Anorexia Nervosa effects 1 in every 100 women between the ages of 15 and 30 and it is estimated that 30% of the sufferers experience long term illness and lasting physical effects. Although the age range is a bit wider in the UK, you can see that many young people are suffering from eating disorders.
What causes eating disorders?.
Young teens are sensitive about what other people think and tend to take things seriously. They don't want to be left out of the circle or be excluded from society, they want to feel normal. However, it is hard to know whether you are the same as others or not, so you do extreme things to feel relieved or to have confidence in yourself. It is the 'fear' that drives everybody to do something that can cause danger to your health, in this case; eating disorders. One thing that is causing this fear to come up, is the power of media sources. It has one of the most powerful effects on a humans' mind, a power that can almost be referred to as brainwashing. Media is one of the most effective cause in both the US and the UK. .
One example of a media is magazines. In magazines, they display photos of supermodels or very thin celebrities. Some of which look way too skinny, making an impression that you have to be that skinny in order to wear the clothes that they are wearing. Young teenagers are deeply attached to fashion and many of them have an obsession for shopping for fashion. However, these images of the skinny models encourages the teens to make them lose weight in order to wear the clothes that they want to wear, and makes them think that if they don't, it wouldn't look good on them. Magazines tend to criticize people easily when people are fat. If a celebrity goes overweight, they give cruel comments about them being too fat and that they should go on a diet. Young readers who read this will think about what they might be said about their bodies and be afraid of gaining weight.
