the ideal body weight (Field). In reality it is the reader who is more than likely to already have a healthy weight. The models that everyone worships and compares themselves to, are unhealthy, underweight, and some have fully developed eating disorders. A study found that twenty five percent of Playboy centerfolds met the weightShow MoreRelatedMedias Influence On Eating Disorders1767 Words   |  8 Pages â€Å"Dying to be Perfect†: Medias’ Influence on Eating Disorders Poet Allen Ginsberg once said that â€Å"whoever controls the media-the images-controls the culture†, and nothing could be truer than this. Media plays a larger role in society within this generation more than many of us are aware of. It can easily impact people’s lives through aspects such as sports, fashion, movies or hobbies, but unfortunately, one of these impacts is how we view our body. 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