Media Influence On Eating Disorders

Without a doubt, there is a tension that fills the air when one mentions the words eating disorder. The well known facts and horror stories are enough for one to shrink back into an uneasy state when the topic is brought up in conversation, and often the topic is quickly changed. Eating disorders are serious life threatening, and phycological disorders, but contrary to the minimal discussion of eating disorders, studies suggest that eating disorders amidst adolescents have steadily increased over the last 50 years (Morris and Katzman 1). So even though people aren't talking about this topic, the disorder itself is attacking more victims. "The drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, and unsafe weight control methods have led theorists to
According to the Mayo Clinic website, "eating disorders involve focusing too much on weight, body shape and food, leading to dangerous eating behaviors" (1). Per contra, there are still some experts who, based on their studies, believe that an eating disorder is not the package deal of environment and disordered eating, like most medical places define it as. One disorder expert states; "Environment obviously plays a role in the evolution of eating disorders, but environment alone is not adequate to cause them" (Ravin 1). If the environment that the media builds cannot cause an eating disorder, the media plays no role in the substantial increase of eating disorders among adolescents. . Margarita Tartakovsky in an online post stated that; "If we were to eliminate all the unfavorable connotations from the media about weight, and body image, eating disorders would still remain." (qtd. Arnold 1) "The progression of an eating disorder is altered very heavily by genetics, neurobiology, individual personality traits, and co-morbid disorders" (Ravin 1), which suggests that eating disorders are predetermined biologically and no matter how much influence the media has on individuals, those predetermined ones will still end up with an eating disorder. However, there are still surveys that prove environment as the cause eating disorders. Eating disorders can be in your genes, but only the right environment can cause them. Lynn Grefe, CEO of the National Eating Disorder Association explained it like this, "You are born with the gun, but only your culture and environment pulls the trigger." Other studies by the National Institute of Mental Health showed that in the "human genome there are genes that influence eating disorders, but only the certain trigger can stimulate them" (WebMD