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What Causes Eating
Disorders?
A look at Media Influences and the Advertising
Industry
Adapted from Remuda Ranch
www.remudaranch.com
Remuda Ranch is a treatment center for
females with eating disorders.
They feel genetics, and old "wounds" are part of reasons people
develop an eating disorder. The third thing, which I'll discuss
here, are cultural factors.
Media Influences:
• Models weigh <95% of all US women.
• They are an average of 5'11 and wear a size 2.
Magazine images are enhanced and modified. Every single photo
spends 1-2 weeks with a graphic artist to change photo to what
they want. All wrinkles are removed. Look closely and even
wrinkles on knuckles are gone! Remember a while back when Jamie
Lee Curtis did a photo shoot wearing a sports bra and shorts.
One photo showed what she really looked like (a little "cush"
here and there) and the other photo was what the graphic artist
made her look like. Very powerful stuff. Thank you Jamie Lee for
your honesty! Actress Kate Winslet also did a shoot which was
altered so much, she threw a fit saying it didn't even look like
her. "Those aren't my legs!"
Joan Lunden has a special called "Behind Closed Doors" that
talks about this phenomenon. I also have a client who is "way
up" in the magazine industry and she completely agreed with
this.
TV and Advertising
Thinness is equated with:
• Moralilty, goodness and virtue
• Financial success, and positive relationships
• Self-esteem and respect from others
A study by Anne Becker was done in Fiji. Traditional Fijian
culture smpasizes a robust look. Much of the island didn't have
electricity until 1995, where TV was widely introduced. They
watched American TV shows, primarily 90210. By 1999, there was
an enormous increase in girls dieting and feeling fat and also a
500% increase in girls vomiting to control weight. Even the
males started to want American male things.
Television advertising use to be just "buy our product", now
there is so much competition that the advertising first "cuts
you down" making you feel unacceptable until you buy their
product and live up to a created set of standards.
I just saw a perfect example of this in advertising. It goes
something like this: "This is the year you firm up, eat right,
get a new style and get beautiful....but oh my...your teeth
aren't glowing-in-the-dark-white? You're not beautiful yet,
so.....use our teeth bleaching product to be truly beautiful."
It makes me so disgusted that I will forever boycott this
product. Think of all the shampoo ads, they do the same thing.
Everyone is unique, celebrate individual beauty! Our heart and
souls aren't in our mouth or growing out of our head.
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