Relationship between Eating Disorders and Western Cultures
Eating disorders are severe conditions that affect very many people today; eating disorders are conditions related to obstinate eating habits that, when practiced for an extended period, leads to negative impacts on the specific individual’s health. The music video, prom queen by beach bunny, sees a perfect example of some of the factors that may contribute to people practicing eating habits that are otherwise dangerous to their health. Beach Bunny believes that a person’s body image determines greatly or plays a massive role for an individual to be attractive or be noticed to be beautiful in before other people. At the beginning of the video, we see a group of three boys trying to do some work out exercise; the fat one pushes the thin one who then does some press-ups to add muscle and prove that he is strong. This clearly shows that slim or skinny males are customarily considered to be weak and, in most cases, cannot defend themselves against dangerous situations.
On the other hand, Beach Bunny’s perception towards males with massive bodies is that they are usually more robust than those with small bodies. On the other hand, the perception is different for women; she believes that for a female of her caliber to be beautiful, she has to be slim; otherwise, she is not beautiful if she is not slim. This is clearly seen when she opens the first page of the magazine in her hands and admires the body of the model she sees in the picture. Beach Bunny wishes she had a perfect body, and she is very willing to go the extra mile to fit to be a prom queen. She believes that those who are slim are the ones who are supposed to be prom queens. The main message being passed in the video is that each gender has a required body that fits them; for men, they should have a bigger and broader body size, and for women, more so those of a younger age, they should be slim if they are fat then they are not beautiful. Another message the artist is trying to pass is that people are capable of doing anything to achieve the so called perfect body size in the current generation. For instance, men are willing to exercise harder to gain muscle while on the other hand, women tend to engage in bad eating habits such as starving themselves, which leads to a reduction in body weight, so they look slim and are seen as beautiful.
The message conveyed from the advertisement images is not that different from what is seen in the music video. H&M uses computer-generated models, dolls, and mannequins to show the perfect body size that actual people want to see. It is only the heads of real people that they place on the computer-generated bodies. This clearly shows that in the real world, people are not happy about their bodies. There is a specific body type and size that almost everyone wants to achieve so badly that they are ready to do anything to achieve that required body size, some would go to the gym and would do exercises that, in the long run would help them achieve the body size that is admired and adored by many people. Others would starve themselves, confining themselves into strict diets and bad eating habits leading to abnormal eating disorders to achieve the perfect body size used by H&M in their advertisements. Those who view those advertisements made by H&M usually are not aware that those bodies are computer generated and are not real, so they go out of their way and practice abnormal eating habits, including starvation, just to have bodies similar to those they see on advertisements thus leading to serious health effects known as eating disorders. The message passed by the advertisement images is that that natural body that we have is not the desired one and that we should try as hard as possible to try and emulate or copy those body sizes that we see in advertisements despite the great lengths and serious health defects that come during the strenuous, dangerous and the unhealthy process that we must follow. In the advertisement images, it is challenging to tell which model is real and which one is not; thus, most viewers are deceived by the computers’ perfection, and most people end up competing with computers without knowing.
Relationship between eating disorders and western culture
In the westernized countries, the media, models, and adherence to rigorous and stringent dieting practices have influenced most girls and women to become as thin as possible. In the study of eating disorders sociologist say that it was not until the 1950s plump and curvy body types were the accepted and most desired body types. But this has come to change, since the introduction and invention of the television, the world has seen tremendous change in how people perceive beauty. In western countries, watching television has dramatically influenced the development and spread of eating disorders. For instance, a child in western countries such as the United States of America watches an average of about 20 hours of television weekly. The same child interacts with approximately 30000 advertisements and television commercials in a year. In these television commercials and advertisements, almost if not all, the females are featured are usually underweight. These advertisements, movies, and television commercials play an important role in misleading adolescent girls since they think that these models and actors are usually of regular body sizes and weight. The adolescent girls and most young women tend to believe that they become more popular by being thin, successful, happy, and more attractive. The media presents to its consumers an idealized and highly unrealistic fantasy rather than a realistic version of reality. These images are then passively and unconsciously ingrained in these young women’s and adolescent girls’ minds and become part and parcel of them. These girls then are left with no other option but to follow what the culture of television has brought to them and they intensively start practicing abnormal eating habits such as starving themselves till they achieve the desired body of the models and actors that they see on the television thus leading to eating disorders that in turn seriously affects their health.
There is an increasing and fast-growing notion that eating disorders are highly associated with the upper socioeconomic status; most people in the United States are considered to be wealthy as compared to other developing countries. Most of the population consists typically of slim and underweight people, and this is normally seen from the females as compared to the males. Thus, most Western countries tend to confine themselves to a very strict diet to try and fit into a specific socio-cultural group. To fit in, they tend to avoid certain foods, and some go to the extent of skipping meals. Some eat minimal amounts of food while others go to the extent of inducing emesis by using some medications.
Most of the people living in western countries are wealthy, and food usually is not a problem. Thus; due to this culture of having abundant food, one can easily be associated with and develop an eating disorder known as bulimia nervosa. This is also a life-threatening eating disorder. When a person suffers from bulimia nervosa, he or she experiences frequent episodes of binge eating. The person tends to experience a feeling of purging, here the person where he or she also does not have control over his or her eating habits. Many people suffering from this condition tend to have restricted eating habits. For example, most of them limit their eating and avoid eating food during the day. They do this to prevent people from noticing their feeding habits. They mostly eat during the night when nobody can see them or judge them for their eating habits. This condition is serious since it quickly leads to obesity, causing severe health effects such as high blood pressure and heart diseases. Obesity comes as a result of eating large amounts in a relatively short period. Such people try to get rid of the extra calories gained through mechanisms that are very unhealthy. Most of them tend to employ the use of self-induced vomiting to help them reduce their body weight. They usually employ these methods to avoid the shame, guilt, and even the fear of the intense amount of weight they may have gained throughout the eating disorder. Another technique frequently employed by such people is the use of laxatives and over-exercising to get rid of the extra amount of weight gained. The methods mentioned above are dangerous but due to the western culture were becoming thin and underweight is the preferred body size, most women and adolescent girls have no other choice but to engage themselves in these acts. This clearly shows the relationship between bulimia nervosa and western culture.
Binge-eating is another eating disorder closely associated with western cultures; this is closely related to excessive eating. Here people tend to eat hurriedly, and they tend to eat more than the intended amount of food. People who suffer from this type of eating disorder are in most cases, very wealthy. They usually have excess amounts of food in their homes. Like in bulimia nervosa, after a series of binge eating, the persons involved usually undergo guilt, shame, and a feeling of disgust by their behavior and the amount of food they consume in a relatively short period. This condition leads to the affected persons to have a sense of eating in isolation since they feel embarrassed when eating together with other people who do not suffer from their condition.
Another disorder associated with western culture is the avoidance or restrictive food intake disorder. This is a condition associated with one not being able to meet the minimum daily nutritional requirement. Several factors typically cause this: one may lose interest in eating, avoid food with specific scent, and other characteristics such as the color of food or even the taste of particular food. Persons experiencing this condition tend to lose a lot of weight and become thin, and if not controlled early enough, the person may suffer from severe malnutrition conditions.
In conclusion, most eating disorders are closely related to western cultures. Anorexia nervosa is the most common since most people in Western countries fear gaining weight and the perception that being excessively underweight is attractive. It is also viewed as a sign of happiness and is also associated with success. Other eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa are severe life-threatening conditions if not controlled in the shortest time possible, leading to obesity, serious heart diseases, and even high blood pressure. Binge eating and avoidant or restrictive food intake disorders are also associated with western cultures. All these disorders are controllable. The key is to sensitize masses about eating disorders since most people suffer from eating disorders in ignorance.