IS MEDIA TO BLAME FOR EATING DISORDERS?

IS MEDIA TO BLAME FOR EATING DISORDERS?

            A wide variety of eating disorders has been registered in the past few years and seems to be escalating day to day out. Some of the common eating disorders in their way up are overeating, anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is a condition where the victim stops eating completely on an attempt to restricting calorie levels in the body but end up resulting to unhealthy levels. Bulimia on the other hand entails taking or eating large food quantities and then regurgitating or taking laxatives to excrete them in an attempt to avoid massive weight gain. In the case of overeating, excessive eating is evident without taking purging steps resulting to obesity. Such and other similar conditions have currently spiked in popularity. This has raised the question, is media to be blamed?

Media has been linked with the upsurge of this epidemic in different ways. For the case of bulimia and anorexia, the drive in young ladies as well as men to becoming slender just like the models seen in Television channels and online platforms has contributed much to this disorder (Derenne & Beresin, 2016). This is because majority of those commercials feature young people who are underweight as the most attractive and beautiful which makes most of the youthful people to think that they are the only beautiful ones.

For young girls just entering their teenage age, this has been especially more challenging because it’s the stage when most of them accumulates weight at very high rates to gain a womanly physique. And with such an input from the media, many tend to mistakenly believe they are growing overweight and began shying away from taking enough food which comes with its own consequences. On the other hand, the same made usually make certain foods which are believed to increase weight more appealing by bombarding people with the images which makes people easily slide into overeating (Thompson & Heinberg, 2013).

Featuring models and celebrities who are extremely thin is a trick which has been used in advertisement magazines as well as televisions making women perceives such body shapes as the best. In fear of gaining weight, women turn on dieting as the option of losing weight. As prove to this fact, Americans have been revealed to be spending more than $50 billion on dieting and other products related to dieting. And because the level of beauty which is portrayed by media cannot be attained by most people, the consumers are never satisfied, hence creating a recurring demand for weight loss and beauty products. It is therefore certain that industries have utilized such an advantage to increase profitability while encouraging life-threatening diseases among millions of people (Saguy & Gruys, 2010)

Furthermore, studies have also shown that teenage girls who frequently read fashion magazines register higher prevalence for dieting and exercising behaviors of weight loss compared to the infrequent reader ones. Many young people gain interest in dieting due to the motivation from the pictures they see in different media platforms. Dieting forums in media platforms have been revealed as the most watched because people are fascinated by diet tips which are provided in those forums. This is a clear evidence that fear of becoming over weight has dominated both young women as well as the adolescent girls and motivating them to excessively engage in dieting and other eating habits which are unhealthy (Saguy & Gruys, 2010).

The weight loss shows which are increasing day in day out all demonstrate dieting and exercising as the only two approaches in achieving superb body shapes like those of models and other celebrities. For example, “The Biggest Loser” is among the highly watched prime-time programs of NBC attracting almost 15 million viewers in a week (Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson & Kelly, 2016). The program has been encouraging the viewers to achieve a weight loss of up to 15 pounds in a week some severe restrictions on calorie intake and hours of vigorous exercises, an approach which has been contradicting to what health care professionals advice; that people should not follow a weight lose routine which makes them lose more than two pounds in a week.

These and other weight loss programs aired n media shows have had detrimental health effects on both the contestants and viewers. To enable a contestant to win some of the reward given in such challenges, he or she may develop some harmful practices targeting to achieve the highest weight loss within the shorter time they are given (Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson & Kelly, 2016). Alternatively, the viewers are blackmailed to develop a notion that huge weight loss is achieved through dieting and end up emulating the contestants by enrolling into the same unhealthy eating routines, which ultimately leads to some long term health effects.

From what has been observed in most of fitness shows, it is clear that media promotes just one body shape as worth it and makes some unhealthy foods appear more attractive; this approach cannot be pinned as a psychological condition only. Quite often many people who are victims of anorexia or bulimia have gone through some upheaval moments in their lives. Lightly it may appear that they want to achieve a certain body shape but the problem arises from their inability to control their real lives. They en up micromanaging everything they take and feel satisfied when they realize their weight falling. With overeating, it is commonly out of low self-esteem. In many cases where people turn out to be super obese, the likelihood of having undergone abuse in their childhood is high (Spettigue & Henderson, 2014).

In summary, and from the facts presented above, media is a key driving force behind the current increment in eating disorders which have turned to be life threating to millions of young people globally. It has been creating an intense fear of gaining weight among the young people by constantly displaying pictures of models and other celebrities being super thin, and considering that many young people tend to emulate such characters leads them to believe that such body shapes are the best (Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson & Kelly, 2016). It has also encouraged development of other eating disorders via the shows like “Pro-ED” which act as an online world promoting dieting through advertisements on weight loss realities. All the three arguments outlined clearly depict media being guilty of encouraging eating disorders being observed currently in the society.

In future, it is expected that more and more people are likely to get into the trap of eating disorders since media influence is going nowhere. Again, media impacts out of its  influence is not observable in a short run, therefore people don’t  realize whether it is causing serious harm on their health until such consequences will come into reality  in future. At the time the harm sets out clearly, there is nothing much that can be done to control the disorder rather than seeking counseling and treatment for recovery (Spettigue & Henderson, 2014). Taking preventive measures before the condition turns viral is however better than waiting until it’s too late to cure the disease. Therefore, before such critical conditions, ways on how to harness the media power for good should be sought.

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you” (Quotes Daddy, 2010). Therefore, youthful people should be encouraged to love themselves more and be contented with what nature has given them to achieve happiness in their lives, only then they will overcome the fear of being overweight.

References

Derenne, J. L., & Beresin, E. V. (2016). Body image, media, and eating disorders. Academic        psychiatry, 30(3), 257-261.

Thompson, J. K., & Heinberg, L. J. (2013). The media’s influence on body image disturbance        and eating disorders: We’ve reviled them, now can we rehabilitate them?. Journal of   social issues, 55(2), 339-353.

Saguy, A. C., & Gruys, K. (2010). Morality and health: News media constructions of overweight             and eating disorders. Social Problems, 57(2), 231-250.

Silverstein, B., Perdue, L., Peterson, B., & Kelly, E. (2016). The role of the mass media in             promoting a thin standard of bodily attractiveness for women. Sex roles, 14(9-10), 519-        532.

Spettigue, W., & Henderson, K. A. (2014). Eating disorders and the role of the media. The           Canadian child and adolescent psychiatry review, 13(1), 16.