Eating Disorders and Image

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Eating Disorders and Image

As humans on this planet we often think about what others think about our appearance. We often, in this society, look at a person through their characteristics such as: looks, height, clarity of skin, and by how fat or thin one appears to be. In the article, The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place, by Natascha Pocek, she states the fact that, in this society, we put a lot of emphasis on diets and appearing thin. From when we are children we tend to change our views according to the ways of man, and find ways to stay fit or to lose weight. With this constant loss of weight we tend to get into a hole of wanting to be thinner, and in my opinion that want leads to the attempts of so many girls developing some sort of eating disorder. That fact has struck America hard, and Americans try harder to be what the image of the world is telling them to be. This image is to be thinner and prettier than you could possibly imagine. Dieting is a good thing to a point, but when one crosses the line of going to eating disorders, then dieting is not just a way to lose a few pounds. This way of dieting is a death trap.

In Pocek’s discussion, she describes her story about the fad diets that she has tried and how they ended up not working for her. Pocek went through period where she would try a diet and either would not be able to follow through with it or the diet would not work for her. When her diets did not work out she would get really upset and try another diet. This method of dieting is common among most Americans today because commercialization is telling people that they will never be good enough unless they are slim. This is seen through the television and many ads that are placed in magazines. Sinc...

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...as you keep it under control, dieting is not a bad thing. Pocek says in paragraph 7 of her essay that “losing weight lies in the power of our minds, not in the power of chemicals” (Pocek 167). Therefore, we have the power to keep our dieting under control. I am for dieting but when it comes to eating more when it says diet, or eating less to lose those numbers on that scale than the line of dieting has been crossed. Sometimes we are blind to seeing that line though, and cross over it daily because of the way America views people as always needing to be thinner. That image is causing thousands of people to feel they will never be good enough.

Work Cited

Pocek, Natascha. “The Diet Zone: A Dangerous Place.” Good Reasons with

Contemporary Arguments. Ed. Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer. Needham Heights, Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon, 2001. 164-167.

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