Functionalism And Bulimia Essay

Throughout this whirlwind of sequenced events dubbed life, every person is confronted with personal issues. One such personal issue for myself is bulimia. From the summer before my freshman year of high school, until the middle of my junior year, I would have bouts of bulimia ranging from a one time incident to a consistent several week episode. Currently, I am doing well and have not taken part in such an issue for about a year and a half. While it is a personal issue that is, in part a result of self esteem issues beyond those thrust upon me by society, I do believe society 's expectations played a large role in my issue. The notion that girls need to be tall, thin, have perfect skin, hair, eyes, teeth, and have a dazzling personality on …show more content…
In this perspective social structures/institutions, such as the church, schools, family life, religion, and many more, are all interconnected aspects of society which provide both a service for and add stability to a community/society. Threats to society in this perspective are dysfunctional acts which may jeopardize stability and increase anomie within a society. The main individuals associated with this perspective are Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton, who advocated for and helped develop it. Parsons pushed the idea that there are certain needs every society has which need to be met in order to not only thrive but survive. One example Parsons uses to support this idea is the typical family dynamic, especially for his time, where in the husband completes the instrumental tasks and the wife handles expressive tasks- this division of labor was believed by Parsons to be a key aspect of family stability. Parsons also believed that family was the central aspect of society and that the institutions should work towards creating stability, within both the family and society as a whole. Merton went on to differentiate institutions into both latent functions, or unintended and typically unacknowledged consequences of an institution, and manifest functions, the obvious and deliberate consequences of social institutions. Merton also stated that society is not necessarily always functioning, but may be dysfunctional; these dysfunctions are unwanted results from social institutions. Functionalism is a macro level analysis. The strengths of this perspective are that it views society as a complex system composed of interacting pieces in the pursuit of stability, that society is structured and organized by rules/laws, basic needs have to be met in order for a society to