Exploring Horrific Epidemics Never-before, have I ever really thought of the epidemics that affect everyone’s lives day in and day out. We never consider the many things that could affect our health, which could in turn cause us to die from something we never would have expected to die from. There are many people who discuss certain epidemics that will affect our population, one of those authors is Stephen Jay Gould and the other is Susan Bordo. Gould discusses the AIDS epidemic and how it was treated when it was first discovered. Bordo discusses the growing epidemic of eating disorders across the world. They claim these problems can be solved if the main cause is found and I believe that these statements are true, but first we must find the center of the issue.
In “The Terrifying Normalcy of AIDS”, Gould …show more content…
She shows that eating disorders are somewhat produced by the media that is fed to populations. She gives supporting evidence when she shows a study that was conducted in 1995 to see how media would affect Fijians, who had never been exposed to outside media before. They came back three years later, in 1998, and found that there were many changes that took place with the cultural acceptance of curvier women. The study showed “eleven percent of girls reported vomiting to control weight, and sixty-two percent of the girls surveyed reported dieting during the previous months” (Bordo, 640), which was unheard of since women were very comfortable with their bodies, no matter what size before media was introduced. Then she also introduces the aspect of how males are also becoming victims of eating disorders and that this will soon be a problem that affects both genders equally. She argues that something needs to be done before the epidemic spreads and becomes a bigger crisis than it already
In “The Terrifying Normalcy of AIDS”, Gould …show more content…
She shows that eating disorders are somewhat produced by the media that is fed to populations. She gives supporting evidence when she shows a study that was conducted in 1995 to see how media would affect Fijians, who had never been exposed to outside media before. They came back three years later, in 1998, and found that there were many changes that took place with the cultural acceptance of curvier women. The study showed “eleven percent of girls reported vomiting to control weight, and sixty-two percent of the girls surveyed reported dieting during the previous months” (Bordo, 640), which was unheard of since women were very comfortable with their bodies, no matter what size before media was introduced. Then she also introduces the aspect of how males are also becoming victims of eating disorders and that this will soon be a problem that affects both genders equally. She argues that something needs to be done before the epidemic spreads and becomes a bigger crisis than it already