These reasons stem from the belief that lower body mass often delays puberty in females and secondly, that a lighter body mass has less resistance. ... Purging affects the heart, the electrolyte balance in the body and the ph level in the blood. ... This balances out the ph level in the body. ... Athletic performance depends almost solely on the body's muscles. ... The smooth muscle that lines the body's blood vessels allows for blood to flow throughout the entire system allows even the most proximal portions of the body to function and receive oxygen. ...

• Word Count: 2558
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Numerous individuals feel as if they are pressured by the idea of an ideal body image through the media. In many instances, individuals often have their own ideal body image, but because of standards that humanity has set for the "perfect body" that are reinforced through the media, men and women are expected to meet other standards. ... In the article, "The Effect of Experimental Presentation of Thin Media Images on Body Satisfaction: A Meta-Analytic Review" Lisa Groesz, Michael Levine, and Sarah Murnen explain, "This perfect body has flawless skin, a thin waist, l...

• Word Count: 4155
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

While I was sitting in the lounge room one afternoon, I noticed a Vouge magazine on the coffee table, as I couldn't find anything else to occupy myself with, I reached out for the magazine and I started going through each page and with every turn, I was aware that there was another appalling image of a lady dressed in versace with bones shooting out of every corner in her body. ... Wanting to be skinny starts from a very young age. ... In today's generation looks and weight seem to be much more important than personality, fashion models suggest to us what is attractive and what good ...

• Word Count: 688
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

By establishing unattainable standards of body perfection and beauty, mass media drives women to become dissatisfied with their bodies, resulting in disordered eating behaviors as they try to achieve these unreachable goals. ... The obsessive interest with body weight starts at considerably young ages, with television, internet and magazine ads as the fuel for a potentially long, catastrophic path of disordered eating. ... Andrist writes that "the media influences young women about what their bodies should look like, suggesting through every print and television advertisement that the ide...

• Word Count: 1490
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Many people see these models and actors in multiple forms of media and they compare their bodies to the bodies that they see in these forms of media. These people will then do anything to get the body that the media considers as "ideal". This includes developing an eating disorder, even if it could put their bodies and lives into serious danger. ... When one of these people had become healthy and would talk about the disorder that she had, I asked her why she had started starving herself and making herself sick so she could lose weight. ... With TV shows, like the one just described,...

• Word Count: 2262
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

However, eating disorders are mostly presented in a human when they focus too much in their weight, body shape, and food, which lead into dangerous eating behaviors that affect the human body negatively. ... Many individuals start to use food as a coping mechanism to deal with painful or uncomfortable emotional or events to help them cope with their feeling and situation. ... Due to their desired wish of how they want their body to look, they start to become disgusted with how their bodies look, which then when an individual is eating, it may become very difficult for them to eat. ... Individu...

• Word Count: 1387
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

People with Anorexia refuse to be satisfied with even minimally normal body weight, and are intensly afraid of gaining weight and have distorted perceptions of the shape and size of their bodies." ... Other social factors can play major roles in the continuing obsession with having that ideal body. ... Fast food portions are also substantially larger than what is needed by our bodies daily. ... Genetics, or the physiology of someone, presents them with a predisposition when it comes to body structure. ... Along with predetermined body types come our hunger patterns. ...

• Word Count: 2361
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In the late twentieth century people steered away from the gracious full-bodied image that symbolized beauty and adopted an opposite viewpoint that would be known as today's symbol for the perfect body type. ... Kids who are heavily involved in sports such as gymnastics, figure skating, ballet, and cross-country runners, to name a few, have to start watching their weight as early as age 7 because they are judged on their appearance. ... Which, of course, manifests the initial motivational drive for control of their body weight. ... This now has become more than just a need to fit in with...

• Word Count: 2058
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

According to Dohnt and Tiggemann (2006), girls' perceptions of their peers' body dissatisfaction predicted their own level of body dissatisfaction. ... Every day, many women are attacked with the media's idea of the "perfect " body. ... "Body image issues for males have focused on increasing weight and shoulder/muscular shape. ... They hope the same body they see in the front page is how they look like in the future. ... Body dissatisfaction and pr...

• Word Count: 2476
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

We are constantly presented with images of perfect faces and bodies. ... (Mediascope Press 2000) Body image pressures can develop at an early age. By age 9, many young girls are starting to show preoccupation with shape and weight. ... Parents can inadvertently contribute to their child's body image issues. ... Body image can be defined as how we feel about our bodies and appearance, a mental picture of the size, shape and form of our body. ...

• Word Count: 2078
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Anorexia nervosa is characterized by low body weight, great fear of gaining weight, and a mistaken observation of their body weight or shape with the most common features being weight loss and a change in behaviour. The loss of weight is slow and most often starts with a perfectly normal weight reducing diet. ... In this country, women are becoming heavier with each generation while the ideal body for health or beauty becomes slimmer. ... Nerve pathways descending from the hypothalamus, at the base of the brain, control levels of sex hormones, thyroid hormones and the adrenal hormone cortiso...

• Word Count: 1610
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The usual onset or starting point of bulimia is set at adolescence (Le Grange & Lock, 2007, p. 3) when young adults are starting to form their own self-identity, a process tied to the notion of body image. ... They "consume far more calories than necessary for maintaining a healthy body weight" (Thompson, 2008, p. 11). ... With a physical body that is fast deteriorating, the individual with bulimia nervosa finds it more difficult to gain a healthier self-image. ... Because individuals suffering from bulimia nervosa look down on their body, their overall outlook is generally bleak and...

• Word Count: 1781
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Because many individuals with bulimia "binge and purge" in secret and maintain normal or above normal body weight, they often successfully hide their problem from others for years. ... If the individual is not in immediate crisis or suffering from medical complications from the disorder, individual psychotherapy is usually a good starting basis of treatment. ... Distorted self-body images are most common amongst people who suffer from this disorder and should be the initial focus of treatment. The client should be instructed on how to recognize appropriate weight and body fat proportions of a...

• Word Count: 1208
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Movies and TV are starting to use "normal" women in roles, now showing that non-supermodels are normal. ... Those afflicted with this disorder usually suffer from low self-esteem, distorted body image, and depression. ... Even if it starts out as motivation to make the change for someone else, eventually it will evolve into motivation to do it for one's self. ...

• Word Count: 722
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

America's obsession with diets, the fashion industry and television exhibiting dangerously thin models as "sexy", gives a distorted notion sending many young women the wrong idea about body image (Beating the Odds). ... The American society needs to start loving and accepting each other, not for what they may look like. ... These people have issues about social situations and are insecure and ashamed of their bodies. ...

• Word Count: 1887
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This is most common when color television started to become very popular and advertisers began to target specific audiences in their commercials. ... Advertising is to blame for this problem, "Magazine articles, television shows, and advertisements have also created a social context that may contribute to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in girls and women" (Spettigue and Henderson). ... Women are getting the idea to put their bodies in harm's way just to fit in with the beauty in the world. ...

• Word Count: 1245
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate