Articles+on+Eating+Disorders

==    How Important Is Self-Image? == ==    By: Nicol Zabak         ==

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The answer seems to be found in a combination of environmental, psychological, biological, and personality factors. Anorexia and bulimia are more common in industrialized cultures where beauty is equated with thinness. Anorexics are often perfectionists – high achievers who strive to live up to lofty self-standards, including distorted standards concerning an acceptably thin body. =====

Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders
**Jennifer L. Derenne, M.D. and Eugene V. Beresin, M.D**

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The current media culture is complicated and very confusing. Women are told that they can and should "have it all." They expect family, career, and home to be perfect, and Martha Stewart tells them how to do it. The media inundates them with mixed messages about what is sexy, making it difficult to choose a role model. The heroin chic waif made popular by Kate Moss in the early 1990s competes with the voluptuous Baywatch babe personified by Pamela Anderson and the athletic soccer stars who celebrated a World Cup victory by tearing their shirts off. Though it is highly unlikely for a rail-thin woman to have natural DD-cup size breasts, toy manufacturers set this expectation by developing and marketing the Barbie doll, whose measurements are physiologically impossible.   However, with increased availability of plastic surgery, today’s women are faced with similarly unrealistic expectations every time they open a fashion magazine. Articles tout the importance of moderate diet and exercise, but pages are filled with advertisements for appetite suppressants and diet supplements. The diet industry is a multibillion dollar business. Women are consistently given the message that they are not pretty enough or thin enough. With media pressure to be thin and a multibillion dollar dieting industry at our disposal, higher rates of eating disorders in the population seem concerning, but are also understandable. While cultural standards of beauty are certainly not new, today’s media is far more ubiquitous and powerful. =====

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While more common among girls, eating disorders can affect boys, too. They're so common in the U.S. that 1 or 2 out of every 100 kids will struggle with one, most commonly anorexia or bulimia. Unfortunately, many kids and teens successfully hide eating disorders from their families for months or even years. Concerns about eating disorders are also beginning at an alarmingly young age. Research shows that 42% of first- to third-grade girls want to be thinner, and 81% of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat. In fact, most kids with eating disorders began their disordered eating between the ages of 11 and 13. Some research suggests that media images contribute to the rise in the incidence of eating disorders. Most celebrities in advertising, movies, TV, and sports programs are very thin, and this may lead girls to think that the ideal of beauty is extreme thinness. Boys, too, may try to emulate a media ideal by drastically restricting their eating and compulsively exercising to build muscle mass. =====

**All these excerpts of articles explain how the media has such a large negative affect on how people view their bodies. These articles explain the signifcance of media on the minds of the younger generation. It seems as if they are almost brainwashing the youth of this generation to have the idea of what is attractive. The media is pressuring society to be thin and greatly affecting the physical and emotional health of many.**