Body Image

Body Image

Each year an estimated forty to one hundred billion dollars is made in the diet industry through the advertisement and distribution of weight loss pills. From this, an estimated ninety to ninety-five percent of consumers report having gained all their weight back. Another study reads that of "four thousand two hundred and ninety four network television commercials, one out of every three point eight commercials send some sort of 'attractiveness message,' telling viewers what is or is not attractive" (www.nationaleatingdisorders.org). The amount of pressure the media puts on society to uphold certain images in which they deem as beautiful is an ongoing battle in the health of women as well as men. According to The American research group, Anorexia Nervosa & Related Eating Disorders, Inc., "one out of every four college-aged women uses unhealthy methods of weight control - including fasting, skipping meals, excessive exercising, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting" (www.mediaawarenessnetwork.com). Even more disturbing, is the fact that "nearly half of all preadolescent girls, ages nine to twelve, wish to be thinner, and as a result have engaged in a diet or are aware of the concept of dieting" (www.mediaawarenessnetwork.com).

Media messages crying out "this is in" do not directly cause eating disorders, but help to generate the context within which people learn to internalize and place a value on the size and shape of their body. The media is why many of us buy designer jeans or expensive cars we cannot afford, or purchase diamond necklaces that will cause financial hardship but do it anyways because we are blinded by the lie that being "hip" and "fashionable" and owning expensive material goods will solve all problems; that the more you have the more you are, promising such things as the perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career. This is in fact quite the opposite, material goods do not bring the content happiness the media displays, and in many instances having less is more. Owning nice things or wearing nice clothes is not the issue, it is the pressure people put on themselves in obtaining an unrealistic, inconceivable, and incongruous standard of a look that can never be obtained. "Researchers generating a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll proportions, for example, found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and few centimeters of bowel. A real woman built that way would suffer from chronic diarrhea and eventually die from malnutrition. Jill Barad, president of Mattel (which manufactures Barbie) estimated that ninety nine percent of girls aged three to ten years old own at least one Barbie doll." (www.mediaawarnessnetwork.com). "In addition, a recent study of