How is media affecting eating disorders?

You can find good-looking people on most of the ads, tv-shows, magazines, commercials and also in news. From the beginning of their life the majority of children are taught by society that their looks make a difference, are relevant and matter. “Pretty” kids get more attention than other kids from maybe family members by calling them cute or adorable. This is continuous and lasts for years; they get older knowing that they are good-looking and unconsciously feeling superior somehow than someone who isn’t as attractive. So this necessity of being good-looking is grown in to people since early-on. Following the CSUN website the number of hours per day that the TV is on in an average U.S. home is of 6 hours and 47 minutes. With an increased population of children who spend a lot of time in front of television, there are more superficial ideas and concepts of how the should be like and how they should look like. TV-Shows and commercials on the television spend countless hours telling us to be thin, look beautiful, lose weight, buy more things that make us look better for people to like us. These programs rarely depict men and women with "average" body-figures and cheap simple clothes, ingraining in the back of all our heads that this is the type of life we should have and want. Overweight characters are typically portrayed as slothful, lonely, or "the bad guy", while skinny women and buff men are the popular, prosperous, sexy and powerful ones who frequently everyone like. How could we tell a person suffering from anorexia or people in general that what counts is on the inside when media is contradicting this entirely? 

How can we affect celebrities through media and how can media itself affect them too?

Media impacts our lives in many different simple yet effect effective ways. If we just drive in a highway we are bombarded by a variety of advertisements showing us what we should purchase to reach our final goal, happiness. These ads try to give an arguably false perception of contentment. The most common type of ad that I have seen is of a fit and attractive person ingesting a beverage or type of food. These deliver a subliminal message that make us believe that we should be like these people, that we should be doing what they are doing or that we can get to look like they do (fit or good-looking) by purchasing a product. Well, we also affect the media because they depend on us. So what people think about an advertisement, or the celebrity that may be on it, is important too. If we wouldn’t like the ad and we wouldn’t purchase what they want us to purchase publicity owners would probably change their methods of convincing by probably switching the person who is in the ad or just changing the whole idea. So this means that because we want to see attractive people on these ads they put them on them, as simple as that. But, what do these people on the ads go through to look like this which may end up being stressful, tiring, unbearable or perhaps even extremely unhealthy.

Heidi Montag could be an example for someone who wanted to look perfect. It even looks like she wanted to be what every woman wishes to be and whom every guy wants to be with.  Heidi Montag decided to have 10 plastic surgical procedures in one day in April, 2007. After a few years she confessed to the public that she regrets it and her insecurities (which led to surgery) began when she emerged to Hollywood. Heidi Montag also said and I quote “"I hope that people really hear what I'm saying about plastic surgery and I hope they really hear that I'm saying I would take it back," she said. "I almost risked everything, all my relationships and myself, for vanity." Hollywood is a place where a vast amount of celebrities (such as Heidi) live. Celebrities are daily being followed and taken pictures of by paparazzi’s trying to find a flaw on them, including physical flaws. Heidi Montag reached the breaking point in which she felt so un-attractive that she had to have 10 surgical procedures in just one day. The necessity of being perfect became somehow an obsession which ended up being a irreversible mistake. If the public wouldn’t pay much attention to the physics of young people like her, the media wouldn’t focus on that part and some celebs won’t ever have to go through that. It’s just the world we live in and how we think. I’m not saying that it’s the public’s fault, there are probably other factors which led to this but I can assure you that us wanting to see celebrities as “perfect people” was one of the reasons. So yes, we can also affect a celebrities’ life.

                                     

How did media affect Amanda Todd?

Bullying has changed a lot comparing it to its process from a decade ago.  The method of bullying these days isn’t just through making someone trip on their way to another place or mentioning something that might be slightly true and negative about them in front of a crowd. Now days it involves internet, which takes a great part of the daily teenage life.

You could say that a decade ago, you just had to survive school because it was only there were children got bullied but in the present kids go home, sit on the computer and a bomb of negative comments about him/her can be seen on social websites. It may even start at home and end up on the schoolyard.

Following a Huffington Post´s posted two weeks ago, many teenagers report having negative experiences on Facebook. 22% of teens have had an online experience that caused a friendship to end, 25% had an online experience that led to a face-to-face argument or confrontation, and 13% felt nervous going to school the next day after an argument on a social networking site. And almost all social network users (88%) have witnessed other people being cruel or mean on social network sites.

One of the main reasons of a lot of people expressing their cruelty on social networks is that they can hide behind the Internet, they don’t face the magnitude of their action immediately and sometimes they never do, compared to doing it face-to-face. This is because they might be scared of the consequences and through internet these are easily avoidable.

Even though Facebook has many positive things like keeping in touch with friends and being informed about a variety of things we also have to keep in mind that it has negative aspects which can definitely lead to a type of bullying which is cyber-bullying. This is was the case with the recently deceased Amanda Todd (15) in British Columbia, Canada.

Amanda Todd´s story begins when she was pretty young (Year 7) by making the terrible mistake of flashing random people through video chatting websites. A year later a man who knew everything about her told her to do a show for him otherwise he´d show the picture he took from that time to everyone. During Christmas break the picture was sent to everyone in the neighborhood including family and friends. This is when her anxiety and major depression started, therefore she started consuming drugs.

After a year of this happening Amanda Todd moved to another town. The man came back again with again, a list of the new people she knew plus, a Facebook page about her which shared naked pictures of Amanda online. This is how she lost all of her friends and confidence. Unfortunately she started cutting herself to try to relieve herself. She was lonely again, and with no friends, no support, --apart from just one of her divorced parents-- Amanda moved to another school…again.

Everything felt better for her but still had no friends. She started talking to an old friend which was leading her on to kiss. Things got a bit serious and there was some physical contact but, he had a girlfriend. After that, Amanda Todd received a text to “get out of school”. The girlfriend of the individual was there and embarrassed Amanda in front of the whole school by calling her names and causing her physical damage. She started believing that she deserved it and it was all her fault.

Amanda tried to take her life away by drinking bleach but her parents took her to the hospital and she survived. On Facebook people were bothering and bullying her, they even posted pictures of bleach on her Facebook wall to remind her about the incident. After everything she had been through she didn’t go out, was extremely depressed, went to a counselor for help, took anti-depressants and cried for help. Around a month later (Oct. 6^th) she was found dead at her house.

If it wouldn’t have been for media this would’ve have never happened, then again, if it wouldn’t have been for Amanda doing what she did at the beginning this wouldn’t have happened either. So it’s because of media that the problems appeared but media isn’t to be blamed for it. The people to be blamed for this are the guys that bullied Amanda literally to death. For one mistake that Amanda made she was haunted for the rest of her life.

This topic is very controversial because only one side of the story has been globally seen from everyone; we haven’t seen the side of the bullies, or witnesses of the situation.  Either way Amanda Todd committing suicide should’ve never happened and this is very controversial because in the media many people are arguing if she was innocent or not and how other thousands of people commit suicide and don’t get as much attention as this story.

Now media has made this story viral and wants to prevent it from happening again which I find a good, as long as it works. This story has been everywhere in Canada and its government is planning to make drastic changes in the cyber-bullying policy following the Huffington Post. It is amazing how media makes people react, when it’s too late. We need a young child committing suicide for people to open their eyes and realize how far cyber-bullying can go.

I wouldn’t want my kids to be raised in a world where this can even get to be common. But, unfortunately, many of the stories that go viral like these ones are forgotten a couple of weeks later.