Anorexia is becoming increasingly more common with more cases, and more deaths, every year. In the UK alone, there are over one million sufferers. Girls as young as six are feeling the need to starve their bodies in an attempt to reach those ridiculous “ideal” statistics: 34” bust, 24” waist, 34” hips and 5’11” tall – a ludicrously small size. Go on to any fashion forum and you will be bombarded with posts from teenage girls asking if HGH (human growth hormone – which has serious health side-effects) will help them grow five inches or how they can reduce the size of their [invisible] bum.
Then, there are the mothers, who are desperately trying to lose weight, only to put it back on three months later. Recently published research has shown that mothers who yo-yo diet put their daughters at an increased risk of developing anorexia. With both mother and daughter feeling the pressure for the media, is it any wonder we have become an image-obsessed nation, always craving the look of those in the third world?
Although the media thinks it is doing good by raising awareness of the issue, by making news reports or commenting on how thin Kiera Knightly is looking, all they are really doing is further reinforcing this twisted idea that to be beautiful, to be noticed, to be valued as a human being, you have to be dangerously thin. By following the problem on the news, they are only showing girls that to be an actress or model, you have to be skinny. They may give warnings of anorexia will do to you, but the pictures will do the talking. Pictures of pretty models strutting down a cat walk in glamorous Gucci gowns or of a famous celebrity gliding along the red carpet at a fabulous A-list event. Thos pictures are what the girls will be paying attention to as they show them that thin is beautiful, and no word of warning or Breakfast News debate if going to stop them lusting after that sickening shape.
How many women do you know who constantly count calories, attend various weight-loss clubs or quote: “A moment on the lips, forever on the hips”? Exactly. We are surrounded by this sinister message and it is not right. It is not right that women like Luisel Ramos starve themselves to death to “make it big” and it is not right that thousands of young women are following that example. It is time this madness stopped; for the sake of future generations, it has to stop.
