Eating Disorders Essay

Furthermore, cues from the environment are one of the major causes for the development of eating disorders. In general, eating disorders are impacted are affected by many things, and one of these things is culture and personal characteristics. According to womenshealth.org, many females turn to eating disorders in order to meet beauty standards. Additionally, negative self perception such as, “Feelings of helplessness, worthlessness, and poor self-image,” (“Eating Disorders”) are especially important in determining who develops an eating disorder. As can be seen, the fact that women eat disorderly in order to match society’s standards of beauty shows society contributes to EDs, as women begin to eat abnormally to be more like the images of

In this case, the family is representative of society and the messages it imparts and as a mean of how the information one accesses; moreover, the ideas families impart onto their members are a part of, and affect, society and media. The fact that family can lead to an eating disorder shows that outside influence is capable of prompting an eating disorder, suggesting other sources, especially the society and media the family influences, can do so as well. Moreover, people with low-self esteem and low confidence are most susceptible to media imagery; this group includes adolescent girls, 47% of which have low self confidence when it comes to their bodies (Ospina). This illustrates that, while parts of a patient’s life independent of society or media play an important role in eating disorders, the media still acts as a catalyst for destructive behavior; in other words, ideas from society/the media are incredibly influential in the thought process of a person that is already at risk for an eating disorder (i.e. someone with low self esteem), and these ideas (as mentioned above) hinge on being unhealthily