The Promotion of Eating Disorders in the Media and its Impact On the Body and Mind
The portrayal of thinness in the media and its relation to beauty has lead to an increase of eating disorders and body image issues throughout society. The increase of the idea of being thin is what makes one beautiful not only impacts the way people see themselves but also causes them to act upon these thoughts of insecurity and doubt with eating disorders. These eating disorders are most commonly anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.The way people are portrayed throughout the media has created a false sense of happiness and beauty which leads to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa but these disorders also lead to a negative impact on the person 's mental state. The media can have a very negative impact on a person 's body image which also leads to a huge toll on them mentally and physically. This will be proven by the experiments and studies mentioned. The study by Krisna Patel, Kate Tchanturia, and Amy Harrison, An Exploration of Social Functioning in Young People with Eating Disorders: A Qualitative Study (2016), shows an impact of eating disorders on young adolescents .The study places the participants in four separate focus groups to allow them to discuss questions relating to their disorder with more ease the groups were divided by the reasons the ward patients were admitted. Groups that were noticed to be unable to communicate in a group setting were interviewed individually. In the end six subordinate themes were discovered friendship dissolving, fear of negative evaluation, rejection sensitivity, limited coping strategies, impact of hospitalization, and management of anxiety. These themes can form from not feeling good enough which is the message that can be taken from the message that the media has put out. From the unrealistic body expectations that are are shown in our society to how women are talked about and represented can take a hard toll on how women feel about themselves and how they are seen through others eyes. In a paper done by Irene López-Rodríguez she discusses the negative language that goes with associating women and their eating habits. Her paper, Feeding women with animal metaphors that promote eating disorders in the written media (2016), refers to mostly magazine articles that have negative metaphors against women and their impulse control. Rodriguez does an excellent job showing how the media states that in order to be beautiful in the media 's eyes you must be able to have impulse control even if that means putting your body through harmful conditions. The magazines have pictures of women eating or holding slices of cake with no plate or silverware that makes eating seem more animal characteristic like. These magazines have no problem taking unflattering photos of women eating or writing articles of how you eating is associated with being an animal. A very common phrase throughout all these articles is “pigging out” it is widely known that pigs are big and dirty animals, the word association does have an impact on how women see themselves and it creates …show more content…
They found that young women had seen that being thin was linked to successes and beauty that they would rather be very thin than overweight. It was found that even average girls were changing themselves to be more like the celebrities they see due to the “trend” of being skinny. The young women in this study with these disorders realized the way they perceived themselves completely altered once they started trying to lose weight they became more dissatisfied with themselves and their bodies. These girls isolated themselves from others and became more introverted due to the embarrassment of their disorders. After the interviews with people with and without eating disorders they found that they are mental health issue the way women perceive themselves could affect the quality of life they have.Research conducted by Hages and Ross (1987) found that young adults will follow a trend if it improves the quality of life they have such as gaining popularity or becoming beautiful while ignoring the consequences it has on their
The portrayal of thinness in the media and its relation to beauty has lead to an increase of eating disorders and body image issues throughout society. The increase of the idea of being thin is what makes one beautiful not only impacts the way people see themselves but also causes them to act upon these thoughts of insecurity and doubt with eating disorders. These eating disorders are most commonly anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.The way people are portrayed throughout the media has created a false sense of happiness and beauty which leads to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa but these disorders also lead to a negative impact on the person 's mental state. The media can have a very negative impact on a person 's body image which also leads to a huge toll on them mentally and physically. This will be proven by the experiments and studies mentioned. The study by Krisna Patel, Kate Tchanturia, and Amy Harrison, An Exploration of Social Functioning in Young People with Eating Disorders: A Qualitative Study (2016), shows an impact of eating disorders on young adolescents .The study places the participants in four separate focus groups to allow them to discuss questions relating to their disorder with more ease the groups were divided by the reasons the ward patients were admitted. Groups that were noticed to be unable to communicate in a group setting were interviewed individually. In the end six subordinate themes were discovered friendship dissolving, fear of negative evaluation, rejection sensitivity, limited coping strategies, impact of hospitalization, and management of anxiety. These themes can form from not feeling good enough which is the message that can be taken from the message that the media has put out. From the unrealistic body expectations that are are shown in our society to how women are talked about and represented can take a hard toll on how women feel about themselves and how they are seen through others eyes. In a paper done by Irene López-Rodríguez she discusses the negative language that goes with associating women and their eating habits. Her paper, Feeding women with animal metaphors that promote eating disorders in the written media (2016), refers to mostly magazine articles that have negative metaphors against women and their impulse control. Rodriguez does an excellent job showing how the media states that in order to be beautiful in the media 's eyes you must be able to have impulse control even if that means putting your body through harmful conditions. The magazines have pictures of women eating or holding slices of cake with no plate or silverware that makes eating seem more animal characteristic like. These magazines have no problem taking unflattering photos of women eating or writing articles of how you eating is associated with being an animal. A very common phrase throughout all these articles is “pigging out” it is widely known that pigs are big and dirty animals, the word association does have an impact on how women see themselves and it creates …show more content…
They found that young women had seen that being thin was linked to successes and beauty that they would rather be very thin than overweight. It was found that even average girls were changing themselves to be more like the celebrities they see due to the “trend” of being skinny. The young women in this study with these disorders realized the way they perceived themselves completely altered once they started trying to lose weight they became more dissatisfied with themselves and their bodies. These girls isolated themselves from others and became more introverted due to the embarrassment of their disorders. After the interviews with people with and without eating disorders they found that they are mental health issue the way women perceive themselves could affect the quality of life they have.Research conducted by Hages and Ross (1987) found that young adults will follow a trend if it improves the quality of life they have such as gaining popularity or becoming beautiful while ignoring the consequences it has on their