By: Tyeasha Williams
Being Thin In Society…
What role does society play in young girls becoming anorexic, and bulimic? In the world around you today all you see is thin beautiful flawless like models, actresses, and video vixens. The affect it takes on a young girl’s mind that hits puberty and is going through changes with her body can be terribly wrong or wonderful. If the girl transitions from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan, than she fits into what the world believes is beautiful. Society see’s overweight as a girl who wears more than a size 2-4. These images they portray have caused a lot of teen girls to either want to lose weight the wrong way or suffer with self esteem issues.
In the picture on the bottom left is a girl suffering from anorexia, she has to be at least 76 pounds but continues to see herself as FAT. You the reader can see she has gone too far with her weight lost, but the image she is seeing in the mirror conveys an overweight girl. Most anorexic or bulimic girls suffer from their disease because being fat is not pretty to society. Even though, most anorexic and bulimic girls are not happy with their body even if you can see every bone in their bodies. Some of these girl’s seek treatment and recover but the battling with their eating disorder will remain a constant struggle. It’s said that most eating disorder patients will relapse their first time returning home from treatment. Returning back to the same environment where their disease all began without the right supervision is what really causes the relapse to occur.
It is not surprising that eating disorders are on the increase because of the value society places on being 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. 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 air-brushed to make the models look perfect. Teenagers striving to attain society's unattainable ideal image will just end up increasing their feelings of inadequacy.
Below is a link to an episode of True Life "I Have An Eating Disorder"
Part 1: http://youtu.be/CvuCdcMOyoo
Part 2: http://youtu.be/Kh7M8yNKQ7M
Part 3: http://youtu.be/tksXL5FQg4k
Part 4: http://youtu.be/JvItWDXmN7U
I really enjoyed your blog. I feel as though that you picked a great topic on health and society. YOu even gave great ideas that most of us never would think
ReplyDeleteDowwitt Denson
Good Topic. It's sad that this society believes and puts in the heads of others that thin is the way to be. What needs to be understand and portrayed more in the media that people come in all shapes and sizes and it should be embraced.
ReplyDeleteQ.Haynes
Posted by:Tazkeyah A.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting blog and I enjoyed reading it. It is really sad the way society can make women/girls feel about their body. Once they do become anorexic or bulimic it is really hard to help them; because it’s a psychological problem. I watched a show called intervention and on that show you see grown women dealing with this disease. It is sad because companies know what effect their ads have on women/girls. But they don’t care; all they care about is money.