By: Lauren Corwin
Every time you flip through a magazine, what do you see? Tall, twig-like models with angelic faces that stare back at you with not one flaw anywhere. This is what society expects of young girls: to be skinny, flawless, and perfect. This is also what causes so many eating disorders in adolescents. While there are many factors that contribute to developing an eating disorder, society proves to play a larger role in contracting one of these fatal disorders.
Not a day goes by where you don’t experience stress of some form. Whether it be an argument with a family member or a life-threatening car accident, stress is in your everyday life. While all stress isn't bad, some kinds can be detrimental to your health, like the urge to be skinny. During your teenage years, you are most susceptible to all these stressors. As a writer from Radar Programs states, "We live in a society that reinforces the idea to be happy and successful we must be thin." This tension causes girls to go to the extent of making themselves vomit or hiding food just to be deemed thin by a magazine.
So many commercials and advertisements indirectly state that to be beautiful is to be slender. Nowadays you can't walk past a cash register without seeing headlines like "Try it Now, Lose 10lbs in 2 Weeks" or "Jennifer Lopez did it, you can too". These magazines make people believe that to be thin is to be loved, successful, attractive, and healthy, when in reality, being these things doesn't even involve being thin. So many teenage girls want to appear to be loved and attractive, that they refuse to eat, or if they do eat, purge afterwards.
You could walk through any high school cafeteria and see plenty of girls not eating lunch. But why? Ulifeline, a college mental health counseling service, says its because of peer pressure. People correlate looking 'good' or 'hot' with how much food you eat, so if your friend doesn't eat, you feel fat and don't eat either. I can personally account for this. In middle school, I felt like an inflated balloon when my friends sat there watching me eat my perfectly healthy lunch. So I then gave in to peer pressure, and stopped eating my lunches. I threw away my lunch so my parents would believe me that I ate my lunch. After seeing consequences of this choice made by others, I quickly started eating my lunches again. Not eating to feel skinny is like a plague, it spreads, viciously, taking over what ever victim it comes across, until someone says no.
Eating disorders are harmful and some, even fatal. Not one person should ever have to endure the pain and suffering these people have to go through. Our culture plays a big role in the development of eating disorders. Stress, advertisements and peer pressure are just few factors that fall under this category. The real question when it comes to society and eating disorders is not how to prevent them, but why do we even listen to this grisly monstrosity known as society?
Not a day goes by where you don’t experience stress of some form. Whether it be an argument with a family member or a life-threatening car accident, stress is in your everyday life. While all stress isn't bad, some kinds can be detrimental to your health, like the urge to be skinny. During your teenage years, you are most susceptible to all these stressors. As a writer from Radar Programs states, "We live in a society that reinforces the idea to be happy and successful we must be thin." This tension causes girls to go to the extent of making themselves vomit or hiding food just to be deemed thin by a magazine.
So many commercials and advertisements indirectly state that to be beautiful is to be slender. Nowadays you can't walk past a cash register without seeing headlines like "Try it Now, Lose 10lbs in 2 Weeks" or "Jennifer Lopez did it, you can too". These magazines make people believe that to be thin is to be loved, successful, attractive, and healthy, when in reality, being these things doesn't even involve being thin. So many teenage girls want to appear to be loved and attractive, that they refuse to eat, or if they do eat, purge afterwards.
You could walk through any high school cafeteria and see plenty of girls not eating lunch. But why? Ulifeline, a college mental health counseling service, says its because of peer pressure. People correlate looking 'good' or 'hot' with how much food you eat, so if your friend doesn't eat, you feel fat and don't eat either. I can personally account for this. In middle school, I felt like an inflated balloon when my friends sat there watching me eat my perfectly healthy lunch. So I then gave in to peer pressure, and stopped eating my lunches. I threw away my lunch so my parents would believe me that I ate my lunch. After seeing consequences of this choice made by others, I quickly started eating my lunches again. Not eating to feel skinny is like a plague, it spreads, viciously, taking over what ever victim it comes across, until someone says no.
Eating disorders are harmful and some, even fatal. Not one person should ever have to endure the pain and suffering these people have to go through. Our culture plays a big role in the development of eating disorders. Stress, advertisements and peer pressure are just few factors that fall under this category. The real question when it comes to society and eating disorders is not how to prevent them, but why do we even listen to this grisly monstrosity known as society?