Once teens see the current trends that advocate attaining ultra-thinness at any price from the media and learn this trend with their mirror neurons, they will try to fit the thin ideal. Despite how destructive such rituals as throwing up, starving themselves and abusing laxatives may be to their health, most teenagers will continue to maintain thinness. Teens that are growing up with “the suffering inwardly from a sense of fragmentation, confusion and self-doubt” can now “experience a crisis of self-confidence (Gordon, 629)” as they succeed in becoming thin. And thus, advertisements in the magazine or clips of thin celebrities on television can lead to many teens’ endless and very dangerous battle with attaining the ideal body.
Marketing Thinness to Teenagers
Messages valuing thinness is endless in the media due to the profits being made from convincing vulnerable teenagers that they need to purchase goods and services to feel good about their bodies. More and more advertising campaigns for fashion and beauty products are targeting young people (Striegel-Moore, 203-223). And such campaigns are so successful became as “guidelines about how to behave, teenagers may be particularly susceptible to popular media stereotypes as vital elements of their culture (Attie and Brooks-Gunn 233).”
Teenagers are currently widely exposed to, and often times try to emulate, young Hollywood stars. Being underweight first became the standard for the ideal body image in 1960’s with the increased popularity of 97-pound model named Twiggy. In today’s days many celebrities have been diagnosed with eating disorders, and the media is advertising this trend to teenagers. For example, actress Lindsay Lohan had admitted to Vanity Fair magazine of her bulimia, stating, “I was making myself sick.” A famous socialite Nicole Richie, however, took notice of how the media and press affect teens and so she expressed that she did not want them to follow her footsteps. Richie said during her interview, “I know I’m too thing right now, so I wouldn’t want any young girls looking at me and saying, ‘That’s what I want to look like.’ I do know that they will, which is another reason I really do need to do something about it.” Whether or not the media constantly bombards teens with images of thin body types with intentions, it is becoming much more difficult for teens to not compare themselves to what is presented to them.
Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa
From the 1900’s to now, the notion that only the beautiful and those with the ideal body are valued is taken seriously by many teenagers. In fact, anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa usually develop during adolescence (Bemis, 593-617). Anorexia is one of the few psychiatric disorders with a significant mortality rate. The American Anorexia/Bulimia Association estimates that “10% of those diagnosed with anorexia may die (Gordon, 151-163). Anorexics restrict their food intake, most commonly by starving, because they fear weight gain. On the other hand, people with bulimia try to get what they ate out of the system by forcing themselves to vomit, exercising excessively, or by taking laxatives. While anorexics are noticeably frail, there is often nothing about the external appearance of bulimics to alert others to the presence of the disorder. Bulimics are especially secretive about their conditions, thus “much harder to detect though it is thought to be four to five times more common than anorexia (Gordon, 151-163).”
Mirror Neurons
Mirror neurons get their name from the theory that these neurons in the brains act almost like a mirror, reflecting what surrounds a person. For example, when one sees another person scratching his/her body part, the one watching this will instantly feel the need to scratch oneself as well. This is because the actions we see trigger the same neural activity in our minds, putting us in the same mental state as that of the person we are watching. These mirror neurons let us understand things intuitively rather than having to think so hard.
Applying what is known about the mirror neurons, a neuroscientist named Christian Keysers explained the great effectiveness of radio commercials. Hearing what sounds like a can of soda being opened, then poured over ice in a cup can allow a person to feel as if he/she is doing just that. The mirror system allows us to associate with the certain action that is being described through sound. Similarly, researchers placed a number of people in an fMRI scanner and asked them to watch a video that consist of hand, foot, and mouth movements. After observing which mirror systems of the people who were watching the video responded, researchers found that the same systems as the ones that were being used to make the movements seen in the video showed response (Vedantam, 2006).
These recent discovering seem to suggest mirror neurons have a great impact on our learning, especially on young people. For a while, whether violent video games play a role in children’s behaviors remained unanswered. However, a study in the January 2006 issue of Media Psychology detected that playing violent video games and watching violent television programs activates mirror neurons in the brain, leading to conclusion that yes, violent video games and television programs can bring out violent behaviors in children. Then, similarly, the development of eating disorders in teenagers may be linked to the mirror neurons. Not only are the teens convinced by the media into believing that thin body is the ideal body type, but their emotions are also being stirred by the mirror neurons as they come across such messages. Emotions--- the joy and pride that the celebrities get are they are being admired for their looks, as well as the pressure and shame they get from being unable to match their bodies to the ideal type of the industry--- are perhaps transferred from the celebrities to the teenage audience.
The Process of Identity Formulation
Teenage years are often considered to be a period in one’s life during which one searches for his/her identity. During this time in life, teens often express negative feelings about oneself. Recent studies show that negative attitudes towards self may be of much more serious and dangerous; it can lead to eating disorders. Researchers have found that portraying of low self-esteem is a common trait seen in people diagnosed with eating disorders. Some even believe that low self-esteem is an essential condition that a person with an eating disorder must possess (Silverstone, 1992). Though this statement is debatable, it is true that traits such as insecurity, social withdrawal, degrading of self, which are all characteristics of low self-esteem, are seen almost in all cases of detected eating disorders.
With the lack of strong sense of identity, teenagers can easily lose self-esteem and will often doubt themselves. Some of the problems that teenagers often face are such as finding a group of peers where they can fit in, trying to gain popularity, and exploring their own personality. However, when teens cannot solve these problems quick enough, they will become insecure and self-conscious. Being self-conscious will lead teenagers to criticize themselves harsher, increasing their vulnerability to eating disorders (Fairbum, 1993). Teenagers often begin dieting with the thought that if they improved their physical appearance, they would gain self-confidence and that they will be more easily accepted by the peers (Rosen, 1993). As a result, low self-esteem and high, unrealistic expectations as such will make many teens to turn to eating disorders.
Choosing weight loss as a method of improving self-acceptance can be detrimental. Though in the short-run teens may gain self-esteem by losing weight and seeing others’ react to the change, in the long-run, negative feelings of self could intensify rapidly. A slight weight gain, going a day without exercising due to school work, or being unable to resist a piece of candy can all be considered as failure to teens with eating disorders. Then, thinking they failed, their sense of self-esteem will decrease even more and will encourage them to continuously practice the dangerous rituals of eating disorders.
Conclusion
Eating disorders are becoming much more common in teens in today’s society. Consequently, new studies are being carried out in order to discover the causes of this hazardous trend. It is possible that as teens doubt themselves and lose self-esteem, they are choosing to use eating disorders as a mechanism to gain control and acceptance. It could also be that these teens have no control or decision as to whether they want to or do not want to develop eating disorders; the mirror neurons in their brains are automatically drawing them into this black hole of eating disorders. Or, it could be both: conflicts that teens face with peers and self, and the mirror neurons. However, it is clear that the afflictions of media had a great impact on this widespread problem. With the latest rounds of advertisements, news reports on celebrities, and praising thinness, cases of eating disorders in teens have exploded. Helping individual teenagers dealing with their weight and body image will not resolve these issues on a broad scale. Not to mention, teens with eating disorders are very secretive about their rituals. Hence, the only way to escape this dangerous phenomenon is to focus on the society rather than on the individual. If the media can lessen the promoting of unrealistic ideal body image, perhaps it can change the climate in which eating disorders flourish.
Bibliography
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