The Eating Disorder Reaction

The Eating Disorder Reaction: Media’s Role in Body Image Culture The media has placed a considerable amount of pressure on Americans to conform to a body type that is deemed desirable. The normalization of the human body is flaunted throughout advertisements, entertainment, and fashion. The normalization pattern leads to thoughts and feelings of inadequacy for many individuals. In some individuals, thoughts of inadequacy lead to more serious complications. Eating disorders are often caused by thoughts of inadequacy and body hate. Although other factors are often involved in the development of eating disorders, as well. Messages in the media perpetuate a thin body ideal, which seems in some sense, can only be achieved through an eating disorder.
The number of media messages Americans are exposed to everyday is increasing as technology advances. This means increased exposure to unattainable body types. Advertisers deem these body types attractive, so naturally advertisements are riddled with beauty standards that are impossible to achieve. For example, social media websites such as Facebook, gain extra profit from selling webspace to various companies and websites. Many of these online advertisers are advertisers in the beauty industry. What is even more concerning is that online tracking allows for these advertisers to be more prevalent in accounts where people have already “liked”, browsed, or bought a product from one of their websites. Chances are if a person has bought one shirt from a specific website, they will see an advertisement for a similar product within the same day. Hundreds of images of “perfect” models and thin body types flash across the screen, bombarding an average Facebook user with unneeded cyberspace clutter.
It is difficult to see the swarm of exposed messages even though advertisements are everywhere. Americans are very good at ignoring the countless advertisements, although if asked to recall a particular advertisement, a person will