The number of young people that have developed detrimental eating disorders has increased exponentially from the number of people afflicted in the 1980's in the United States of America, according to the World Health Organization.  There are many theories of the cause of such a drastic increase in a relatively limited time of eating disorders in young people, and some of these theories are very well founded and argued while others do not have enough factual evidence to clearly substantiate them.  One of the most popular theories revolves around the media's depiction of gender roles and statuses in our society.  This theory has the backing of many scientists and doctors that have gathered field evidence to, at a minimum, conclude that there is a strong correlation between media stereotypes and the growth of eating disorders among teenagers and young adults, and, at the maximum, they show our society that the media is the root of this problem beyond a reasonable doubt.  The media's depiction of gender roles and of the so called "ideal body" of both males and females have led to a significate rise of eating disorders and mental illness among teenagers and young adults in the past 30 years.  

The media has a very narrow view of what you must look like in order to be conceived of as beautiful and the media implants this opinion so firmly in the minds of young people that the growth of eating disorders is a clear result.  Doctors Natalia Kazmierczak, Rafal Patryn, and Anton Niedzielski all understood that the rate of anorexia among young people had been on the rise for quite some time now, and so they conducted a field survey with young people to determine the cause in their article, "Influence of Mass Media of Eating Disorders Amongst Young People,".  Their survey consisted of 1000 individuals aged between 13 and 19, and there were 216, or 21.6% of this population, that admitted to having or to have had at some point an eating disorder.  Their survey ran through two phases. Phase one was an information pool that the doctors collected of every participant including age, sex, body weight, height, personal values, and their family income.  Phase two was to ask questions regarding the participants' view and overall satisfaction with their physical appearance.  Of the 21.6% nearly 90% were teenage girls, and most of the eating disorders were classified as anorexia.  Those that suffered from the disorders were asked why they felt the way that they did, and the overwhelming and most common answer was because they felt bombarded with the same physiques over and over again until they arrived at their own conclusions that they were not attractive because they were not skinny enough, or curvy enough, or as muscular as society wants them to be.  This depiction of the media's "ideal body" is impossible to escape in modern society.  The teenagers that were surveyed have yet to reach their prime and they are all still developing at that age, yet the media has led them to believe that they are not good enough because the only image they portray is that of the woman who is incredibly skinny, while still having busting breasts and ample hips.  Or they portray the man who is tall with a full head of hair and with large pectorals and biceps and of course, most importantly to the media, the rippling six-pack.  If these are the only images of so-called beautiful people, then of course developing teenagers will have eating disorders.  They develop these disorders because the media lays out a goal that is simply not obtainable by the average person.  The images that are taken of the models or celebrities are edited to the point where it is a completely different picture than the original, in order to make the subject appear inhumanly beautiful, and of course the only way that youths believe they can achieve this image is by starving themselves.

The media is not a new organization, but they have always controlled the peoples' access to images and information and through this godly power they have manipulated the image of the beautiful human over time.  S. Almond, a journalist for Journal of Human Nutrition & Dietetics also believed that the media was the primary reason for the eating disorders, but also made a point to note that they are not the only influence and that the power of family and an individual's peers are also important categories.  He does, however, believe that the media is the most powerful factor of the three when applied to eating disorders.  In Almond's article he traces how the "ideal" body has shifted over time, as whatever was popularly depicted by the media at the time.  In the 1950's the most popular womanly figure was that of Marilyn Monroe, and naturally that is what every girl dreamed to look like.  Then in the 1980's the figure of Kate Moss, much more skinny than Monroe, became adopted and sure enough that became what every girl dreamed to look like.  This trend has continued since then as the models became even skinnier, while supporting larger breasts and larger butts.  The most popularly shone female model in today's society is a size 00 or smaller and this is an almost unnatural weight for them given the fact that most female models average out at 5 feet 8 inches.  Almond attempts to sway us to his logic that the media has an unbelievable amount of power on young people, who by nature are easily influenced.  The result is that teenagers will try to achieve what they see in their favorite magazines or television shows and movies.  What he did not note is that the result of this trend was young people starving themselves to be as skinny as possibly, or to force themselves to throw up after they eat in order to feel full, but in doing so depriving themselves of nutrients which is a less direct way to starve themselves.  A simple truth is that models as we see them are structured a very specific way.  It is very challenging to go outside of what your genes will naturally allow you to do, but the youths that face eating disorders try to force their bodies into a drastic change and in doing so hurt themselves so badly that they have to live with the effects for years.  Those that live with eating disorders are often told by loved ones that they are fine as they are, but because of the media's tidal wave of their "ideal image" the voices of loved ones become drowned out and then these youths are left to face their hardships alone.

It is natural human behavior to attempt to be seen as beautiful by one's peers and this is a trait that we all share, but the lengths some people are willing to go to achieve this can be seen as unnatural.  An article published in Russia by Dr. Yu Durneva revealed that the rise of eating disorders is not an isolated incident in the United States.  The neuroscientist argued that the media takes the Russian culture and twists it around and manipulates it until it reflects only what the editors of fashion magazines deem as beautiful.  They take the size 00 models, then enhances the structure of their face with copious amounts of makeup and computer editing, then they make their breasts and butts larger, and then shrinks their waste even further until the final picture no longer even looks like the model in the picture.  They make this a standard and because it is the only body type they show it leaves your average Jane and Joe trying to look like a false picture.  This bombardment harms teenage girls and even children, by engraining the idea in their head that it will never matter how skinny they get, because they will never be ready for the catwalk.  Dr. Durneva voiced particular frustration with the media when she had found that the amount of girls under the age of ten with eating disorders had increased by more than 600% in the past 20 years.  At ten years old the only things that should be on a child's mind are behaving in class and to have as much fun as possible at recess, they should not be concerned with trying to look like a model twice their age.  The painful reality is that this image is seen so often that these little girls are trying to sacrifice their youth in order to look like them.  Even the Barbie dolls that almost every girl plays with has a figure that is unnatural.  

Many times there are severe psychological effects that accompany these disorders, and it can be argued that the eating disorders themselves are some form of psychological trauma on those afflicted.  However sometimes it is far more serious than simply not eating their greens before going to bed.  Often times the individuals may also be plagued with a mental illness such as depression, which seems to be more common among teenagers that isolate themselves or has a weaker relationship with their family and with their peers.  Their symptoms can result in some of them self-mutilating, attempting to commit suicide, and sometimes even succeeding.  They develop a self-loathing to the point of making it hard to look at themselves in the mirror, because whenever the look all they see is something from a horror film, because their face is never what you would see on television, in advertisements and commercials, in magazines or anything of the sort.  They will never believe they are beautiful and will never be good enough, because the media has fed them their beliefs of what the "ideal body" is from the moment they exited the safety of their mothers' womb.

