Anorexia Nervosa in Women

Most teenage girls nowadays want to look attractive and skinny like the top models on TV and international fashion magazines such as Vogue, GQ and Elle Magazine. This is due to the fact that we live in an obsessed world where thin girls are idolized and adored. Media plays a huge role in this influence. The moment you turn on the television, you see advertisements with skinny models as the endorsers. This portrays a negative outcome on a woman’s appearance and way of thinking. It is as if they are implying that to be pretty, you have to be thin. Since teenagers are exposed to such media, they are constantly concerned about the way they look, and they fear that they are not pretty enough.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by the intense fear and rejection to sustain body weight over a minimal normal weight for age and height because of a disturbance in perception of the size of the body which may cause the absence of at least three consecutive menstrual cycles. It “includes three distinct types: a self-induced starvation to a significant degree; a relentless drive for thinness, a morbid fear of fatness, or both; and medical signs and symptoms resulting from starvations” (Christian & Greger, 1991). Most anorexics are women and girls who view themselves as fat even when the mirror shows a starving body. They still feel fat even when one fourth of their body weight is lost.

In order to look like the super models, they assume that they would be more confident and more contented if they were as thin as their inspirations in the cover page of a magazine. These aspiring teenagers start to exercise constantly, avoid foods that are high in calories and worse, starve themselves. By using such cruel and unhealthy methods to lose weight is very harmful for them mentally and physically.

Part of attaining a personal identity includes the development of one’s physical self by reinforcing an accepting and realistic image of physical attractiveness. During...