The Impact Of The Culture On Culture And Eating Disorders

America is getting fat. That is a statement that is commonly heard in the United States today. It is true that the evidence supports that theory very often. The problem with this generalization is that it puts pressure on people to break this stereotype. Eating disorders are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They are what happens when there is too much focus in the culture on being skinny. Eating disorders can be just as dangerous as the obesity problem. (Sanders, 2015) Anorexia and bulimia are the most abundant eating disorders. They can be traced back through history from France in the 19th century though they were thought to have originated earlier. (Giddens, 2014) Merry Miller, in her article about how culture and eating disorders

This is troubling because the line between being healthy and having an eating disorder is very easy to cross. Dieting in itself is not bad, in fact it is good to take an interest in keeping one’s body healthy, but it is an indication of how saturated our culture is in body image. The image that the culture gives shows an emphasis on being skinny and having no body fat. This is demonstrated through models and actors who give people the idea of how they should look. The obsession with slenderness and weight loss is no longer just a problem in western culture. It has started spreading to all other parts of the world. (Giddens,

Typically, teenage girls gain weight during puberty. During this time they also start to worry more about what their body looks like, due to hormones. Statistics shows that teenage girls body image goes dramatically down once they have their first period. This can be frustrating to these individuals because they desire to have a lower BMI than they ever did before, but at the same time their BMI is going up. Some young people have felt pressure from adults to stay healthy or lose weight. These comments have large effects on them and can trigger dramatic dieting and weight loss when combined with lower