How Television Promotes Eating Disorders

Eating disorders run rampant among college-aged women. Desires to be thin lead these college students to begin diets. Although most don't go beyond the dieting stage, a few develop eating disorders. Anorexia nervosa, self-starvation, and bulimia nervosa, binging food and then purging, are the two most common forms. Girls, and some guys for that matter, use these methods in order to control weight. In the case of anorexics, the desire to be thin has developed to the point that a sufferer sees themselves as too fat even when they are starving and totally emaciated. Bulimics, unable to control themselves around food, binge on massive amounts of food and then vomit as a means of not having to pay the caloric consequences.

It should be noted that eating disorders are not strictly vanity issues, but that desire to be thin is where they often start. What can we blame the eating disorder phenomenon on? Psychiatrist have debated how peer pressure, family pressures, self-expectations, and even genes all play a role in the development of eating disorders. One factor most psychiatrists agree on, however, is the influence television has had.

Television has created body image ideals that are impossible for most people to achieve. Turn on almost any television show, and images of bone-thin women and muscular, v-shaped men will flash back. As television became the prime source of American entertainment, the number of reported cases of eating disorders rose. Coincidence? I don't think so. A study was recently published about the influence of television on the Fijian Islands. Anne Becker, an MD who received her PhD from Harvard Medical School, conducted a study on how television effected the way girls viewed themselves.

Anne collected data from a population of girls just before television was introduced to the island. Traditional Fijian customs generally valued large appetites and large framed women. The data Anne collected reflected the 2000 year old values of the Fijians. The girls had no desire to be thin, instead opting to follow the age old customs of the land. Eating disorders simply did not exist.