How Television Changes the Perception of Eating Disorders

Every week you see it, a new celebrity has been diagnosed or accused of having an eating disorder. If they have lost a little or even a significant amount of weight, they are automatically accused of having an eating disorder. Eating disorders are serious illnesses and can be life threatening if an individual is left untreated. Television may have proposed the belief that many people are bulimic or anorexic, when they actually do not have an eating disorder. When is an eating disorder really an eating disorder, and not just another way for television to distort their viewers thoughts of self image?

There are few celebrities that have admitted to having an eating disorder, but the accusations of the others have been far more prevalent in the media's approach to the issue. There is no doubt body image and the media go hand in hand. The media may have caused audiences to form self esteem problems through celebrity's over publicized lives and methods of losing weight.

Many readers and followers of these eating disorders can remember a time when it was about more than self image. There is a contradiction to what the media has presented as a bad eating habit and a having the actual illness. Everyone knows the diseases are real, but how many people are not accurately portrayed as having an eating disorder?

Eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia are about more than just a body image. The ultimate factor of these diseases is that they are not really about weight at all. There are countless women in Hollywood that have been accused of having an eating disorder for simply changing their lifestyle or even their temporary eating habits. A few of these entertainers could in fact have an illness, but many of them do not.

A majority of anorexics have a problem with perception and control.
Anorexics often cannot distinguish between and ideal weight and reality, so their issue goes deeper than weight concerns. For most it is a lifelong battle to re-establishing a relationship to food.

The problem is not that eating disorders are a figment of the media's imagination. The issue is that every celebrity that loses weigh, even if it is excessive does not have an eating disorders.

Many people have not grasped the concept of a healthy lifestyle or consistent eating habits. The truth is if you are not a fitness trainer or a nutritionist your weight can fluctuate anywhere from five to ten pounds of water weight. If you factor in circumstances and life changing events your habits will change, either for the better or worse.

It is possible to lose weight without even trying. There are individuals who have changed careers, gone to college, or moved to a different region in the country. All of these changes can result in weight loss, especially unintentional loss.

Celebrity audiences are loyal fans of their idols. Some watch their every move from dating to what they are wearing. Weight loss is one of the hardest battles that the average person faces. The media has been able to draw a huge celebrity crowd by keeping up with celebrity diet secrets and their undiagnosed eating disorders. Has the media just simply falsely accused them of having an eating disorder, or have they used their body image and created a phenomena of people with eating disorders when they really do not have one?