Eating Disorders

As young people are often significantly influenced by popular culture, this fact is frequently seen as one of the main reasons why eating disorders are such a widespread problem amongst America's youth. After all, when young people look up to their favorite celebrities and wish to emulate everything about these famous individuals, the modern preference for excessive thinness can give youth the wrong idea about what is acceptable.

Recently, the trend has begun to go in the opposite direction. Many well-known celebrities are urging their fans to be happy with the way they are, which includes their body composition and weight. Actually, it seems some are even going too far in the opposite direction, acting as if one should not have much concern about appearance at all. In taking that into consideration, you may wonder why eating disorders are still such a problem; and are even increasing.

The reason for this discrepancy is that even though young people are very much influenced by popular culture, this fact is far from being the sole answer to eating disorders. While lifestyle variations, such as living in areas where not having routine mealtimes is considered quite acceptable, also increase a person's chance of developing extremely unhealthy eating patterns, and these patterns are slowly becoming recognized by the medical community as relatively new forms of eating disorders, the fact is that the serious forms of eating disorders which have been widely known about for a long time are less about popular influence and much more centered on the individual person. In other words, even if a young girl wishes to “be like” her favorite overly-thin model or actress, this in itself does not cause an eating disorder.

If popular trends were the deciding factor, the rate of eating disorders would be significantly decreased. Clearly that is not the case. It is time to stop looking at external influences as the cause of this problem, and instead begin to place the focus on the individual. Only when one can recognize the true causes of this problem can there begin to be an appropriate solution; and, in most cases, blaming “too-thin” movie stars for this continuing problem amongst today's youth does nothing to achieve this goal. 

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