Media and Body Image

The purpose of this article is to investigate the decision of a female athlete to transition to an eating disorder to maintain what they think are the "perfect body" of the ideal body they should have. The concept of eating disorders reminds us of when we learned about violence and prejudice in sports. People with eating disorders are seeking acceptance in the public. Spitting out food to make the body look beautiful is contrary to social norms. Eating disorders are not only violating social norms but are also considered self-destructive.

Media and body image problems are important for eating disorders and other diseases related to the body image. Of course, not everyone with an eating disorder is adversely affected by the media, and the media may not be the only reason for someone's eating disorder. However, it is usually a contributing factor. As mentioned above, the unrealistic image we see in the media may contribute to the development of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Anorexic people restrict calories. They may actually be very thin, but many people do this because they think they are overweight. People may be anorexia for other reasons; for example, some people control their food intake as a way to maintain some degree of control of life, it seems uncontrollable. However, distortion of the body is a common factor in anorexia patients

Recently we know that the media closely relates to the image of the body. In particular, the image advertisement of the body depicts the image that affects our own body. Of course, there are many other factors that influence our body image: child rearing, education, intimacy etc. However, popular media has a big influence. Americans spend 250 billion hours a year to watch television. According to California State University Northridge, advertisement accounts for about 30% of all TV broadcasting time. Ordinary children see commercials of 20,000 TVs a year. Of course, it is not the place where only the TV watches advertisements. Popular magazines, especially women's magazines and many young people's magazines, are filled with advertisements. Pop-up ads are also displayed on the web.