Anorexia
Essay Preview: Anorexia
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Girls in the United States are starving for perfection and going to great lengths to obtain it by any means necessary. That could mean harming themselves physically, mentally, and emotionally or taking on masochistic behavior. It could sometimes lead to the point of no return with irremediable damage or in the worst case scenario, death. In today’s society, all of what is portrayed on television are disgustingly thin like Barbie actresses, models and celebrities and that is what most teenage girls strive to be like. Teenage girls are idolizing these celebrities mainly on their waist size and not what really matters like their personality and intellect. But what most of these girls dont know is that many of these famous people have eating disorders like anorexia and are not by any means healthy. If they knew the facts, they would not be striving to be what they think Americans want to see them as. If these young girls are not careful the results can be fatal. That is sad and also scary because no one should die in order to be a size zero. Nothing is worth dying over. Americans should be more concerned with trying to stay healthy rather than striving to be thin.
The article “Mission Impossible” talks about how our culture places too much emphasis on being thin and how girls are being attacked everywhere they look with images of unrealistic beauty. “Deluged by images from TV, movies and magazines, teenage girls do battle with an increasingly unrealistic standard of beauty and pay a price.”(qtd.in Schneider and Levitt) They say that thin is in, but where do we draw the line and is the entertainment industry really to blame for bombarding girls with what the rest of the country sees as perfection? The media is relentless in its criticism of weight. According to Joel Schumacher “Alicia Silverstone appeared in public despite the fact that, like many of her teenage peers around the country, she had just added on 5 or 10 pounds. Was she congratulated for the self-confidence and assurance it took to be herself? Hardly. The tabloids, noting Silverstones role in the next Batman sequel, blared out lines like “Batman and Fat Girl” and “Look Out Batman! Here Comes Butt Girl!” and Entertainment Weekly sniped that Alicia was “more Babe than babe.”(qtd.in Schneider and Levitt) Firstly, gaining 5 to 10 pounds should not be that big of a deal especially if someone is paper thin. All is different in the celebrity world. Tabloids will ridicule a celebrity to death for even gaining a pound never mind ten. If a celebrity does gain some weight and still shows up in public, instead of being rewarded for their confidence, they are made to feel ashamed and embarrassed of themselves. That sends a negative message to the rest of the country and those most easily influenced, teenage girls.
Thin appears to only be a white epidemic. “Mission Impossible” states, “A 1995 University of Arizona survey of black high school students found that 70 percent of teenage African-American girls are satisfied with their bodies.”(Schneider and Levitt) This obsession with being thin only has white Americans preoccupied, while African American woman can care less. Maybe because having a little meat on the bones is culturally acceptable to African Americans and they don’t see fat as being repugnant as white women do.
The thin epidemic is infecting people like if it were a lethal disease. Wendy Levey, a 17-year-old who weighs 97 lbs. at 5 even says, “I like thinness. Im not happy if I think I look fat in what Im wearing. Kate Moss looks so cool in a bathing suit. I dont know if Im conditioned [to think this way] or if its just me,” she adds, “but I dont think anything could make me abandon my desire to be thin.” (qtd. in Schneider and Levitt) Is being thin the only thing that drives us and makes us happy? There is so much more to life than being thin. People have the unshakable yearning to be thin, and do not realize that this is a problem. Some of the problem also lies in the hands of peer groups. Teenage girls have an image of perfection in mind and anyone who doesn’t fit that are considered to be outcasts. Teenage girls can be really vindictive and everyone does want to be accepted and acknowledged. Joel Schumacher observes, “I dont know whats going to happen to this generation of females,” says director Joel Schumacher, “This obsession with being skinny is insane.” (qtd. in Schneider and Levitt) This is frightening. Females are going to great lengths to obtain the ideal image. But where is America headed with the thin fixation? Can it be stopped? Has America’s thin infatuation passed the point of no return?
Many people will do anything to be beautiful and fulfill their perfect picture of perfection, but does this sound beautiful? Bones protruding through the skin. A hungry girl who is starving for perfection; an unhappy bag of bones. She looks as though her legs will break in half if she stands up. Her body is so frail and fragile, everyone should be afraid to touch her in fear of shattering her bones. Appearing to be maybe five foot eleven, she is probably less than ninety pounds. She has the waist size of a five-year-old and her rib cage is protruding a couple inches away from the rest of her body. This woman is merely a skeleton with skin crouched in the fetal position. She could have been someone that just walked out of the holocaust after enduring the painful ordeal of malnutrition for months, obviously someone with a serious and maybe even deadly eating disorder. This describes an image of a woman, found on Google, who is living proof how malicious the eating disorder of anorexia can be.
Teenage girls are vulnerable and impressionable especially when it comes to body image. They become too engrossed with self-esteem and self-worth issues that unanticipated consequences can result if these girls are not extremely careful. As noted in “Mission Impossible”, “Research shows that virtually all women are ashamed of their bodies. It used to be adult women, teenage girls, who were ashamed, but now you see the shame down to very young girls–10, 11 years old. Societys standard of beauty is an image that is literally just short of starvation for most women.” (Schneider and Levitt) It’s amazing how much influence the entertainment industry truly has on our daily lives. It’s starting to effect children—preteens. They haven’t even begun to develop and already they hate the way they look. The images of beauty are unfeasible and impossible for an ordinary average woman to achieve