Media's Influence on Body Image and Eating Disorders

    
     In my last blog post I talked about social factors and I said that they are things, people, places, or events that influence a person's behavior. Also I included that there are two subcategories of social factors and they were social location and social institutions. In my blog post today I am going to give an example of something that can influence a person's behavior as well as their actions. I am going to talk about the media and although it influences many things I am going to talk about how it influences eating disorders and dissatisfaction of body image in young women and men. Media is known as a social institution and if you don't remember what social institutions are from my last blog, they are things found in every society that can influence a person's behavior. Remember social institutions aren't always found at a specific location or building. Media is a social institution because it is found in every society, even if it viewed differently or advertisements are displayed in a different way.


     Body image is a big part of our society today. The reason it is big part of our society is because of the mass media that surrounds us in our everyday lives. Mass media is the advertisements that we see everyday, ranging from television to newspapers, from magazines to radio. Mass media changes how people view themselves, young girls for example see models and actors that are too tiny to be healthy. They then think that in order to be considered "beautiful" you have to be tiny, have large boobs, and long legs. Boys, see men that are extremely muscular and think that in order to be attractive you have to be super muscular. Media effects the health of the overall population in many ways but one of the major things that the media influences is body image.

     To the public the ideal teenage girl is five foot seven inches tall and weighs 100 pounds and has a size five waist, her body mass index would be 15.70(Groesz 2001: 1). This girl has very little fat on her body according to her BMI. So that you have a little bit of an idea of what I am trying to show you I am going to tell you about the body mass index scale. The scale for body mass index is twenty four and under you are considered in a healthy body mass range, twenty five and above you are considered over weight, and thirty and over you are considered obese. To calculate your body mass you take your weight and multiply is by 705 and then divide that by your height squared, keep in mind that this equation doesn't account for muscle. The media today shows girls that are extremely skinny, showing the image that to be beautiful you have to be skinny. This message of being skinny is what girls, mainly teens, view as beautiful and so they develop eating disorders in order to become “beautiful”. From ages 15-19 125.1 females per 100,000 females develop an eating disorder in a year. During the ages of 20-24 82.7 females per 100,000 females obtain an eating disorder within a year (Groesz 2001: 7). Girls with eating disorders do what they can to make themselves skinny, even when they get skinny they still consider themselves fat and it is unhealthy for their bodies and their mental state. The eating disorders I am talking about today are called Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Anorexia Nervosa is a disorder where mental and physical health are not in good condition and you refuse to eat and are afraid of gaining weight as well as being very concerned of how people view you. Bulimia Nervosa is also a disorder where you mental and physical health aren't in good condition but instead of not eating you eat and then vomit to get the food out of your system (Harrison 1997).

 

      As one example of a piece of media that influences people at a young age, I found a picture showing what would have to be done to a regular women to make her be a “life size” Barbie. There is a group of people who calculated what Barbie would look like if she were a real women. (I read this a while ago on Facebook and I know it isn't a very reliable source but I thought it was an interesting point to show how media can effect our lives and how one social factor can make or break someones physical and mental health.) If Barbie was a real person her feet would be a child's size 3, making it almost impossible to walk. Her breasts would be a size 39 FF, making her chest so heavy that she would have trouble walking especially on her child's size three feet. Also, her neck would be twice as long as a normal person's neck making it so that she couldn't hold up her own head. As you can see since very young ages we have been growing up with the thought that to be considered pretty we have to be super skinny, even since we were still playing with dolls. The lines on the lady to the left represent where she would have to get plastic surgery in order to be the “life size” Barbie. This is what the children of our society grew up with and believe to be beautiful, these thoughts make young girls self-conscious about their bodies and make them think that in order for them to be attractive they have to be like Barbie or the models they see on T.V.. The way the media shows the view of women causes young women and girls to obtain eating disorders. Barbie is only one example of the way that the media influences our thoughts on body image.

    
     Another way that the media influences body image is magazines, images of celebrities, heroes, people that are looked up to by children and teens all over the world. In a study I found there was a man who gave a magazine to a young teen and then after she read it the man asked her what her thoughts were and she said “ Am I fat? . . . Am I overweight? Like, you never think about it until you look at it”, research shows that magazines are normally used as a social comparison standard and this only proves the point (Groesz 2001: 2). Media makes it seem like a girls body is the most important part of her existence making young girls now a days very caught up in what is viewed as beautiful and the“perfect” body. It is common that when a female is on an advertisement they don't show her whole body, they show parts of her body such as things like long legs, boobs, or flat stomachs (Groesz 2001). The media is trying to make the female body seem as “sexy” as they can. They use females as an object of desire, making young girls think that in order to be desired they need to be like the models on television or advertisements. To fit in the range of “beautiful” girls fight against their bodies natural physiology, making their selves sick, mentally and physically (Greosz 2001).

    

       The image that the media shows of women has a huge impact on the way that people view their selves and their body image. Media is making children, teens, and young adults unhealthy in many ways than one. Media, being a social institution, something found in every society, has a huge impact on how we view our bodies and it is making the people in our societies unhealthy and unhappy.

      As a side note media is not the same all over the world and it doesn't effect everyone the same. So when I talk about the mass media making society unhealthy and unhappy I do not mean everyone because everyone has their own views and their own feelings about the media and the images the media chooses to show. On that note it interests me to know what your views or on the media today, do you think that it affects how people view themselves or would you disagree?

 

 

References

1. Groesz, L. M., Levine, M. P., & Murnen, S. K. (2001, March 2). The Effect of Experimental Presentation of Thin Media Images on Body Satisfaction: A Meta-Analytic Review. International Journal of Eating Disorders.
2. Harrison, K. (1997). The Relationship Between Media Consumption and Eating Disorders. Journal of Communication.