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Today you may open up a magazine, flip on the television set, or even surf the web and get an overwhelming feeling of discomfort due to the fact of the images portrayed in these places. We all have a certain way of wanting to be the thin photogenic girl or boy in Sports Illustrated with the perfect body, and that is never the case. Is societal pressure to be thin to blame? The fact of the matter is people go through unhealthy eating habits to maintain these images.
Eating disorders are such big news that it may make you wonder if it is normal to have one. Newspapers love to make assumptions pertaining to whether of not a celebrity has an eating disorder.
The name itself gives off a range of problems that people have with eating and the way they think and feel about their bodies. Even though there are a wide variety of eating disorders, in which that are all harmful to the body, you have basically three main types. These are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and compulsive eating disorder. (Warbrick, 6) Anyone with an eating disorder considers food the enemy and is something she or he has to control. (Gay,10) In which this leads to the social pressures.
We are all encouraged to eat for more than we really need by advertisements that we are constantly exposed to. For example, a recipe for a chocolate cake in a magazine is likely to be right next to an article on how to lose weight. I mean, we are encouraged by the media to eat more, than again, at the same time we are told to deny ourselves food. All the confusion is making it seem like we’re being set up for failure if we too little or not enough. Television, magazines, and movies all send out the massage that fat is bad and that thin is good, so this affects the way people come to think about themselves and others.
Jessica Johnston points out that the media frequently features women who are well below the average age healthy weight, causing normal women to feel like...