Women and Eating Disorders

The Medical News Today has published an article in which the UK psychiatrists expressed their concern about the influence of media and its portrays of the female body image and its harmful influence on young adults, mainly females (Medical News Today).

The Royal College of Psychiatrists' (RCPsychs') Eating Disorders Section is proposing a new editorial code in which at least in magazine the types of women showed would be diverse and closer to the common women figures.

This particular proposal, if taken in action would help women feel more comfortable about their bodies and to help women be even more secure they also stated that for each digitally enhanced picture there should be a sign saying it was in some way retouched (Medical News Today).

Dr. Adrienne Key in this particul interwiev said that:"Eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, are serious mental illnesses". She also stated: "Although biological and genetic factors play an important role in the development of these disorders, psychological and social factors are also significant," she added, saying that was why the RCPsych was urging the media "to take greater responsibility for the messages it sends out" (Medical News Today).

People Usually do not think about how much of an influence the pictures and the various contents seen in the media have on the viewers mental and physical health, they just wanted to portray a beautiful life. A life that is hard to achieve, either because it is too expensive (clothing, various surgeries) or impossible body image wise since we have different bone structure, masses, height etc.

Usually you would think that the most vulnerable and affected people are Teenagers since the older women and people have more experience and are not any more in that vulnerable stage where they are still in search of who they are and their body is changing as well as their self-esteem. Apropo, 50% of girls between the ages of 11 and 13 see themselves as overweight; anorexia has been detected as the 3^rd most common chronic illnesses among Adolescents of which 95% are between the ages of 12 and 25 (eating disorders in college.wordpress.com).

Since my previous statistics were taken from The Easting Disorders in College website I wanted present you with the following statistic since we are as well in college. One out of every four girl in college has an eating disorder (Kidz World). Moreover, a survey done by Kristen Harrison in 1994 that consisted of 232 female under0graduate students showed that 15% of girls show met the criteria for some sort of eating disorder (www.ur.umich.edu)

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