Eating Disorders

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Eating Disorders
Mass media are types of communication coordinated towards a considerable group of people and comprise of books, TV, magazines, web, radio, newspapers, and any other ways of communication (Helsin et al. 560). The media presently has turned out to be more influential than before, and it is hard to come across an individual who does not use one of the various types of media in their day-to-day existence. The media has taken a focal part in our lives, and furthermore, can impact on the manner in which we think and see things around us. Specifically, TV and more presently web are the most popular types of media as they can consolidate sound and pictures and are more pragmatic to their audiences. A significant factor to state with regards to media is the impacts of advertising with its inclination to, in due course, convince the viewers about services and products or other exciting matters. One generalization is that media appears to endorse certain body images for both females and males. Messages encourage the notion that to be triumphant and good-looking you must be thin. Conversely, this has caused numerous and especially the youth to end up being fixated on their body mass which prompts eating disorders like binge eating, bulimia, and anorexia nervosa.
Various researches have been carried out on how the media impacts on eating disorders, and specific hypotheses have surfaced from studies on how the media affects the body image. One theory that might explain media influences is the sociocultural theory, and in particular, the social comparison theory.

Social Comparison Theory has been comprehensively analyzed and postulates that individuals are predisposed to need to enhance themselves and are attracted to want to look like other individuals especially if these individuals are what they are striving to resemble (Hesse-Biber et al. 210). Relating social comparison theory to media effect on eating disorder, when presented to romanticized body images of similar sexual orientation, individuals are inclined to contrast themselves to such perfection. This usually leads up to people being dissatisfied with how they look, particularly, if they do not match up the ideal body image.
Another theory that explains the influence of media on eating disorders is the Cultivation Theory. It states that as the consumption of media goes up, the audience is progressively persuaded that the pictures they see are pragmatic (Hesse-Biber et al. 219). Cultivation Theory has been observed to be accurate even in the analysis where the users are educated on the manners in which the media modify pictures to construct unfeasibly “perfect” individuals (Bissell 12). The act of calcimining is presently typical in nearly all types of media, and the vast number of calcimined pictures that are shown to the world can ensure that the youth are contrasting their bodies to improbable and unachievable shapes that they see.
It appears as if the media in the only factor that influences eating disorders in youth, however, that is not true and researches show that it is an exceptionally solid determining variable. Several researchers have discovered that the media influences the youth by making them think that the pictures they see are practical and make them want to resemble the people they see on TV or in magazines. This unavoidably causes a considerable number of youth, who are not naturally thin like the pictures portrayed in the media, to search for ways they can get thinner. This can turn into a fixation and eventually become an eating disorder.
Works Cited
Bissell, Kimberly L. “Skinny like you: Visual literacy, digital manipulation and young women’s drive to be thin.” Studies in media & information literacy education 6.1 (2006): 1-14.
Henslin, James M., et al. Sociology: A down to earth approach. Pearson Higher Education AU, 2015.
Hesse-Biber, Sharlene, et al. “The mass marketing of disordered eating and eating disorders: The social psychology of women, thinness and culture.” Women’s studies international forum. Vol. 29. No. 2. Pergamon, 2006.