Preventing Eating Disorders

Many articles have been written about eating disorders in news and media. Eating disorders are fast becoming a common issue with the young nowadays. Many of our young are not shielded by the influence of the media. Eating disorders can cause death. Thus, it is important to find out ways on how to prevent eating disorders.

The media has a major impact on the development of eating disorders. It sets unrealistic expectations on what it considers a beautiful body image to be. With the constant bombardment of ads, the mental development of you or your child gets distorted. Some families do not realize this danger and use the television as a babysitter and as couch potato. This is not wise as children can be quite impressionable. Hence, you can do more to prevent eating disorders from an early age.

The media often prefers to use thin models. However, it is found that the body weight of an average female model used is about 25% less than her ideal weight. Many models strive to achieve a thin look in order to get modeling jobs. They would go for plastic surgery or become anorexic themselves. Even if they are not thin enough, photos of models hat appear on print media such as magazines are usually airbrushed to correct any perceived flaws. In this manner, a beauty standard is set that in reality may be quite unattainable.

An average person is exposed to images at least 400 to 600 times per day. The images come from advertisements from the media. One out of eleven of these advertisements is actually for a beauty product. Hence, one way to prevent eating disorders is to cut down your exposure to these ads.

Your child may be subjected to peer pressure while in school. He or she may be teased about his or her appearance. If your child has a low self esteem, he or she may feel compelled to starve or through developing bulimia.

Statistics indicate that one out of seven college-aged females has a problem with bulimia, and one out of a hundred has a problem with anorexia. Eating disorder sufferers need psychotherapy as the causes are often deeply rooted on a psychological level. If nothing is done to help them, their eating disorders can escalate out of control. The sad truth is that one out of every ten people with an eating disorder eventually dies due to the damage caused to the body.

Preventing eating disorder is clearly an issue that everyone can do more for. The media needs to play a more responsible role with the body images that it portrays as beautiful. In the meantime, as a responsible person, you should not lay all the blame on the media either. You will need to take proactive measures to prevent our future generations from hurting their bodies through eating disorders.