EATING DISORDERS: THE MIXED MESSAGES OF OUR MEDIA – THE MEDIA APPROACH WEIGHT LOSS MIGHT BE HELPFUL
For many, being overweight in our society clearly becomes a paramount concern and a significant source of worry. Some find that this fear makes the task of losing weight too overwhelming even to begin, while for others it creates a willingness to take extreme measures. Stearns and others concerned with the issue wonder if whether a change in the way doctors, insurance companies, and the media approach weight loss might be helpful.
Says Stearns: “I think there are at least two obvious suggestions. One would be to encourage doctors and insurance experts to get their act together and push more realistic models of body types. Some doctors will come out saying that adherence to the most rigorous weight standards does not demonstrably improve health, that oscillation in weight is possibly more dangerous than a certain degree of overweight. I think most people hear diversity of opinion from medical and insurance sources, and the easiest voices to spot are the ones that say ‘Just get the weight off. If you’re ten pounds under your desired weight you’ll be healthier.’ I don’t deny the possibility that that’s scientifically true, but I think in terms of human impact it’s proving counterproductive. It makes the
“The second source would be the media. A larger array of body types in the media should be seen as effective and desirable. Unfortunately television and the movies compound the problem by the fact that these media add ten pounds to the frame, so that even to look normal actual stars have to be pretty damn skinny. Again, if we eased up here, if we simply applied the message that we like to apply in other respects—that is, a welcoming of diversity—we might see a certain relaxation of the pressure. Whether we would choose to do this, given our fascination with these types and our insistence that our role models be particularly thin … I really don’t know.”
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