Eating Disorders Essays (1173 words) - Body Shape, Self,

Eating Disorders In America today, we often here of people who suffer daily from illnesses such as cancer and AIDS. What we dont often here about is the illness that takes away millions and millions of Americans each year, that being eating disorders(Understanding). But, what does that term eating disorders mean. Think about it. Did your answer center around, food, weight or dieting? If so, then you understand something about the symptoms of an eating disorder. But if that's all you're thinking about, you may be unaware of the underlying causes of this disease. One of the biggest causes of this sometimes-fatal disease has to do with body image. The impact of a disturbance in body image on a persons life may be frustrating or debilitating depending on how severe the disturbance is. A large percentage of men and women in our culture struggle with dissatisfaction with some aspect of their appearance. Kim Chernin supports this point by stating, One women disliked her thighs, another her stomach, a third the loose flesh under her arms. Many would grab their skin and squeeze it as we talked, with the grimace of distaste language cannot translate into itself.(58). In 1996, a survey found that fifty-six percent of women and forty-three percent of men disliked their overall appearance with an even larger percentage dissatisfied with individual attributes such as weight and mid torso(Understanding). A person with an eating disorder typically suffers from a body image disturbance that can impact many areas of his or her life. Most women are given the message at a very young age that in order to be happy and successful, they must be thin. Every time you walk into a store you are surrounded by the images of emaciated models that appear on the front cover of all fashion magazines. Thousands of teenage girls are starving themselves this very minute trying to attain what the fashion industry considers to be the ideal figure. The average model weighs 23% less than the average woman. Maintaining a weight that is 15% below your expected body weight fits the criteria for anorexia, so most models, according to medical standards, fit into the category of being anorexic(The Mind). Teenagers need to realize that society's ideal body image is not achievable. The photos we see in magazines are not real either. Many people don't realize that those photos have gone through many touch ups and have been airbrushed to make the models look perfect. Teenagers striving to attain societies unattainable ideal image will just end up increasing their feelings of inadequacy. Teenagers are under a lot of pressure to be thin. They are lead to believe that the only way they can be accepted and fit in, is if they are thin. They resort to starving, vomiting and eating only diet foods to try and be thin. Television is a big influence on them. They watch shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place and feel they need to look as thin as the actresses on these shows. Many actresses we see on TV have endured hours of exercise and have deprived themselves of the proper nutrition in order to maintain a thin figure. Some even resort to plastic surgery, such as liposuction and breast implants. You just have to watch an episode of Baywatch to know that statement is true. Society is brainwashing young people into believing that being thin is important and necessary. Another problem is, diet commercials are constantly appearing on our television screens telling us that once we lose the weight, we will be happy. While your standing in the check out line at the grocery store you are surrounded by magazines claiming to have the newest and best diet. Each month another new diet appears claiming to be the diet to end all diets. Whatever happened to last month's diets that claimed the same thing? Dieting has become an obsession in the United States. We spend billions of dollars each year trying to look the way society tells us we need to look. If diets really worked, then why are there so many of them? The reason a new diet pops up each month, is because last's month's diets did not work. You