Effects of the Media on Young Girls

Effects of the Media on Young Girls

I can remember her standing in front of the mirror looking at herself. How she thought she was beautiful, I don’t know. Because the image I saw was of a person who looked like a living corpse. She had to have weighed only 100 pounds, her hair so thin, the black bags under her eyes, and her overall grayish complexion made her look as if she were a dead. As she saw me staring at her in the corner of her eye, she slammed the door in my face. That was the big sister that I knew now. She was no longer the big sister that I could go to and get advice from or have a good laugh with. No, she was too busy with her own schedule and not to mention her terrible mood swings. My older sister Jessica was one of the many teenage girls who suffered from an eating disorder known as Anorexia Nervosa. Eating disorders have increased severely in the past 20 years among young girls and has now become a major problem in the United States. Many experts have tried to find the cause of eating disorders, and one of the many solutions is the effects that the media has over young girls. By using super thin models and actresses, the media illustrates the message that happiness and success comes with a thin body. The messages portray that to be thin as teen idols and models requires people to achieve a weight that is not healthy. To these young girls, the media’s message of thinness contributes to their low self-esteem on body image which leads to dangerous eating disorders.

The media is an important aspect of today’s culture. Almost every household in the Untied States owns a television set and the average American watches 3 to 5 hours of television a day. Television is not the only...

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... pattern of binge-eating followed by self-induced purging or abuse of laxatives. People with disease often restrict themselves and then self indulge on food feeling sick shortly after. The affects of this disease are damage to teeth due from acid in the stomach, dehydration, weakness, electrolyte imbalance, bleeding and infection of the throat, digestive and intestinal problems, muscle spasms, and headaches. The question you have to ask yourself is, “Is being thin worth getting sick or even dying for?” Many young girls do not see the dark side of being thin. All they see is the beauty and glamour due to all of the messages they receive from the media. Since young girls find it important to mimic these thin images they spend hours and dollars trying reduce their waists and legs by dieting and exercising, all to obtain society’s “perfect body image.”