Eating disorders in today's society have gotten so out of control that many people, most notably women have become anorexic and bulimic. The sad fact of the matter is with this issue it is being promoted by all different types of modeling agencies as well as online websites in the U.S as well as overseas, specifically in Europe. In the June 17th issue of American Journal of Public Health, Dina Borzekowski who is a professor in Health, Behavior and Society and her colleagues at the Bloomberg School and Stanford University reported the most comprehensive content analysis to date of pro-ana/mia websites. Nearly every website about 91% of the 180 sites they found were very easy to access from regular browsers, and 84% presented pro-ana content, while two-thirds represented pro-mia content. Borzekowski says, "There are websites for people who are cutting behaviors on suicidal ideals. So it's not surprising that there are websites for pro-ana and pro-mia behaviors."Anorexics eat rarely or not at all; bulimics which is a disorder seen mostly among women who go on eating binges but then feel guilt and depression and self-condemnation, purge by vomiting or using laxatives or enemas. Now there are many celebrities that are know to be anorexics or bulimics, such names include Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie, Kate Moss, Paris Hilton, and Mary Kate Olsen. Now for adolescents who are about 14 and younger who look up to these celebrities, this is not a very positive example for our young women to look at. If I was a parent I would want my daughter to be healthy and not self conscious about her weight or size of her frame as it relates to these celebrities.Most celebrities and models are apart of Thinspiration, videos which are a cryptic art with rigid rules, as much a formula as a form.
Virginia Heffernan who writes articles for The New York Times published an article in May 2008 about the Thinspiration videos, describes them as "Listless, pounding or archly chipper music plays, still photos of one wraith after another surface and fade. The women are generally solitary and sullen or entirely faceless. Bony self-portraits, created in bathroom mirrors by anonymous photographers, have faces that have been obscured or cropped out. Many figures in the videos are supine, as in pervasive hipbone self-portrait, which seems to be shot by a photographer on her back aiming at the abdomen and the waistband of her jeans." Now I've observed these videos, and what I took from it was how obscene and disturbing the images of these women looked. With every picture that was displayed the more gruesome and foul the images got. In other words, you might have became bullimic just by looking at the images.
Hollywood has a certain image it wants women to represents and maintain, which is thin is better. They display examples of these figure at spectacles like the Victoria Secret Fashion Show, and shows such as America's Next Top Model. It was very evident when in the first season of America's Next Top Model, with a plus size model named Toccara (Image Left) was auditioning. She was eliminated within the first few episodes but got a hosting gigs on networks such as BET, MTV, and VH1. If u look at her now compared to how she used to look u almost would have thought that Toccara was never plus sized. My opinion of Toccara is that she was a very attractive plus size model, even though she was never that big to begin with. Seemed like the more gigs she got in Hollywood the slimmer she got over the years. While still very attractive, I liked how Toccara used to look before the Hollywood transformation and sure some people would agree with me!When you talk about the images on television as well as these websites on the internet, that display images of what they think the perfect or ideal way for a woman to look like. One thing that is never brought up is the way the images are distorted or photo shopped. Most real women don't even look like they are advertised and yet, young women do so much to resemble what isn't even real. We really have to protect our young women from what Hollywood wants them to look like. It's important for them to be healthy and care about themselves, but more importantly it is important that they maintain a healthy positive attitude about themselves. With a healthy positive attitude our young women won't be so self conscious about how other people want them to look, and be comfortable just the way they are.
Not just young women but young men as well, as young men we see that all women especially on television love muscular men. As young men we take pills, vitamins, muscle supplements, and protein shakes just to try and achieve that ideal body that we see on t.v. We spend hours among hours every week in da gym, lifting weights and running to get in shape, some of it to achieve good health but mostly to impress the opposite sex. Instead of being comfortable with who we are we push and force ourselves to try and achieve that ideal body we want. As a whole I believe these "ideal" body shapes that Hollywood and Television have put as an example, shouldn't be how we ideal ourselves to be
