How often do you hear the word “fat”? Maybe once a day, maybe ten times a day–it varies. The frequency depends upon how much diet companies are willing to pay for advertising. Personal standards for what “fat” means include a certain amount of weight or not fitting into clothes that had fit. Do these theories of fat make any sense?
Certainly they do for a certain group of people, but the questions are whether this certain group of people think the correct way and whether they are influenced by media, family history, and fashion. However, people do not know that unhealthy weight control can cause serious physical and psychological problems. Many people blindly lose weight and become too skinny to be healthy. Understanding the nature of this phenomenon, the causes and consequences, and the possible solutions is timely and significant for many women.
Media provide the most efficient way to spread the information. People are easily influenced by the media, especially teenagers. Because their behaviors are not well developed at this time, teenagers tend to believe that what they see on television is real. Most of the magazine cover models are charming and slim. The reason they look charming is that they are slim. An article states that how media is effecting teenage girls point of views. “Our findings that girls who read magazine articles about dieting and weight loss are more likely to engage in weight control behaviors are consistent with previous findings.
In a recent focus group study of adolescent girls, Tiggemann et al, observed that when responding to the question “why do you think women and girls want to be thinner than they are?” girls most commonly cited the influence of models and the media.” Girls most commonly cited the influence of models and the media.” Media have created perfect skinny role models for the audiences. Unfortunately, these “perfect” models and celebrities have become many people’s unachievable goals. Media have played an important role in unhealthy weight control problems.
Media is physiologically influencing individuals, but there are more physical side effects that cause by unhealthy weight control. In order to get the optimal result of weight loss, individuals try many different extreme ways to lose weight or prevent weight regain. One of the articles provided some data to show nowadays students’ extreme weight control behavior. “The 2003 Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System, a national survey involving 15240 students in 9th through 12th grades, found that almost 60% of female and 29% of male students were trying to lose weight.
More than 13% of students reported fasting for a period of 24 hours or more in the past month to lose weight, and >11% of girls and 7% of boys reported taking diet pills, powders, or liquids in the past month.” These data does not seem surprise to most of the people because weight loss trend can never out of date. These weight loss methods are inappropriate for everyone especially teenagers who are still developing their body functions. Some other eating disorders that associate with unhealthy weight control are anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Anorexia is an eating disorder that the person may have an intense fear of weight gain, even when they are underweight. Bulimia is opposite to anorexia. A bulimia patient would out-of- control binge eat a large amount of food at once, and then try to lose weight by vomiting, heavily exercising and many more methods.
Knowing the causes and consequences of unhealthy weigh control behavior is important, but it is more effective to find some solutions to prevent this behavior. The first solution to prevent unhealthy weight control behavior is to increase self esteem of one’s body. An article states some women’s point of view on their body images. “An individual’s belief that her weight and shape are central to her worth as a person, along with an assessment that her current weight as unsatisfactory, leads to the classic eating disordered mind set.”
The body weight or the shape of the body does not make an individual as a person. What is more important is to have a good personality and enjoy your life. People should not be over concerned about media or the others. The fact is that it does not matter what body size people are, the media will find a way to keep people all miserable with the way they present. Another solution is to promote the correct message of weight loss.
On the reality television shows, instead of showing the audiences how many pounds do the contestant loses, they can also show the health improvement during their weight loss processes. Therefore, the audiences will not only focus on the improvement of the appearance, but also can focus on how does weight loss help the obesity victims get their healthy life back.
