The Media's Affect on Eating Disorders

The Media's Affect on Eating Disorders

1. What is the problem?

   • The media exposes young girls and teenagers to an ideal body image that can make teenagers feel dissatisfied with their own bodies. This can lead to eating disorders.

2. What factors are causing this?

   • Media gives an idea body type that is almost impossible to obtain for most teenagers
   • teenagers are trying to meet the ideal
   • Teenagers are are spending so much time on the internet and watching TV that they are exposed to a large amount of advertisements
   • Models are getting skinnier and skinner
   • Since media is constantly surrounding us, there is the constant need to lose weight as the victims of the eating disorder are always seeing the people who are skinnier than them
     • Always seeing what is better than them (in their eyes)

3. Impacts

   • Individually
     • Teenagers who restrict what they eat can harm their bodies
       • Will not be functioning properly (need food to function)
   • Society
     • Other teens will see their peers weight loss, gives them the idea of restricting the food they intake
     • Families and Friends
       • Eating disorders are serious and people who have eating disorders need treatment
         • Family and friends need to be supportive and helpful when the person with the eating disorder is getting better
     • Sociology
       • Groups of people all seek to meet the ideal body image
         • Compare their weight loss results to the others involved in this
       • Since many groups of teenage girls want to lose weight, they do it together
         • Encourage each other that it is okay even though it is not
     • Psychology
       • Individual mental process
         • Why are they choosing to do this?

4. How can we stop this?

   • Media can give us accurate representations of normal looking and healthy body types.
   • We can teach teenagers what a healthy body is like
   • The media can begin to use models that are an average height and weight to accurately display what a healthy body looks like
   • Be accepting of all body types
     • Encourage healthy eating instead of encouraging teens to lose weight

5. Statistics

   • 50% of girls and 30% of boys resort to skipping meals and starving themselves in order to chanage and control their weight
   • 91% of girls interviewed at college had tried to restrict their eating before
   • The average model weighs about 120 pounds

6. Thesis

   • Teenagers who are exposed to large amounts of media resort to restricting their eating in order to meet the ideal weight and body image that the media provides us with.

7. Conclusion

   • If we want the number of teens who have eating disorders to decrease, we must encourage healthy eating, and the media needs to represent products using models who are a healthy weight to represent healthy lifestyles. The media needs to encourage that beauty can come in many shapes and sizes.
   • Thesis was proven