Media’s portrayal of women causing eating disorders
At USU, 400 women have an eating disorder.
At least, that’s the estimate. Mary Doty, director of the USU Counseling Center, says that is a conservative estimate. She says on college campuses the prevalence of eating disorders is estimated at 3 to 15 percent, so it might be as many as 1,200 women.
Doty, a licensed psychologist who works with patients recovering from eating disorders, spoke to a group of students last week about how part of the root of the problem is the media’s portrayal of women.
As she showed pictures of advertisements from fashion magazines, Doty said, “It’s important to realize we don’t see the real picture. Here’s a really lovely young woman – apparently born without pores.”
After seeing a lot of images that show women of identical height and weight, Doty said women begin to believe they should look that way. Pointing to one very thin model, she said, “This picture worries me because she makes Cindy Crawford look downright plump.”
Doty went on to talk about how the ideal of a perfect woman is portrayed not only as thin and tall, but white as well.
“Not only do you have to be flawless to be beautiful, you also have to be white, which is unfortunate,” she said.
And naked, as Doty pointed out while showing a picture of a woman playing croquet in lingerie next to a fully clothed man.
She said just as disturbing as advertisements for clothing and other products are those that advertise drastic weight-loss products.
“The images we see are unrealistic and unattainable,” Doty said. “They are encouraging us to do really unhealthy things like starve ourselves or throw up to lose 44 pounds in 30 days.”
Doty said there are a few types of people who are most at risk for eating disorders. Young people are most at risk, with the average age of onset for anorexia being 12 years old and 15 for bulimia. Women are also high risk, and especially women dieters.
“When you diet severely, you’re really setting up a very negative chain of events in your body,” she said. “Our body is built to endure extreme things like starvation, so when we artificially starve ourselves, our metabolism starts to change. We store more fat because our bodies are getting ready for the famine.”
Other high-risk people are participants in size- or weight-dependent activities like dancing, wrestling and gymnastics. She said victims of sexual or physical abuse or people who have a family that focuses on food are also at risk.
Along with these factors, women’s magazines have 10 times more articles about weight loss than men’s magazines. She said this has a huge effect on women, citing a study from the 1990s that found after three minutes of looking through a fashion magazine, 70 percent of women felt depressed, guilty and ashamed.
Doty said people can combat the media’s influence by fostering acceptance of a more realistic body shape, recognize links between body hate and life problems and a focus on health, not size.
“Eating disorders are a misuse of the eating function to deal with problems in living,” Doty said.
Men should also begin to take a look at their expectations of women and the objectification that happens in the media, she said. Body image is influenced by the media, but women can combat this influence, she said – it just takes effort.
-dilewis@cc.usu.edu