Even children begin to believe that being thin is beautiful. In the past research has been geared to college age people, but the age that eating disorders start has dropped. Now, serious eating disorders occur frequently among elementary school children as they are exposed to the media and develop poor self body image. A study on the introduction of television in two towns in the Pacific islands on Fiji prove that television programs encourage eating disorders among teenage girls: “In a country where girls traditionally have good appetites and larger body shapes, many girls now vomit to control their weight, are on diets and believe they are too fat.” (Television, 2002) There was another survey conducted of first, third and fifth grade girls and boys. After being exposed to both overweight and underweight people on TV, they were asked to describe the people. They had many negative descriptors of the obese bodies and much less of the underweight bodies (Harrison, 617). Today there are millions people who suffer from eating disorders. Eating disorders are most common among women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Due to the media, young women get very caught up on being thin because they think they need to be thin in order to be pretty (McPhee, 8). This especially occurs during the adolescence stage when young girls are very sensitive about their changing bodies. “Young women are increasingly tuned in to a celebrity culture where the models and actresses’ bodies are considerably thinner than they’ve been in the past”, said Dr. Brumberg, a historian at Cornell University (8). There is no doubt that media provides significant content on body related issues to young women. The exposure to ideal images coincides with a period in their lives where self regard and self efficacy is in decline, where body image is at most fragile due to physical changes of puberty and where the tendency for social comparison is at its peak.
The most important point, the negative effect of the media on eating disorders and its consequences is the topic for many studies. Eating disorders are complex illnesses that arise from a combination of psychological and sociocultural factors with serious consequences on mental and physical health. This issue is very important to society. Eating disorders are more than the average diet and have the potential to be life threatening (Steinhoff, 363). The media is aware of the problem of eating disorders and some have tried to incorporate different body shaped models, but many do not believe that they are doing any harm by using underweight models. A heavily criticized magazine called “Celebrity Bodies”, whose slogan is “you can get one too” had pictures of all the celebrities and their diet secrets. There were also exercise tips on how to get Elizabeth Hurley’s stomach, Posh’s legs and Courtney Cox’s arms. The magazine did not think that they were doing anything wrong. “It is inspirational fun with diet and fitness. What we are doing is by no means promoting an anorexic image of women’, said Andrew Sumner, the magazine’s publisher (Jackson, 1002). These messages may not directly cause eating disorders, but they shape women’s negative attitudes to body image and self-esteem, developing dieting behaviours as a risk for eating disorders. There is no doubt that the ideal body size, as reflected in the style icons promoted by the media is getting thinner. This thing leads to a lot of dieting because dieting is viewed as the solution to the problem of excess weight, even this excess is just all in the mind, as a result of faulty messages. National Eating Disorders Association finds that 91% of women on college are on diet. In another study, Ginny Conger, a therapist at the Psychological Counseling Center said that “the media definitely encourages eating disorders”. “If you interview 100 women, you would be hard-pressed to find one who is happy with their body because of the standards the media sets”, she added (Erokan, 2000). In this respect, media may contribute to low self-esteem by promoting slenderness as the way to gaining love, acceptance and respect.
The media not influence eating patterns or self-esteem in a exclusively negative fashion. Broadcast and written media can be a source of valuable information on health and well-being. In addition, awareness of eating disorders, through magazines, articles and television programs may educate people about the danger of abusing food and may help to make sufferers aware that they have a problem and they are not alone. In this respect the media may have two useful roles: first, in health promotion for the public at large and the second, in the arena of primary prevention. Health promotion seeks to promote healthful behaviours or attitudes to the public at large. Primary prevention is an activity designed to eliminate ineffective factors involved in the causation of a disorder. By promoting sensible messages, however, they may impact on those individuals in society who are vulnerable and who may otherwise filter unhealthy messages.
The relation between media exposure and eating disorders is very tight. Media continues to model unhealthy eating attitudes and behaviours. Also, in a smaller measure, it prevents this negative effect. One of the ways we can protect our self-esteem and body image from the media’s often narrow definition of beauty and acceptability is to become a critical viewer of the media messages we are bombarded with each day. Media messages about beauty and body shape and size will affect the way we feel about our bodies and ourselves only if we let them.
References
Erokan, Laney. (2000, August 30). Negative body image influences eating disorders. [On-line]. The Orion. Retrieved October 12, 2003, from the World Wide Web:
http://orion.csuchico.edu/Pages/Vol45issue2/dimensions/d.1.bodyimage.html
Harrisson, Kristen. (2000, October). Television and children. Communication Research, 27 (5), 617-618.
Jackson, Trevor. (2001, April 21). Celebrity bodies; eating disorders. British Medical Journal, 322 (7292), 1002.
National Eating Disorders Association. (2002). Know dieting: risks and reasons to stop. Seattle, WA. Retrieved October 13, 2003, from the World Wide Web:
McPhee, Larkin. (2001, March). Dying to be thin. Independent School, 60 (3), 8
Steinhoff, Nicole J. (2001, December). Posters. Journal of Nutrition Education, 33 (6), 363.
Television link to eating disorders. (2002, May 31). BBC News. Retrieved October10, 2003, from the World Wide Web:
