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Media Influence on Eating Disorders

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Media Influence on Eating Disorders
With eating disorders on the rise today, the media plays an important role in affecting self-esteem, leading a large amount of young adults to develop eating disorders. Many adolescents see the overbearing thin celebrities and try to reach media's level of thinness and ideal body weight. "Sixty-nine of the girls reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of the perfect body shape" (Field). Not only is being thin associated with other positive characteristics such as, lovable, popular, beautiful, and sexy, but being overweight is connected with negative characteristics like fat, ugly, unpopular, and lazy. Therefore media is the distinct social pressure of operating to influence people to be thin and causing eating disorders.
Media is a very important aspect of life in our culture. Around 95% of people own a television set and watch for around three to four hours per day (Herr). Each type of media has its own purpose, to entertain, persuade, and change. Media also influences how people view themselves. Media is in account for many interpretations and each is perceived differently by each individual. There are commercials that broadcast fast foods, which try to persuade us to buy the new and ‘fattening' food. However at the same time there is the media that tries to change us, by showing overbearing and thin people as an object of desire. Among the advertisements and television commercials one is suppose to conclude, to buy all the newest fast food items, yet stay extremely thin. It is almost impossible to eat the commercial shown foods, be healthy, and obtain this look, and women do not realize this. Therefore to obtain the certain look that is portrayed by the media, adolescents are developing eating disorders. Media leads to the rise of people developing eating disorders.
From an early age everyone is bombarded with images that send people the message in order to be happy and successful we must be thin. Television and ads show women portray women to
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