She then told me that it was because she wanted to be considered pretty and to be pretty she had to be skinny like the models she saw in magazines and the actresses she saw on television. The media's view of pretty had corrupted the way she thought of herself and caused serious harm to her body and some consequences that she has to deal with for the rest of her life. I witnessed first-hand how the media causes people to develop eating disorders and how it changes the way people think of themselves. Both of these girls had not history of eating disorders in their family, so it seems that the media was the main cause of both of their disorders.
Researchers from the other side of this argument states that the media cannot cause eating disorders because they are a genetic disease. Michal Levine, a professor in the department of psychology at Kenyon College, states that many clinicians say that eating disorders are a chronic disorder with a genetic basis and the media plays a much smaller role than both of those. However, the author of "Media's Influence on Eating Disorders" states every day there are 400-600 advertisements that picture the idea of the perfect man or women. With all these advertisements bombarding viewers with images of underweight models and actors, it seems almost obvious that there is some kind of connection between the media and eating disorders. With the number of eating disorders rising every year and the number of advertisements rising every day, it seems to further show that there is a clear connection between the two besides eating disorders being genetic. Eating disorders are a very serious illness that can cause low blood pressure, kidney failure, and ultimately heart failure, all leading to death, so no matter what the actual cause of them is something needs to be done to reduce the number of disorders that are appearing. The author of "Perfect Illusions.