Websites Recommendations

Meggie writes about the banner advertising and the influence of it on the society. As a example she provides one very interesting case of this type of advertising called Český Sen/ Czech Dream. There are many intersting information provided. If you are interested in it here is a link: http://networkadvertisingblog.blogspot.com/

Nika talks about the guerrilla marketing and buzz marketing. It is very catchy and very well explained and those explanations are supported by videos, quite good one. I focused Nika´s chapter about the negative or non ethical aspect of guerrilla marketing and I was suprised how much I did not know untill know. So you better should check it out: http://guerillaandbuzzmarketing.blogspot.com/

Bella focuses her attention on political advertsing. She talks anout the political campaings and all those lies politics promise us before the ellections. She also mentions how powerful those campaings could be. It is very well organized and clearly defined. Here is the link: http://advertisinglimited.blogspot.com/

Beatrice´s blog is very related to my topic, so to me it was very interesting and because I was also focusing on this kind of topic a could perceive it deeply and really think about the cult of beauty of present time. So Beatrise talks about the nowadays phenomen to be as thin as possible even though it is impossible. Check it out: http://portrayalsofwomen.wordpress.com/

Annie´s blog is very recebt and really interesting. She talks about the nowadays´s phenomenon, social networks, to be more specific, about Facebook. Annie writes about different aspects of facebook and effects of facebook on people, especially children. If you are interested in problematic of social networks visit this page: http://facebookmoredetailed.blogspot.com/

Welcome Everybody!
This blog was created to discuss often rehashed topic, if the media have any influence on spreading of eating disorders among young people. There are facts, interesting articles and videos posted below. Feel free to comment whatever you like to comment and if you have any questions, just ask me:)


Hope you will find my blog interesting.

Kate

Are media really involved in eating disorders?

Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and obesity are nowadays phenomenon among young people. Anorexia and bulimia are psychic diseases which affect more less teenagers, and the majority of people suffer from this illness are young women at the average age of 17. This does not mean that men are out of play. De facto the majority of models, body builders or ice skaters suffer from eating disorder. Obesity, on the other hand is different case, it is not considered as psychic illness. But obesity belongs to one of the most often illness in the USA, to be more concrete children illness. The statistics say that 1 out of 5 children suffer from obesity. The treatments for eating disorders are different and they help individually. It does not mean that after use some medicaments such as antidepressants or such will have the same effect on two different patients.

But the main question in my blog is if media have some effect on eating disorders, and if yes which one, positive or negative? The answer to the first part of my question is yes, yes media have an effect on eating disorders and the answer to the second part is obviously negative. Media present that be fit, slim, good looking means to be happy, with no problems to have a success. This sounds very nice, and the truth is that the majority of celebrities and public persons promote these things; they are promoting “health”. But what kind of health? Is it normal and healthy when adult women let’s say in the age of 25 has 40 or less kilos? Really? If young girls see I on the TV, what should they think? Ohh, she is gorgeous, she looks so pretty, she is so thin and so on. But do they realize that people on TV, like celebrities, are not the real people? I do not think so.

The fact is that even if media play a big role in eating disorder concept, they just promote what people and entire society wants to see. The media did not decide that the new trend going to be as thin as possible and look unhealthy and tinny to death. No, it was decided by fashion industry. To be slim promises a success everywhere. Media only promote it. The thing what should be done by media is to reduce photos and pictures of retouch celebrities and public persons. Media make from the real people unreal, unhealthy, tinny “zombies” and publish it like nothing happened. Those bodies on title pages on renowned magazines are based on fake bodies. No one have exactly same or even similar body to the bodies promote as perfect and ideal ones.

This is the ugly truth. But what shall we do to live in better place? It is nearly impossible to protect adults from this unrealistic world, but we can protect children. Parents can reduce a little bit watching TV, or if children want to see some program, parents should stay with them and explain everything what children could see on TV. Other semi-solution is to teach children how to live a high-quality and full value life without using any kind of diets, just eating normal and healthy. Lead them to sport activities. In this moment it is obvious that the change will come, but the question is when.      

The recent story of eating disorder victim

On December 30, 2010 it was reported that French model Isabelle Caro died in the age of 28. At one, very crucial stage of her illnesses her weight was only 55 pounds. In 2007 Isabelle began to fight against anorexia even though she was still suffering from this disease. She became the face of the 'No Anorexia' campaign by fashion house Nolita. Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani took the pictures which showed the controversial images of the model looking emaciated. Her body was so devastated because of the illness. An only bone, nothing else was possibly seen. This campaign was made to alarm that the situation is bad. Isabelle tried to fight against the “optimal size” for supermodels, which is size 0. According to Isabelle models are pushing all the time to lose weight for the reason of just looking according to designer´s vision. It does not do anything with healthy, fresh and sexy body. Nowadays models are just bones, in a men case, bones with some muscles. If someone think that anorexic models are only women, it is wrong, men models suffer from eating disorder in the same way.   

Dr. Franko knew Isabelle Caro very well; he was her psychiatrist during the Isaabelle´s treatment. A news reporter asked him how the pressure  girls stay slim contribute to anorexia. And the answer was "By creating a society where thin is associated with success, happiness, wealth, and attractiveness, young girls strive to be thin without recognizing the costs, both physically and mentally. Some have referred to the focus on thinness as a "brain drain" - girls focus on their bodies to the extent that other issues such as family, friends, schools, are left behind.“

Eating disorders seen by specialist

Herewith I am posting one scientific article written by Dr. Arthur Dingley a specialist on eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia and obesity. He is writing about these disorders more concretely to details. He also uses some very interesting statistical numbers which say that bulimia occurs more often than anorexia and that obesity is the major problem of nowadays. According to Dr. Dingley there is less than 1% of people suffering from anorexia, but around 90% of them are girls, young women around the age of 17. There are 2% of people from entire population suffering from bulimia nervosa. He also suggests that obesity is not a psychic disorder so it is different in this eating disorders group. The causes of eating disorders are not clear even unknown. Dr.Dingley says: “The cause of eating disorders is unknown. It is tempting to speculate that our cultural “fixation” on idealized physical beauty is driving young women to extremes as they attempt to achieve an unattainable standard of physique. Unfortunately, there is little evidence for this. In fact, people with Anorexia Nervosa completely ignore culturally accepted norms of female beauty in pursuit of their idiosyncratic goals”.

Link to the article:

http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/riverview/psychology_articles/eating_disorder.html


Link to the video: 

Media influence on eating disorders

The first web article talks about the issue if the media cause eating disorders. It is a short article where the media influenced is discussed. Another article is about the eating disorder treatments, which inseparably belong to my topic. In the second article many kinds of treatments are discussed and recommended and at the beginning there is written important facts about eating disorders. The second article is posted because the treatments in eating disorders are very complicated, just for the fact that it is very hard to diagnose eating disorder. The situation when human suffers from eating disorders comes to you and asks for help is really very rare. And finally, the third interesting web site is Eating disorder expert. I chose the third one just for the reason that all those facts, such as causes or symptoms are presented there. It is very complex website with important contacts.  

  

Here are the links for articles, feel free to check it out:

1. http://www.articledoctor.com/eating-disorders/does-the-media-cause-eating-disorders---does-the-media-cause-eating-disorders-738

2.http://www.eating-disorder.com/

3.http://www.eatingdisorderexpert.co.uk/

And if you are interested in some personal stries here is a link, and you can find some very interesting ones:

http://caringonline.com/feelings/byvictims/

media versus eating disorders article 2

 The second article which I chose is Body image, Media and Eating disorders. The article is more less like case study, it takes the reader to the history of body image changes. It begins with colonial times together with tiny waists and large bustles. This period was really cruel because women were willing to remove, by surgery of course, their ribs, to look thinner. After it continuous with the 20^th century and, moving to 2^nd Word War to the late 1960s, when top model Twiggy, become so famous.

It describes the media influence on human body development, there is an interesting fact which says that the year 1998 was quite crucial for eating disorders, because at that time the series like Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place were recorded, and young people tend to inclined to the perfect and very well looking actors and actresses.  

The article finishes with some recommendations for parents. They should lead their children to healthy lifestyle, not based on diets ar model look, but to exercise and healthy food.  

here is the link: 

http://ap.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/30/3/257