Anorexia: Role of the Media (Essay Sample)

Anorexia: The Role of Media
Abraham Odhiambo
Kenyatta University
Anorexia: The Role of Media
Anorexia is an eating disorder in which people try as much as possible to keep their body weight low by cutting down on their food intake. The media plays an important role in the development and maintenance of anorexia. Besides fueling anorexia, the media can also be used as a channel to create awareness and reduce the viral spread of anorexia. Anorexia is one of the diseases with highest death rates as a result of starvation.
Most victims who succumb to this disorder are young females aged 10-15 years (York, 2013). Such individuals are exposed to a lot of television advertisements which have powerful influence in their lives. Besides advertisements, television programs, which are liked by individuals of this age group, show characters that are excessively slender. This group of individuals tend to take after their icons and to achieve this they cut down on their food intake. A higher percentage of teen females are addicted to fashion magazines which shows images of female celebrities with slender bodies. These young females find such celebrity bodies attractive. Seeing such slender bodies, they tend to develop body dissatisfaction. In order to be charismatic, physically attractive and thus acquire status, they develop new eating strategies which means cutting down on their food intake all in the name of being beautifully thin. In addition, thin bodies to this group emphasize freedom and fun.
The role of media in the priming and maintenance of this disorder can never be opposed due to its portrayal of models, beauty queens and actresses, who are seen by most as beauty icons, to have reduced body weight (Spettigue & Henderson, 2004). The media, by showing slender and skinny photos of celebrities, associates body size with success. Many young women after seeing such images believe that they are overweight and want to be smart (Abideen, Latif, Khan, & Farooq, 2011). The media portray the image of an ideal woman as to have extremely reduced weight and women respond by following the vision (Abideen et al., 2011). In addition, the images of slender women exposed by the media is seen by young females as the epitome of beauty and this negatively affects the emotional well being of the female body image (Spettigue& Henderson, 2004). Generally the media tries to emphasize on the beauty of a slender and skinny body. Wolf (1990) argues that the American culture disempower women by holding them to an unattainable beauty ideal. This instills fear of being fat and women end up falling victims of anorexia.
To control this disorder, the media should take a step in creating awareness to the groups who are most vulnerable to slender-beauty allure. This is by encouraging them to feel good about themselves (York, 2013). The media should also try to include warning notes against anorexia prior to exposure of unrealistic images that majority of co...