Pop Culture And Eating Disorders

Alex DeVinny, a Wisconsin high school running champion, died from cardiac arrest related to anorexia. At the time of her death, at the age of 20, she was 5’8” and weighed only 70 pounds. Like Alex, so many other people from around the world are struggling with their bodies. Many have blamed it on the media as others think it’s from the family and how their personal lives are. The topic of if the media and pop culture cause eating disorders has a deep history to consider, and there will always be both supporters and critics who continue to debate this topic.

Around the world, people have an ongoing debate over if social media and pop culture have the effect of causing eating disorders. First, there is the most common age group. …show more content…
The people who disagree don’t understand why people are blaming the media and pop culture. From the article Eating disorders it stated “It is also misguiding to rail against the promotion of thinness at a time when obesity is such a pressing health concern in the U.S.” This explains how they don’t understand how people can blame the media and pop culture when obesity is such a horrible problem in the first place. Models and others can't help that they were born the way they are. According to the article Eating Disorders from Issues and controversies “Mandatory weight minimums from fashion models and student athletes are potentially discriminatory against women who are naturally thin.” People can’t help it if they are born slimmer. When people say phrases such as “they are too thin” and “makes people self-conscious” they end up feeling bad. Therefore, people should be able to do what they want with their bodies. In the article Eating Disorders the author states “If people were so influenced by culture, then everyone who looked at a picture of a thin model would develop an eating disorder.” Thinner people should be able to be proud of their bodies and not feel bad for others. Those against how pop culture and the media may or may not effect people have evidence to prove that there is other …show more content…
There are multiple ways that eating disorders can be started and multiple different age groups that apply. As mentioned earlier, people are obsessed with trying to lose weight and that the media and pop culture has them feeling insecure. On the other hand, there are people out there having a difficult time understanding why they would say the media and pop culture affect them and that people can’t help the way they were born. Alex was still young and had much to look forward to. Therefore, Alex is an eye opener to people that are now realizing how major eating disorders are and it shouldn’t matter about how it starts. What matters is that people with eating disorder, such as Alex, are be getting