The dieting industry has developed into a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and as with many products nowadays, the target audience is becoming younger and younger.  Half of fourth grade girls have been on a diet (Media and), and one third of all eating disorders develop during the ages of eleven and fifteen (Katz).  There are very few instances when a twelve year old girl would need to diet because of the high risks involved of dieting at such a young age.  Lisa Groesz et al reported that “due to genetics and the physiology of weight regulation, only a few females can actually mold their bodies into the idealized slender shape” (2).  The danger of developing an eating disorder certainly does not stop at age twelve:  eighty-six percent of eating disorders occur before age twenty, and ten million females and one million males currently suffer from eating disorders in the United States (Katz).  In the last twenty years, eating disorders have become more mainstream (Bulimia was only first diagnosed twenty years ago.) both because of Karen Carpenter's death from anorexia in 1983 and the media's unrealistic image of beauty that people want to match.

             People who reject the media’s supposed role in eating disorders raise the argument that if the media is to blame for eating disorders, why don't all people exposed to the media suffer from a disorder? For example, a study from Women’s Health Weekly speculated this exact question (Women’s 65).  First, this criticism presumes that all women have the same emotional capacity and have the same eating patterns, prior to media influence.  Obviously, neither of these is true.  Many men and women suffer from mood swings or lower self-esteem, and as proven by studies (Pinhas 225), people with these self-image deficiencies have a greater risk of acquiring an eating disorder.  Furthermore, Romana Joshi et al conducted an experiment testing media influence on restrained (those who are careful about dieting habits) and unrestrained eaters (not worried about dieting habits).  The unrestrained eaters showed little negative reaction to media images, but the restrained eaters developed higher body dissatisfaction (Joshi 339).  As shown by this experiment, there women who are not affected by the media because they have consciously made a decision to eat what they want, when they want it.  But millions of women and men have not made this choice, and they are the ones susceptible to media influence.  Overall, this criticism lacks validity because rarely does something apply to all people.  One would not ask why every person who smokes does not get mouth or lung cancer, but opponents use a similar argument when defending the media.  This condemnation is irrelevant, and one cannot deny the media’s connection with eating disorders.

            Though the media’s pressure to diet contributes to increasing eating disorders, the primary way the media affects eating disorders is by causing people to feel unhappy with their bodies and themselves.  Psychology experiments have proven that low self esteem and body dissatisfaction are leading causes of eating disorders (Myers 446).  In turn, countless studies have concluded that media exposure increases body dissatisfaction, lowers self-esteem, and causes drastic mood swings.   Other studies have taken those results a step further and drawn the connection between these emotional changes and eating disorders:  Anderson and DiDomenico (1992) found, “The media’s portrayal of a slim ‘ideal’ body for women has been linked to the increasing prevalence of dieting disorders” (King 341), while Tiggemann and Pickering concluded that “the current epidemic of body dissatisfaction and the emergence of eating disorders is a function of the sociocultural ideal of thinness” (Tiggemann 202).  Moreover, Pinhas deduced, “Women feel angrier and have a greater depressed mood after looking at images of the thin ideal…[and] these images have a detrimental effect on women and may play a role in episodes of binge eating in response to negative mood status” (Pinhas 225).  These examples constitute a fraction of the many that have affirmed the media’s role in developing eating disorders.  Nona Wilson sums up the media’s responsibility well when she writes that “by normalizing body dissatisfaction and weight preoccupation, glorifying thinness, perpetuating unrealistic and unattainable standards of beauty, and encouraging a rigid diet mentality” (Wilson 7), the media greatly increases the risk of eating disorders.

            One girl, suffering from anorexia and weighing ninety-three pounds, had this to say before her third suicide attempt:  “I feel fat all the time…but before I kill myself, I must be thin.  I cannot let some undertaker see my fat, ugly body” (Claude-Pierre 68).  Where did this girl gain her thin-body ideals?  Why did she desire to be even thinner?  The media.

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