Eating Disorders and Media Influence: Body Image

Eating Disorders and Media Influence: Body Image


After reading this article filled with statistics, I am absolutely disgusted. I am also ashamed to consider myself a part of these statistics. Most of the time, I am thinking about my weight, how I look, what other people are thinking of me, how I could lose more weight, etc. this is because of the amount of shit we receive through the media. If companies used REAL people in their ads, movies, shows, etc, instead of rail thin models who eat about 200 calories a day, then society wouldn't have as pressing of a problem with eating disorders and women hating their bodies. Today, the average U.S. woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds. In contrast the average U.S. model who is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds. Fifty years ago, models were the same size as the average women. Based on this information, I would definitely believe that women were a lot more happy with their bodies than women today. As the years passed by, the models got thinner and thinner, as real women got bigger and bigger. This results in women feeling depressed about their bodies, depressed about their lives, and just depressed in general. It also raises their anxiety levels and their outlooks on life. ALSO, women's priorities are completely backwards! I cannot understand why someone would be more concerned with their weight than how long they will live. Two out of five women and one out of five men would trade three to five years of their life to achieve their weight goals. What, is your life going to be that much better if you lose weight? Well enjoy your shortened life because you just traded five years of your life to the devil. In a recent study, they found that adolescent girls were more fearful of gaining weight, than getting cancer, nuclear war or losing their parents. That is simply wrong. No one should be more concerned with their weight than their family member's lives. I can imagine a teenage girl at her mother's funeral: "I'm going to miss you so much mom, I love you. But OMG I lost five pounds because I'm so depressed I can't eat since you died!" It's wrong and completely backwards. Society really needs to return to how it was in the time of Marilyn Monroe. She was a real role model, and was about as close to a real woman as you could get. I can guarantee that if models today looked like her, were her size (the size of a REAL woman) than the rate of eating disorders, depression, anxiety would be much lower. Women would be able to go about their lives without worrying about their weight. They would actually be able to concentrate on the important things in life, like family, work, love, finding actual happiness. If society continues to spit out rail thin models to the public, then pretty soon they won't have anyone to advertise TO. I have a bone to pick with society, and how it REALLY needs to change.