by Bill Fancher
(AgapePress) – The entertainment media in America is pushing a distorted view of women and their bodies, according to Dr. Michael Rich of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He claims this image is leading to eating disorders and increasing incidences of cosmetic surgery.
“That [observation] is backed up by a number of epidemiological studies that have looked at girls in this country who read teen magazines, who watch a lot of sitcoms and television programs that feature what many people would argue are underweight women as their stars,” he says.
Dr. Rich says studies have found that when American television is introduced into other cultures, there is an increase in eating disorders, even in places where larger bodies are culturally desired. He points to a recent study which followed the introduction of U.S. television to a foreign culture.
“There is almost double the incidence of restrictive eating, dieting behaviors, bulimic behaviors, and also focus on their bodily appearance as the most important element of their lives,” he says. “There are data out there and there’s some growing evidence that this has a significant effect.”
At a recent congressional forum, family physician Dr. Marshall Kubota of Santa Barbara, California, echoed Rich’s concerns. He too says television’s emphasis on bodies and beauty is affecting the minds of younger and younger girls.
“As a family physician, the health impacts of that value setting I think are also evident in the explosion of eating disorders amongst the young,” he says. “Again, predominantly young women, which may be as high as four percent in adolescents, as well as the explosion of non-functional cosmetic surgery, which of course now reaches down into teenage years.”
Surveys in the U.S. have found that pre-teen girls as young as eight years old are worried about their body shape and image.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
