Eating Disorders: What Society Does To Us

Eating Disorders: An Essay

Welcome people, to a persuasive essay written by an eighth grader

Eating disorder: a psychological disorder, categorized and characterized by abnormal and unusual eating habits. But what if I said that they could not just "appear", that they were caused by something else? Something that's so popular and widespread, that it's overlooked and dismissed as the thing that's been pulling the strings, making so many people's lives miserable? Affecting their body image and diet/exercise habits?

It's social media, and how it promotes an unrealistic body standard.

Firstly, body image. Body image and body shaming are present in many, many movies and television shows. For example, Lariat Baylor declares, that in the popular movie Mean Girls there is a scene, "Where the three popular girls stand in front of a mirror and take turns talking about what they hate about their bodies... Mean Girls was a satire designed to highlight the absurdity of the standards for high school popularity, but it is important to remember that young audiences may not realize that." Young girls may have seen this intentionally satire movie, but may not have realized the real intention of the creators behind the jokes and teasing. They may have not figured out the figurative language, or the metaphors, and gone back to bed that night, thinking about all the things wrong about their bodies. They would justify it with the movie, saying that it was what all the popular girls did.

A junior in high school told The Daily, "'It has been very very difficult to keep that stuff out of my various social media feeds,' she said. 'I keep having to fight the little voice that's telling me I have to do something about my body.'" The junior agrees that the promotion of a perfect, thin, body is flooding social media, all over her feeds, telling her to meet the expectations of a perfect unattainable body. Amanda Swartz, a licensed psychologist at the TCU Counselling Center, says "Social media and mass media influence the way we react and interact with our world and potentially influence the perception of our own body image." Swartz confirms that social media affects how people perceive their bodies. For example, a girl in her teens could have a perfectly functional body, a healthy body, never feel insecure, never have a second thought on how she looks, just living her life with her friends happily. But when she goes on social media, her ideas of herself change. She starts to spend more time looking at herself, pointing out her small 'flaws' that were told that she had by social media. To sum it up, social media affects young girl's perception of their bodies and their body image.

Next, diet/exercise habits. They are also affected by social media promoting a thin body. Ruzekowicz says that Levin, a psychotherapist, made an educational video and offered support, but people still struggled. A sophomore said, "If I go back home I won't have access to a gym and if I don't have access to the gym I will gain weight." Though help is offered, the sophomore still says that they are still self-conscious about their weight, which leads to eating disorders. While some may claim that this is just because they are being "normal teenagers", but with that logic, "normal teenagers" are also on the internet commonly. And when on the internet, the image of an ideal body is shoved down their throats like they're a bulimic person purging. 

For those trying to recover from eating disorders, the standard is not helping them at all. Combined with change, their progress will be hindered and possibly erased. "Change, for many students with disordered eating, is a simple trigger that can cause relapses of varying lengths." Change comes in many places, and even a change in social media, a heightening of the expectations, can cause a chain reaction to people with eating disorders, making them start at square one, if they had already started the recovery process. Mulliniks declares that when television was introduced into an area, "within three years of television being introduced to the region, the amount of girls who induced vomiting to control their weight increased by 11 percent and the amount of girls scoring highly on a test for eating disorder risks increased by 16 percent." The introduction of girls to society's expectations had obviously had a negative impact on the girls, causing some of them to develop eating disorders and symptoms of eating disorders.

But, some believe that eating disorders are caused by genetics, or biology. Klump says that, "Eating disorders are similar to other psychological disorders that they are caused by the interaction of genes, biology, culture, and environment." The author of the article says that ED's are caused by a mix of things, but they failed to truly give the reader the full background on how eating disorders are heavily impacted by social media, shrinking down the truth like it's nothing. Baylor says "The saying goes that 'ignorance is bliss.' The thing about ignorance, though, is that a lack of awareness can often lead to the neglect of unaddressed issues." and "Having an ED is not merely a manifestation of self-absorption or vanity." Eating disorders aren't just caused by culture, biology, genes, and the like. They're caused by a mix of these things, but logically speaking, if you're constantly bombarded with the idea of a perfect body everyday, it'll surely overcome hundreds of years of culture, let alone genetics. Lots of evidence has been found that social media has a serious effect on young children and women, as said in 'I just want to be skinny.': A content analysis of tweets expressing eating disorder symptoms, "a 25-country European Kids Online survey found that 10% of children aged 9-16 had seen Pro-ED sites online."

Many people say that eating disorders are just phases, ignore the signs, and dismiss them without a second thought, there can and will be consequences. If the person affected has anorexia, consequences such as osteoporosis and heart issues may arise, should the disorder not be taken care of. In addition, because anxiety and depression are common in people who suffer from eating disorders, belittling their issue may cause them to clam up and be unable to receive much needed help. Also, young children, not even in the double-digited-age range have seen sites encouraging eating disorders. Young children, only nine years old, have been told that their body is wrong and distorted, by social media, television, and the internet.

In conclusion, social media does more than just lightly nudge the idea of a perfect body to people everywhere. It shoves it down their throats, taunting, convincing, insulting, telling them to do something about their diet, their exercise habits, and affects their body image on top of that. To conclude, society's promotion of a thin, 'perfect' body causes people to develop a distorted body image and expectations for themselves, which can lead to eating disorders.

If you or someone you know may be affected by an eating disorder, please, please, take action and get help.

Stay safe, happy, and healthy please,

Star~Chan