Does advertising affect eating disorders

Do you know that a child is exposed to more than 40,000 ads in a given year, well this is the impact that media and advertising have in our kids, teenagers and adults. There has been some discussion of the impact of the media and fashion industry in eating disorders, but a huge part of that impact is caused by advertising.

Why do i think that advertising has an effect on eating disorders? The reality is that we shape our social values, behaviors, tastes and preferences based on what we see on tv, magazines, newspapers, online and in movies. We see ads every minute of the day of any kind and one of the most common images that we see is a skinny beautiful women selling something.

Companies invest millions of dollars every year on marketing they brand and ads, they just want to make as much profit as possible, so if they are selling food that is unhealthy and will make you fat, that is ok for them as long as you keep buying.

Here is the problem, companies sell thousands of products that are unhealthy, lack of nutrients and will make you fat, but they show their ads with beautiful skinny women everywhere, so what is wrong with this and what effect has on eating disorders?

People are eating must of the junk food that they are exposed to every day, they are not getting any nutritive meals, but at the same time they are shaping the values of teens in a negative way by showing them that skinny women are what is accepted as good and successful. So many teenagers engage in eating disorders to acquire that body image of the perfect women that everyone in school and in society like.

So, while there is people getting fatter due to the unhealthy food that we are exposed to, there are many other teenagers that find their only solution in anorexia and bulimia.

It needs to be clear that anorexia and bulimia disorders are psychological problems because the person has acquired a wrong self image of what she looks like. Advertising its not the only cause, but is one more factor that is creating a huge impact our teens and society.

In fact a few years ago the ideal body of a women was not of a thin body, a good a example is marylin monroe, she wasnt thin as todays models, but it was a the good image of a women at that time. However now media and advertising have changed the image of the ideal women to a very thin women body, the reality is that just a few women in the world can have that kind of body, even if you diet this is not the common type of body. This kind of ideal body image is excluding 95% of women in the world that dont have the biological and physical attributes of those models and that is the fault of the media.

Also in school and society critiques to the body of a person can cause her to have a trauma and engage in eating disorders disorders. So is a combination of things in society, media and a trauma that creates this kind of disorders.