“Anorexia is characterized by the refusal to eat enough to maintain body weight over a minimal norm fro age and height, an intense fear of gaining weight, body image disturbance, and possible amenorrhea.”(Harrison 1997) Basically these women stop eating or cut meals off to just mere portions enough to survive. Originally anorexia was considered to be only prevalent in white upper class

In today society more than ever women are shown what the perfect women is suppose to look like on everything that they look at. They look for the easy ticket out, in today’s fast paced life there is little time for diet and exercise, so they turn to anorexia to give them what they desire, they become consumed and pass their expectations. More than 1,000 women and girls die from anorexia every year, it is truly sad that the media has put such an unrealistic goal on the women of our society.

women, but today it is in every class and even spreading to other races. More than 20% of girls ages 18-20 attempt to lose weight even though they probable are not overweight, losing usually around 15% of their body weight, and as much as 20%. “To argue that media images of the thin ideal body influences young people’s eating behaviors and attitudes toward their bodies is similar to arguing that violent media influences young people’s aggression-related attitudes and behaviors.”(Harrison 1997) We know it happens but it is sometimes hard to prove, but we have all seen the way that girls look at someone and say that looks so good on her but it would never look that good on me. Over the past twenty years Miss America Pageant contestants and PLAYBOY centerfolds have slowly veered toward the more thin women making it even more difficult for women to fit the bill. “Increase exposure to thin ideal bodies in magazines was related to increased eating disorder symptoms for adolescent girls.(Botta 2003) “Anorexia affects primarily people in their teens and twenties, but studies report it in children as young as six and individuals as old as seventy-six.”(ANRED) As we see the severity of anorexia is spreading its way th

Some topics in this essay:
America Pageant, Britney Spears, Nursing Science, Heidi Klum, , body weight, trying reach, average women’s, movies television, ideal body, influences people’s, thin ideal, women fit, media images, society women,