Television And The Problem With Eating Disorders example essay topic

Television's Affect On Young Teens With the ever growing world of mass media becoming more accessible to our children, we must realize the effect television has on the youth of today. The views and images portrayed on television go right to the heart of American youth. Young men and women are being taught that being over weight or not being skinny enough means that you are unattractive and lazy. The ideal female body which television portrays as being normal has gone from the voluptuous figure of Marilyn Monroe and Mimi Van Doren to the skinny waist and bust-line of Pamela Anderson and Brittany Spears. It has become an obsessive, unattainable goal for our young teenage women. These teens find themselves in an endless battle to try and attain figures that are only made possible through cosmetic surgery and a profession that pays you to look a certain way.

Many girls who find themselves unhappy with their appearance turn to starvation, which later turns to binge eating, then to self-induced vomiting (Battegay 54). Eating disorders are far more common in the United States than in any other country. While some countries like Russia and Bosnia are struggling to find food, Americans are creating problems by consuming too much of it. Americanized countries or even any other industrialized countries with the direct influence of television are found to have considerably more problems with eating disorders.

Carolyn Costin states in her book The Eating Disorder Source that western women seem to be at greater risk for developing disorders and the degree of Westernization seems to increase the risk. Costin then goes on to say that Evidence suggests that anorexia is uncommon outside the Western world and in less affluent Western countries. Furthermore, when immigrants move from less industrialized countries to more industrialized countries they are more likely to develop eating disorders. Costin is trying to say that you are at a greater risk of developing an eating order such as anorexia or bulimia in an Americanized culture because of the importance and constant reminders in forms of mass media that you should look thin, loose weight and keep the weight off. These are all things that are ongoing in our brains and degrade the self-image we behold of ourselves. Costin goes on to say:" Advertisements for taking off weight and keeping it off are found in every magazine and newspaper, on billboards, television commercials, and bumper stickers with messages such as, 'Loose Weight Now, Ask Me How,' 'Lose twenty pounds, in twenty days.

' 'Get the body that get's guys,' 'Flatten your Stomach,' 'Reduce those thighs. ' At least twenty million people respond to the propaganda and are on a diet at any given moment". The problem of eating disorders is commonly addressed on television today. As depicted on the 'prime time's oap "Beverly Hills 90210" the actress Jenny Garth who plays Kelly on the show struggled with the abuse of weight loss pills. This informative episode on eating disorders discussed reasons for people having disorders and the feelings they felt while going through the experience. They described the feeling as helpless, and unable to change anything in their life.

And also having a negative opinion about body image (Cantor 25). Young women who watch their favorite stars with envious eyes are unable to recognize the unhealthy way in which women portray what may or may not be attractive. When young girls watch "Ally McBeal", and they see her sleek back and slender long legs, they do not see her back bone protruding out of her skin simply because she is sickly skinny. Recently I watched an episode of "Ally McBeal" which showed Ally through many stages of the show and the continuing theme of Ally becoming increasingly more and more skinnier. I am not proposing that the disorders in these teens heads should rest on the shoulders of these leading ladies of television, but there is clearly a connection to the images shown on television and the problem with eating disorders.

Having lived my entire life watching friends going through the problems involved with having eating disorders I begin to try and think of solutions to prevent this from happening to any kids feeling pressure of maintaining an unattainable figure. Professor Raymond Battegay suggests the problem with eating disorders begins with the parents, and the matter in which you raise your children. "Too little self-strength and confirmation of their own value early in childhood. They are uneasy about themselves and belittle themselves constantly".

What Battegay is saying is that the important influence and guidance of a mother and father during the time of puberty, the time of bodily changes, can have a tremendous effect on a child. I cannot disagree with Bettegay's point of the importance of parental supervision and assistance. However, I cannot see this as being the only vital role in a teens struggle with eating disorders. Every teen battles with acceptance growing up and in most cases the teens are struggling with the genetic makeup of their body. Patricia Fallon, a psychologist and writer says that eating disorders are far more common in women than with men. Why is that?

Fallon provides that perhaps it may be that the image portrayed as the ideal man is a healthy athletic looking man and the ideal image for a woman is a six foot, ninety-five pound runway model. Surrounded by images of tall, thin women, with constant reminders to lose weight. Patricia Fallon also suggests that many young women of today take pride in their appearance and consider the female body sacred. Fallon goes on to describe a female patient who expressed how she viewed the human form:" I envied those girls whose bodies were the source of masturbatory images.

There seemed to be an inherent, intimidating power that went with having such a body-a power that was every bit the equal to athletic prowess. I imagined that such a body would command more than unconditional love; it would impel awe". (Fallon et al. 17) To think that someone can be this involved with the way they see themselves others look is beyond me. It seems that some women may consider appearance a slight bit more important than most people may think. By understanding the problems women face and attempting to adjust the social standard from attractive to healthy, society can begin to help people with eating disorders and help stop the image television creates in our own living rooms.

In order to do so, television should be regulated and filtered from unwanted stereotypes, standards and morals. Looking at the SMCR model we can trace the problem back to the Source. (Straubhaar / La Rose p. 15) Today producers are creating these programs with outrageous plots and beautiful people that could never be attained in the real world by today's standards. This type of fantasy world is bad and it reflects everything that is wrong in our society from sex to drugs to greed.

We all say that those things we see on the television are corrupting our minds and our children's minds, but you almost cannot blame the producers. If you look at the "R" in the SMCR model you will see you will find the real problem. The receivers, the viewers of these programs are the real power behind the shows. The trigger whether or not the shows will stay on or not. The sad truth is that we keep these shows running. Robert La Rose of the University of Michigan and Joseph Straubhaar, of the University of Texas, Austin state their idea of the function of the receivers power as:" Feedback from the viewers is provided via television rating service and by cards letters and phone calls to the station".

(La Rose / Straubhaar p. 16) Alot of times with the euphoria of teen heartthrobs, stations are flooded with fan mail, letters and responses to the show, only increasing its popularity. This kind of attention will push a program far past being a pilot episode in to becoming a long running show that will keep on the air for as long as the money keeps on coming in. This makes both sides happy, the source and the receiver. So where do we find somebody to lay down a standard? This is where the Gatekeeper of the networks needs to step in.

The job of the Gatekeeper is to decide on what the audience should receive and thereby serving an agenda-setting function. (La Rose / Straubhaar p. 16) All different genres of magazines, television shows and advertisements can benefit from it. If you want to sell a beer product, Put your logo on a bathing suit let a skinny model wear the suit, and put the beer in her hands. If you are trying to sell a car put your logo on a bathing suit, let a skinny model wear the suit and put her on top of the car.

Sex sales in television and advertising. It not only sells the product, but also causes insecurities of what we should look like holding the product. The consumers feed the fire of the sources flurry to put products in our faces. Overall, media has increased its knowledge of its audience more rapidly than ever before.

We are monitored by sources we would have never imagined and the problem is getting worse. With the new age of wireless internet and Cracker Jack baseball card sized phones, companies are tracking our every move. They know what we watch, who we call, where we go, and what we buy. They know what products to offer us and they know where to find more people like us so they too can be targeted. (Cantor p. 32) The bottom line is that the media's effect on us through television is much greater than we know.

If they can convince us that our bodies are not slim enough, they can convince us that their products are worth buying. We need to rally for tighter standards from the Gatekeepers of television and the rest of mass media. The producers will only keep giving us more and as the audience becomes more and more desensitized we will only continue to want it until we become a warped society without values, morals or standards.