Anorexia And The Media Essay Research Paper

Anorexia And The Media Essay, Research Paper Two main eating disorders pertain to thinness they are Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa. Anorexia is the refusal to eat enough food so that your body can maintain a normal height and weight. Bulimia is a pattern of eating large quantity of food in a short period of time followed by vomiting, using laxatives, or overexercising (Harrison, 1). Females are particularly vulnerable to developing eating disorders. It seems due to the media and how they portray the image of thin women on television, in advertisements and in movies. A National survey revealed that up to seventy five percent of women consider themselves too fat when in reality they are below the ideal weight standards that are established. In America fifty six percent of

all women are on diets. Women of ages eleven years of age to seventeen years old number one wish is to lose weight and keep it off. By the time these girls reach the age of eighteen eighty percent of them have dieted. This is not only a problem with young women older women as well are affected with weight preoccupation and body dissatisfaction. Older women fear weight gain associated with aging (Wilson, 2). The relationship to advertising in respect to food and women s bodies has received considerable attention. A recent advertisement for Jarlsberg Lite Cheese illustrated this strategy of conveying thin women. The advertisement for this product displays a thin, beautiful model dressed in a short, low-cut dress lounging on a bar stool. They have her long thin legs that take up

most of the page with not a trace of cellulite on them. The caption for this advertisement is written across her tiny waist and it reads Everybody could use a little less fat (Wilson, 3). This advertisement for Jarlsberg Lite Cheese portrays that a women cannot be thin enough an even every women who is thin must worry that their bodies are too fat . This cultural norm of all women being thin is very unrealistic. The ideal thin body is unattainable for most women. Seeing even thirty minutes of a television program or advertisements will alter a women s image of her own body shape. Also women who are exposed to magazine which have really thin models in them exhibit depression, guilt shame, and body dissatisfaction. That is why research has a direct correlation between media

exposure and eating disorders among women (Wilson, 2). The ideal thin appears in television and magazines especially for women. The body shape standard in television is slimmer for female then it is for males. Sixty nine point one percent of female characters are thin and only seventeen point five male characters are considered thin. Popular women s magazines contain approximately ten times as many dieting articles and advertisements then in comparison to men s magazines. This ten to one ratio also matches exactly that of females with eating disorders in comparison to males with eating disorders (Harrison, 2). College is a major time in young people s lives they experience major changes. Students are now exposed to the world all on their own. Suddenly they are on their own with

food, usually for the first time in their lives. These students will gain weight and then diet. This triggers eating disorders. A study on teenagers was taken and it was found that between one half and one percent of teens suffer from anorexia while three to five percent suffer from bulimia (Duffy, 2). Bulimia is the more common of the two disorders and it is affecting as many as one in every five college aged women (Wilson, 1). College students seem to be at particular risk of for developing eating disorders. My next door neighbor here at Eastern Connecticut State University, is Jeanne Cannarella. She is a white female who is eighteen years of age, and weighs one hundred twenty four pounds. Jeanne is extremely concerned about her weight and contently compares herself to