When I say this, I think I speak for many: I'd love to be thinner.
But do any of us ever stop and consider why? What gives us that desire to be thinner?
Personally, I believe it is the media. We are forced to feast our eyes on youthful figures strutting up and down a catwalk and are made to believe that these people are perfect. I have watched these typically awesome men and women many times myself, and I have begun to believe that they are a reflection of true beauty.
Therefore I am tricked into looking down on myself, fighting myself, and significantly treating myself badly, with little respect for what I might be doing to myself.
Through the pressure of the media, we are lead to believe our bodies can never be perfect - This is bad.
With this negativity in mind, some people are lead to take dieting to the extreme often resulting to harmful illegal medications that claim to burn fat with little effort. It soon becomes a vicious circle as the users get hooked on the confidence boost that taking the drug gives them (even if the drug has little effect). I did a Google.com search to actual see how many diet pills are out there, and the results shocked me...
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=weight+loss+tabs&meta=
Dieting can also be taken to two extremes: Anorexia or Obesity. Both are bad and uncomfatable to live with and cause distress to the sufferer. And both can be influenced by the media.
I personally feel anorexia is especially overlooked - Being too thin is now seen as a good thing. And the trend is set by celebrities and the national phenominon associated with dieting. For example; looking through a popular women's magazine I found more than 6 articles directly linked with dieting and/or being thinner.
http://www.ukdietclub.com/dietprofile2/reveal.cfm?code=28011
But with more than 1, 100,000 people suffering with an eating disorder in the UK alone, it's a serious matter.
http://www.b-eat.co.uk/Home
I want to see the time where people are happy with there weight, without the 'fear' of being fat.
I'd rather be chubby and happy, rather than thin and miserable. And to sacrifice my happiness for the 'ideal' body is an idea which I find difficult to concieve.
Surely this is bad, but it is bad in a collective way, rather than in an individual sense. This means it has the potential to harm more people in more ways than simple gossiping, for example.
the media has changed having a less negative input on people's appearence especially now how there is loads of t.v programmes about how to look good in your own skin and getting a nice curvy body. people who do read the celeb mags full of dieting usually are the ones unhappy with their own lives so are cheering themselves up by looking at a false reality, this sense of disappointment in their own lives leads to them developing eating disorders. anorexia involves loads of symptoms that have no resemblence to the so-called media cause. im not denying it might just push those people over the edge but it could never be the only cause or everybody would be anorexia because we are all presented with the 'lets be skinny' moto. anorexia is usually uncontroable many people with this disease do actually want to be normall have children go out to lunch with their friends but something is stopping them, how can this be bad behaviour if it is unitentional. even as a generalisation or collective way as you put it it can't be bad many people with anorexia inspire people not to get it or allow them to recover from this state by seeing the negatives, so how is it a potential harm.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mamashealth.com/anorexia.asp