Eating Disorder Research

Prevent Eating Disorders: How Media Affects Your Body Image by Sandra Kim Leong

Before you develop an eating disorder it really is important to know how to prevent eating disorders. If you already have an eating disorder, you have a serious problem. You should not feel alone though. This type of problem is becoming more and more common in modern times. Thus, it is becoming more and more important to prevent eating disorders.

You must also understand the media is partly responsible for this trend. It places unrealistic expectations on us about what is beautiful. Increasingly, television plays a large role in the mental development of children. This is because some families use the television as a babysitter. Since children are quite impressionable, it is important to start to prevent eating disorders at an early age.

Television always uses really thin models. In fat, the average female model’s body weight is 25% less than her ideal weight. Most of these models have also undergone plastic surgery. Furthermore, their photos appearing on magazines are also airbrushed in order to do away with flaws. In this way, a beauty standard is created that is most people cannot attain.

We are still surrounded by these images at least 400 to 600 times per day. This is the average number of advertisements that we view daily. Cutting down on how many ads you see per day is one way in which to prevent eating disorders. One out of eleven of these advertisements is actually for a beauty product.

Once your child is in school, he or she may receive additional pressure. Youths are mean and often tease each other about their appearance. Thus, you can see why so many people are suffering from an eating disorder today.

Studies show that we need to do a better job to prevent eating disorders because one out of seven college-aged females have a problem with bulimia, and one out of a hundred have a problem with anorexia. These problems often require psychotherapy because the problems are deeply rooted on a psychological level. In fact, one out of every ten people who suffer from an eating disorder will die because of the damage that the eating disorder does to the body.

Eating disorder is clearly a very serious problem. The media needs to be a lot more responsible when it comes to the images that they show our impressionable younger generations. At the same time, you need to take matters into your own hands if you do not want our future generation to be obsessed with ideas of body image to the extent of hurting themselves. Now you can see that it is really important to work to prevent eating disorders. About the author: Surviving on 5 carrots a day? Or been purging regularly after a super sized meal? Find out what eating disorder can do to you here at http://www.eating-disorder-research.com