The Effects Of Social Media And Eating Disorders

In today’s society, technology is used on a daily basis; whether watching television, using social media, or reading a magazine, people are influenced by what they see. As a result of this, some people develop an eating disorder because their view of what is attractive is distorted because of what is shown in media. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, “The body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females” (ANAD). The common misperception is that eating disorders are a “woman’s disease” although one out of ten people who have an eating disorder are male. Although it is by no means the only cause, it is believed that media effects how women perceive themselves, but most people don’t consider that media effects how men view themselves.
Technology has been progressing since the early 20th century with the invention of telephones, cameras, radios, television, the computer, videocassette, the Internet, mp3 players, digital versatile disks, and cell phones among many other things. Along with many of these tools came other platforms within them. On television there is now shows, movies, reality shows, news, and sports. On the computer there are many programs such as Microsoft, Photoshop, iTunes, and the Internet. The Internet itself has evolved into a place for social networking and media. All of these types of media all tie in to how women perceive themselves. Celebrities who are shown in the media are almost always photo shopped to look perfect: made skinnier, fixed makeup, to look “perfect”. This negatively influences women to strive to look like that, although it isn’t even how that celebrity really looks. There is also a pressure fo...

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...is their body, and their weight and wanting to change it. I think that males and females should not be put through this and we need to change people’s mindsets about what we define as attractive.
Overall, I believe that this myth is plausible because it is hard to measure how much it affects one gender over the other, but it is obvious that it affects both male and female greatly. There are arguments for it being great possibility, and arguments for it being a lot less likely. Generally, I think that media affects both genders but the media covers the affect it has on women more. For example, they call a female celebrity fat, and then she loses weight and then they begin to call her anorexic. The media has made society self conscious about their bodies and their appearance and people end up going to great lengths striving for an unattainable goal of perfection.