I recently noticed this whilst studying for my dissertation. Part of my research was to read women’s aimed at women and there were many articles and adverts emphasising having the perfect body and being what society deems to be beautiful. In this day and age young girls are more susceptible to this form of media than ever before which is why I think this is a big issue. An example is I was walking in my neighbourhood and I heard a child who can’t have been more than six playing outside saying to a another child who was even younger ‘this one will go around your waist because you are skinny’ I don’t know about you but I didn’t even know what skinny was at six years ago. In fact I didn’t care much about my weight till I started watching more and more TV. I am lucky to be the age that I am (21) for it to not have a huge affect on me. Another example was in last weekends time magazine which showed in America mothers were making their daughters as young as 11 go through strict exercise regimes and eating habits. I am all for being healthy but sure the point of being a child to being able to eat junk food too. I mean I had sleepovers where all we did was eat and eat and that hasn’t affected my weight. Exercise is important but children are active as it is. There are other ways in which to get them to exercise. I did Karate from the age of nine and played football. I would not have done that if I didn’t like it though that is a difference. Children shouldn’t be forced to go to the gym especially when they are young and their bodies are still developing.
Another thing I noticed is even a respected entertainment news channel such as MTV or E! News talk a lot about women’s bodies. Whether it is about them loosing baby weight after they have been pregnant or loosing or gaining weight in general. It really is no wonder that Eating disorders have increased especially as today’s society is very linked with media and this need to be stopped for younger generations to come.
