From television to magazines to the Internet, the media is everywhere impacting our daily lives on a subconscious level.  The portrait of the ideal woman is painted by the media in such ways through advertisements and characters on sitcoms that it may have an ultimately divestating effect on the young women of today.  This influence of the media may be to blame for the rise of eating disorders in our youth.
     The growing trend of weight-obsessed women of all ages is a problem of dramatic proportions.  Of all women 56% are on a diet on any given day and "80% of girls have dieted by the time they reach the age of 18" (Wilson and Blackhurst).  Though not all, but many of these girls and women are at an increased risk for developing an eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia nervosa.  Dieters alone are eight times more likely to develop bulimia than do non-dieters (Wilson and Blackhurst).
     Today one in every five college-aged women suffers from the most common of eating disorders, bulimia, or the binge-purge syndrome (Wilson and Blackhurst).  Diagnostic criteria includes but is not limited to repeated episodes of binge eating followed by purging through self-induced vomiting, abuse of diet p8ills, laxatives, and/or diuretics, excesseve exercise, or fasting ("Some Basic Facts About Eating Disorders").  Also, the syrup of Ipecac, meant to induce vomiting for accidental poisoning, may also be used as a purging method.  Within these actions lie the true dangers of this disease.  If left untreated, medical problems such as electrolyte imbalances caused by dehydration, low patassium, and/or sodium defficiency can lead to heart palpitaions, possible heart failure, and death.  This is not to mention the possibility of sudden death due to gastric rupture during a binge, or the rupture of the esophagus while in the midst of purging by means of vomiting ("Health Consequences of Eating Disorders")
     The consequences of the binge and purge cycle may not become prevalent until much later as was the case with Jenny Lauren.  By the time Lauren was in ninth grade she "was exercising obsessively, running six miles a day and doing calisthenics at night....Soon after, she meets a bulimic classmate who introduced her to Ipecac."  Though she got dehydrated and weak after use she continued to use Ipecac, and when in the eleventh grade was hospitaliszed for four months.  A few years later she "slipped into old patterns."  Then after finishing her degree at Manhattan's Barnard College, she developed severe bloating and weakness in her lower abdomen.  She was diagnosed with small-bowel enterocele, "a condition in which the space between the rectum and the vagina stretches and the small intestine falls into the largfer cavity."  This was likely caused by the strain on her digestive track due to binging and purging.  Surgery was required and Lauren endured months of painful rehabilitation to relearn ro walk (Espinoza, Neill, and Scott 105-106).
     Anorexia, though less common, is a form of self-starvation often accompanied by bulimia that affects over eight million individuals in the United States - 88% young women (Espinoza, Neill, and Scott 102).  Criteria use for diagnosis but not limited to excessive weight loss, amenorhea or loss of menstrual periods, and the act of purging, not always proceeded by a binge.  Similiar medical complications to bulimia occur if the individual partakes in self-induced vomiting and/or the use of diet pills, laxatives, and/or diuretics.  Other consequences include death from heart failure due to bradycardia or slow heart rate, and low blood pressure, and from kidney failure caused by severe dehydration ("Health Consequences of Eating Disorders").  The mortality rate is twelve times higher than for other young women in the general population ("Eating Disorders").
Media's Negative Influence
   In the case of Toni Tahoun, she and her stepsister, Nina, both battled anorexia.  Toni sought help and told Nina that they would fight together, but Nina was unable to hold on.  At just 25 years of age, this mother of a 2-1/2-year-old died of a heart attack in the iddle of the night, weighing in at just 80 pounds on a 5'9" frame.  With the added motivation to save herself, Toni continued seeing a specialist and is better off today, though she still struggles daily (Espinoza, Neill, and Scott 108).
    Eating disorders are life threatening, but regardless, women still strive for an anattainable goal of thinness.  The cause may be what we come into contact with every day, the media.  "Research has demonstrated a direct correlation between media exposure and eating disorder symptoms among young women" (Wilson and Blackhurst).  "Historical trends and effects studies substantiate the claim that media images of thinness foster and reinforce a social climate in which thinness is considered essential to beauty, especially women" (Harrison).
     Over the years there has been a significant decrease in the weights and body measurements of Miss America Pageant contestants, Playboy centerfolds, and models depicted in popular magazine advertisements.  Based on height 60% of the pageant contestants and 69% of Playboy centerfolds weighed less than 15% of what was to be expected, thus, meeting a diagnostic criterion for anorexia nervosa (Harrison).  While icons of the American feminine beauty ideal continue to shrink, the average American woman has actually gained over five pounds.  Consequently, popular women's magazines promote weight loss with nearly ten times as many dieting articles and advertisements than do men's magazines (Harrison).  There are also about ten times as many food advertisements in women's magazines compared to men's.  Not only do these advertisements warn of the dangers of women's appetites, they also echo the cultural directive that women must conform to the thin ideal (Wilson and Blackhurst).
     Furthermore, the constant ambush of messages from the media to lose weight and to appear waif-like in order to meet society's expectations of the ideal woman are possibly behind the growing numbers of eating-disordered individuals.  One study found that exposure to thin models in advertisements had an immediate effect on college women's portrayal of ther own bodies (Harrison).  Another study found thirty minutes of viewing television programming and advertising distorted women's perceptions of themselves and that after exposure to ultra thin fashion model, women exhibited depression, guilt, shame, and body dissatisfaction (Wilson and Blackhurst).  This demonstrates that we are even influenced beyond our conscious awareness.
     In conclusion, the images shown through the media partake in the way women portray their bodies, giving rise to obsessive dieting and ultiately eaitng disorders.  The seriousness of this problem is drastically underestimated, for womem are slowly killing themselves in order to achieve the unattainable standards our soiciety naively depicts.
Note: This paper was part of a much larger project of ten pages.  If one is to use any of this material, please give me credit.