This is a highly debatable subject and although it is not considered to be the cause of eating disorders, media is often viewed as a contributing factor, especially amongst adolescent girls, who view the size and shape of models and actresses, as ideal body image.
Adolescents, who have an eating disorder, often have a distorted body image to begin with. They’re often over critical and ruthless in their self-evaluation, in terms of their body shape and weight. Through the medium of magazines and film, current trends pertaining to body image, or rather society’s image of the body, a person with an eating disorder feels that their own personal body, does not measure up to what is portrayed within the media and ideal or beautiful.
Unfortunately for the past decade, the fashion industry, while admittedly being at the mercy of advertisers,’ has used ultra thin, nearly skeletal looking models. The entire waif look has graced the pages of magazines and film, unfortunately for a person with a non- healthy body image and lack of self-esteem, striving to achieve what society has deemed beautiful, becomes an obsession.