How do the media influence eating disorders in adolescents?



How do the media influence eating disorders in adolescents?

Thesis Statement

Different kinds of media and advertisements badly influence eating habits of adolescents and children and thus are serious cause of their unhealthy diets.

Introduction

Media are a double-edged sword, and a major cause of healthy or unhealthy eating habits particularly in children and teenagers. In today's world, media has now become a key part of our lives and one of the most invasive powers. No matter if children and adolescents are in their homes, in the malls, on the roads or anywhere else, they are continuously being targeted with pictures, images and messages through hundreds of channels, newspapers and advertisements (Bergin, 2011).

They are unable to escape the influence of media, from television to the Internet, huge billboards to iPads and smart phones and DVDs in cars. In particular, adolescents use major part of their time interacting with several forms of media, may it be TV, music, video games and off course the Internet. Taking all these factors into consideration, it has been concluded that children spend nearly half of their time watching TV and rest of the time is spent using other forms of media (Lerner, 2001).

Body

Realizing my young brother's unhealthy habits and giving attention to try altered his eating. This inspires me to choose a topic that is 'Media Influence on Teenager's Disordered Eating'. Recently, researchers have proved that children and teenagers spend more than six hours daily with media; more time than in a classroom. In addition, it is now clear that media have influence on a variety of health issues, such as smoking, aggressive behavior, obesity, and eating disorders (Morris, 2003). Therefore, I will focus on the relationship between media and eating disturbances, and discuss how advertisement influences adolescents' eating habits?

Media ...