Blog 7 Eating Disorders

An eating disorder is a condition which affects an individuals eating habits, either as a result of their own doing or their bodies reaction to the food that they intake. The three major types of eating disorders are anorexia, bulemia and binge eating. I believe that the fashion industry and the media has had the biggest infulence on eating disorders. The media portrays that if you want to be accepted and popular, you are supposed to be thin and beautiful. In the article, Breaking the Model, by Graciela (Chely) H. Rodriguez in the book the Body Outlaws, describes a young latino girl who suffers with an eating disorder. She wants to be skinny because that is what the modeling agencies told her she had to be to be a model. She says that, "I feel the media's and society's images of women were more responsible. Like they do for so many girls, these images promised acceptance and happiness if I could only look like them." This quote was from a real teenager and just reinforces the media's influence on eating disorders. I do believe that food, appearance preoccupation and diet have become our societies new sacred rituals. That is the obsession right now. You can not watch 5 mins of commercials without seeing at least one to two ads on either weightloss, make-up or how to look tone. Society is teaching women everywhere that to be considered beautiful, you have to be thin. This is just corrupting women and their perception of beauty. That is why so many people decide that starving themselves and binging and purging is the best way to lose the weight and lose it fast. Because of the abundant economic climate eating disorders have rose. It used to be that to wear make-up you had money, or to be on a weight loss you had money. But now things are becoming less expensive and more readily available to the public. This is adding to women obsession that to be beautiful you need make-up and to be on weight loss pill. Again just adding to the obsession of eating disorders. Also women women can not control how pretty they are but they can control their weight, so that is why they turn to eating disorders like anorexia and bulemia.