Social Media And Anorexia

False Realities A girl opens a magazine and all she sees is super thin models page after page. The girl only wishes to look like these glorified women but doesn’t realize that this body image isn’t normal. As social media continues to evolve women of all ages are continuously growing more and more self-conscious because beauty standards and body images are growing more and more unattainable. Fashion campaigns are often attacked for promoting unhealthy body images and for good reason. These campaigns are often linked to the promotion of unrealistic body images, which is often linked to triggering eating disorders among many women. As social media platforms and fashion continue to evolve, so do the amount of subcultures that encourage eating disorders. There are many different types of eating disorders but one of the most common is Anorexia Nervosa (Mariani). Anorexia is defined by the National Eating Disorder Association as “ a serious, potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.” Popular websites and blogs have been created as “pro-ana” and “pro-mia” as a way to motivate people who are looking to lose …show more content…
This constant shifting in expectations for women have created many fitness challenges that are harming. For example, a trending challenge is the “A4 challenge”, which is basically someone holding up a letter size piece of paper (8.5”x 11”) vertically and if it hides your waistline, you are considered paper thin (Meyers). This is just one of the many examples of how social media has taken a toll on women. Medical professor, Zhang Darong, at Peking University said it best “"Society 's pursuit of a certain body type or facial feature style is harming the youth a lot." Seeing how heavily America’s fashion industry influences other parts of the world should only make us want stricter and healthier