Early on it the week I watched Gok Wan’s Teens: The Naked Truth. Although a very bizarre way to find inspiration for this week’s blog, after watching it, I was truly shocked by what I’d learnt from the program. During the episode two girls are featured; a 14 year old girl who at the age of 12 developed the eating disorder of Anorexia Nervosa and a 15 year old girl that due to the media and the ‘cyber world’ had an extreme loss in self confidence and an aspiration to look like the models she was bombarded with on the internet every day. Feeling that only when she looked like airbrushed models would she be ‘pretty’ and look like what the ‘rest of society’ wanted her to look like, setting unrealistic and unachievable goals. Whilst at college I never studied Eating Disorders or really ever looked into Anorexia Nervosa. It was interesting to read up on studies and see just how much it was affecting the lives of not only men and women, but teenagers too.
In this blog post I am just going to focus upon teenagers and how they are affected by eating disorders, mainly anorexia nervosa. However, eating disorders are common in men and women, old or young. It is more frequently found to affect women, (up to 90% of anorexia cases) but does also affect men. A book written by J, Silverman showed that one of the first two cases reported of anorexia was found in a male.
The DSM defines the criteria of Anorexia Nervosa as the refusal to maintain a healthy weight for that person’s height and weight. The fear of becoming fat and beginning to have distorted body image, along with the refusal to accept weight gain due to ones physical development. It is found that people who are more prone to suffer from anorexia come from backgrounds of sexual abuse, over controlling families in which nurturance is lacking but there are many causes for eating disorders whether that be peer pressure, the influence of the media and what they are making girls and boys believe is perfection or the desire to have control over something in your life. Sullivan (1995) studied the mortality rate over time associated with anorexia nervosa. The aggregate mortality rate was estimated at 0.56% per year, this being 12 times higher than the annual death rate due to all causes of death for females between the ages of 15-18 years old in the general public.
A study conducted by Steiner and Lock (1997) stated that although research into eating disorders had progressed there was very little research specific to children and teens into treatment of an eating disorder. Even though this study was conducted 15 years ago more research shows that Anorexia is more often onset in teenage years and is most common amongst teenage girls with recent studies showing that the average age in teenage girls with anorexia had decreased from between 13 – 17 to an incredibly young age of 9 – 12.
Now a lot more research can be found on Anorexia within teenagers I still believe more research in this area should be done. I feel that the media is now influencing upon our younger generations a lot more than it should be. Children and teenagers are presented with images of flawless women, all skinny, with perfect hair, perfect make up and clothes and are made to believe that this what they should look like. We are making them strive for a level of perfection that is not achieveable; and as I saw in Gok Wan’s program children and becoming obsessed with not only how they look but their size too, with some resorting to an eating disorder to try and make themselves look like what they believe, ‘society wants’.
This link is a news article about Isabelle Caro, a frech model who recently died who struggled with anorexia http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/isabelle-caro-the-face-of-anorexia-dies-at-28-2172590.html?fb_action_ids=2790033307780&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=recent_activity#access_token=AAADWQ6323IoBANax8njeWDtZB1t15xmbsRZAsEQYuyBPdOjwVJ4ObNZAXgBknJfiIAIDzLujzDRSJ7NLdLu59ywy53FhqZAjSZAzpT86oUPZAbytkWdyE0&expires_in=6614
The link below is to a video of Gok Wan’s program on Channel 4 and a 12 year olds story about her eating disorder. If you have time to spare, it is worth a watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMpv757eFHE
References
Joseph A. Silverman – http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dQ7PX4LE-ZsC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=anorexia+psychology&ots=JNdZymuwhn&sig=787sgOlyussizbPDIn0SeD_uTJ8#v=onepage&q=anorexia%20psychology&f=false
http://www.eatingdisorders.org.nz/index.php?id=764
http://www.jaacap.com/article/S0890-8567(09)63041-0/abstract
Mortality in anorexia nervosa. Sullivan, Patrick F. The American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 152(7), Jul 1995, 1073-1074
jrwpsychology 
Research has highlighted that exposure to the idyllic thin standard of beauty, frequently depicted in broader media and advertising, can contribute to body image disturbance among young women (Posavac, Posavac & Weigel, 2001). In addition women with anorexia and bulimia have been identified, as overestimating their own body size, as a product of viewing idealised female bodies in the media (Hamilton & Walker, 2001). Ogden and Sherwood (2008) examined whether the impact of such media imagery culminating in female body dissatisfaction, could be diminished by an educational intervention, revealing the power of airbrushing. They found that education regarding airbrushing reduced the adverse impact of viewing images of thinner women, for female participants in their investigation. This led them to conclude that media images can contribute to body dissatisfaction among women. However a basic educational intervention targeting airbrushing could be effective in safeguarding women. Furthermore the creation and widespread use of pro anorexia websites has also been found to reduce self esteem, self efficacy and attractiveness among young females (Bardone-cone & Cass, 2006). This is worrying as an increasing number of teenagers have access to the internet where they can readily access these websites which encourage food restriction, enabling the maintenance of an eating disorder. I agree with you that the media can play a role in not only orchestrating the establishment of an eating disorder but the maintenance. Furthermore I believe that it is necessary for more educational interventions to be implemented, to protect people who are vulnerable to the effects of distorted and unrealistic media imagery, regarding body image and size.
References
Bardone-cone, A., & Cass, K. (2006). Investigating the impact of pro anorexia websites: A pilot study. European Eating Disorders, 14, 256-262.
Hamilton, K., & Walker, G. (2001). Media influences on body size estimation in anorexia and bulimia. An experimental study. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 162, 837-840. doi:10.1192/bjp.162.6.837
Ogden, J., & Sherwood, F. (2008). Reducing the impact of media images: an evaluation of the effectiveness of an educational intervention on body dissatisfaction. Health Education, 108, 6. doi: 10.1108/09654280810910890
Posavac, H., Posavac, S., & Weigel, R. (2001). Reducing the impact of media images on women at risk or body image disturbance: three targeted interventions. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 20, 3, 324-340. doi: 10.1521/jscp.20.3.324.22308
Whilst the media clearly has a big influence on people in terms of their perceptions of ‘normal’ or acceptable when it comes to appearance and size, there are other explanations as to the roots of anorexia nervosa. In an early model of anorexia nervosa, Bruch (1973) suggested the common association between anorexia and an attempt to exert some form of control over life and experience independence. Another psychodynamic explanation from Crisp (1980) suggests that the loss of body weight due to anorexia nervosa in females may be in some cases to postpone or stop menstruation where a girl cannot cope with the onset of adulthood and the responsibilities and changes associated with development. Furthermore, Minuchin, Rosman and Baker (1978) suggest that anorexia nervosa may be a means to divert attention away from other issues within a family.
There is also research into the genetics of anorexia, using twin studies, to suggest that there is a significant genetic contribution to the development of eating disorders (Holland et al 1984).
Therefore whilst there is clearly a great degree of interaction between media influence and disorders such as anorexia, there are a lot of other contributing factors.
References
Bruch, H. (1973). Eating Disorders. Basic Books: New York.
Crisp, A. H. (1980). Anorexia nervosa: let me be. London : Academic Press.
Holland, A. J., Hall, A., Murray, R., Russell, G. F. M. & Crisp, A. H. (1984). Anorexia nervosa : a study of 34 twin pairs. British Journal of Psychiatry 145, 414-419.
Minuchin , S. Rosman , S. L. Baker , L. (1978). Psychosomatic families. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
A study by Furnhama and Alibhai (1983) investigates different cultures perceptions of body shapes. It was found that yes, in Britain, skinny bodies were preferred, and preferring an anorexic body was not uncommon. Kenyans, on the other hand, preferred women with larger bodies. This is probably due to the fact that a large number of Kenyans do not have enough food, so a larger woman indicates wealth and health. There is also the factor that a larger woman in Kenya is possibly more fertile, and able to provide for offspring. In Britain, food is freely available to nearly everyone. Being thin could show control. But being anorexicly thin can cause infertility and is not healthy, so does not follow the previous idea.
References:
Furnham, A., & Alibhai, N. (1983). Cross-cultural differences in the perception of female body shapes. Psychological Medicine, 13(4), 829-837. DOI: 10.1017/S0033291700051540
Whilst there are obviously numerous factors which instrigate the beginning of anorexia nervosa, the lergest culprit to me is the media and our expose to it.
If we had no “idealistic” image to compare ourselves to, then how would we know what society expects us to look like, in turn we would be more likely to aspire to look the way WE want to look, not how everybody else expects us to look.
Constant ridule and criticism is apparent within the media, natural characteristics of the body such as cellulite, or post pregnancy fat are portrayed as wrong and we shouldnt have them, how can the way somebody looks be wrong?
“Every society has a way of torturing its women, whether by binding their feet or by sticking them into whalebone corsets. What contemporary American culture has come up with is designer jeans.” – Joel Yager.
Mass media, including, television, magazines and the internet, have been found to highly correlate with neagtive body image and decreased dissatisfaction amoung both women and men. (Derenne.J.L, Beresin.E.V,2006)
Yet the age at which children are being exposed to this is getting younger, so maybee its time for parents to step in, according to the results of the above study, parents should encourage healthy eating, physical exercise and activities which boost self esteem. But to what extent can we really sheild the younger generation from something that is growing by the second?
While it would appear that the media can have a negative effect in contributing to the problem of eating disorders, it would seem there are many other reasons for why people develop these problems and it is often not just the media alone. Many teenagers that have eating disorders will have been largely influenced by family members as well as friends. Parents that diet are more likely to have teenagers that become obsessed with weight and teenagers with friends that diet are more likely to try to diet themselves which is often the first step to developing an eating disorder. Eating disorders are often also reactions to what is going on in the child’s life as they are often a way of feeling in control about something thus are more likely to appear after the death of a family member or the seperation of parents. Therefore the problem of eating disorders in the young can not be solely blamed on the influence of the media.
I stated in my blog that I did not believe that the media was the only cause for eating disorders. There are many other reasons for why people develop a eating disorder. Just that in my personal opinion, the media plays a vital role :).