Statistics say that eating disorders affect 90-95% of females in the Western society. According to the Massachusetts Eating Disorders Association approximately 40% of female college students have an eating disorder in this country. I find this to be quite shocking statistics because I am in college and I hang out with various females, yet I’ve never come across someone suffering from such a disorder. But it’s probably not that I haven’t come across a person suffering from an eating disorder, I just haven’t encountered someone who has come open to me about their problem.
I think it’s quite unfortunate that there are so many young ladies out there that are dealing with this problem. Eating disorders seem to be very silent. Silent in the sense that sometimes you can’t judge or tell by a person’s appearance that they are dealing with an eating disorder. And even if one was to know or sense that their classmate or friend is suffering from an eating disorder, the person can easily deny the accusation and take personal offense to your thought of it.
My main question is why are eating disorders so common? Why do a majority of eating disorder cases occur among females? Why are eating disorder rates increasing? In my opinion, the chief reason lies within popular culture and societies’ norm of what is “beautiful” and not so “beautiful”. Thinness is commonly associated with health and beauty. If you are an overweight, young female, then you are not considered to be the ideal woman because you don’t fit society’s norms of beauty. Now, who wouldn’t want to be considered beautiful, especially in the eyes of male counterparts? Everyone, especially females, rely so much on their outer beauty to get what they want in life and that includes being desirable to men, attention, advantages in work places, etc. It’s no wonder why so many women feel the outward pressure of keeping the ideal thin figure, even if it means depriving oneself of food or throwing up forcefully.
In addition, one of the other reasons that lie behind the motives of those who deal with eating disorders, I think, depends on their self image. The way we perceives ourselves, greatly influence what we do in response to fixing any problem we see or enhancing ourselves. I think it would be correct to say that people, who suffer from an eating disorder, don’t have positive views about themselves and pretty much have self esteem issues. I feel this way because many times, they are not as “big” as they perceive themselves to be and they tend to seek other people’s acceptance.
As society has evolved over the years, more and more people are becoming self conscious about their image. We are constantly reminded of society’s non acceptance of people who are overweight through movies and television that make overweight people the source of humor. It’s sad to see the damage that popular culture has made around the world and now we have to deal with it until the day that everyone can be accepted the way that they are and when the definition of beauty is more than skin deep.
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4 comments:
I do agree that the media can tend to play a role in eating disorders, especially in young women who may not have high self-esteem and are constantly being show theses images of "perfect" looking women. But I also think that there are many other reasons and causes for the development of eating disorders and one of those is a control issue. Many people that develop eating disorders generally have things going on in their lives that have led them to a feeling of helplessness and their food intake and weight is the one thing they can control. I can think of a few instances where I have seen eating disorders addressed in the media and I think that opening up and and talking about these issues will make them less stigmatized and hopefully will help those suffering from these disorders be able to open up and get help.
I also agree that the media is a great influence on a girls self esteem. Fortunately, if you are strong willed and surround yourself by positive influences, you are less likely to become a "media whore".
I have been fortunate enough not to let the media effect my life so negatively but it's very hard not to fall into the cycle of what society entitles beautiful. This seemed to be my case because I came from a very urban area where media was the biggest influential factor on how everyone lived their life. People just need to really learn how to love themselves because I honestly believe that it greatly influences the way other people act towards you. Everyone is beautiful in their own way, and in my opinion, beauty is mainly in the eye of the beholder. If someone can't love you for who you are, they are not worth being a part of your life.
I feel as if there are multiple reasons for the development of eating disorders. I agree with what Tara said about how the pressures of daily life can weigh on a person leading them to feel as if what they do or do not eat is the only aspect of their life that they can control. But the media sure does not help either. I remember back a few months ago when Jessica Simpson was photographed at some concert and pictures surfaced online, and it was this huge story because she gained like 5 lbs. It was a Yahoo! front page news report for more than a day. What I would like to know is with everything going on in the world today, why is something that trivial worthy of front page news for so long? I feel that the media slamming her in the way that it did produces a rippled effect in our society. People see that the media criticizes her for gaining a few pounds and deeming her as "fat," thus instilling a warped sense of what a healthy body weight should be. It really is a huge problem. Really little girls are going on diets now, because they feel the need to look like the people that they see in movies, TV, magazines, etc. And depriving oneself of food at such a young age can have detrimental impacts on growth and development later on in life. But I do feel that there is some sort of hope for the future. A model died within the past few years because of an eating disorder she suffered from, and now (and I don't know who this rule has been extended to entirely, I just remember reading about it) rules are being implemented along the lines that models must weigh a certain amount in order to remain working. I think rules such as this are positive, because it is a step in the right direction to dealing with such a complicated problem.
I've had personal experience with eating disorders. My best friend and my sister both had eating disorders, and witnessing what they went through was traumatizing and made me feel helpless. Each of their motivations was different for their eating disorders though, which is the most interesting part. My best friend was an overweight child, and after years of not losing weight, she turned to anorexia to attempt to lose weight. I think what caused her to become anorexic and lose weight was not only pressure from the media but also peer influence. Once she lost weight, she got much more attention from boys at school, which only propagated her eating disorder. On the contrary, my sister's eating disorder resulted from a control issue. Similarly to what Tara said, she had too much stress in her life and felt pressured by my parents to succeed in many things, and the only thing she could control was her eating. Therefore, she became anorexic as a way to control the one thing she felt she could, her food intake. I think that eating disorders can stem from many internal issues including control, self esteem, and a person's reaction to outside influences. And although the statistics presented in the blog post seem astounding, they are actually very believable.
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