Essay: Rereading Media and Eating Disorders

Sample Essay

Words 1,320

The article discusses the news reporting on Karen Carpenter and Princess Diana about their eating disorders and how it constructs a negative image of what a woman’s image should be. The article explores how these two women were portrayed in the media in two different ways. They were represented as sweet, kind, beautiful young women who the world looked up to and aspired to be like. Their other image that was represented in the media was concerning their eating disorders. “Research on media images of thinness finds, for example, that Miss America….

contestants and Playboy centerfolds have become slimmer since 1950 (Garner, Garfinkel, Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980; Wiseman, Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens, 1990); this is said to have deleterious effects on audiences, particularly adolescent women (e.g., Botta, 1999; Myers & Riocca, 1992; for an overview see Wykes & Gunter, 2005).” (cited in Saukko, 2006, p. 153)

The article was intended for further researches and to provide a better understanding of why women act they way they do about eating disorders and hide them by labeling it as a way of lifestyle and choice such as the close friend I presented in the beginning of the proposal who insisted she was a vegetarian because of ethical issues. The article reinstates the fact that there is a connection between the media and eating disorders in women especially when it comes to famous women and their mixed representation in the media such as Diana and Carpenter. The following excerpt from the article highlights why women insist on denying the fact that they might be affected by eating disorders and will be a great help to the report. The article is peer reviewed so the information can be trusted:

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