Television and eating disorders

There has been a great deal of research into the significant social and cultural role played by the media, and the Tv in particolar, affects the prevalente and incidente of eating disorders, such as bulimia and anorexia.
Much in fact, has been reported model the influence of the media in favouring a tall, thin body as the only fashionable model for female adolescente: social success will depend absolutely on physical appearance and we should strive to improve and shape our bodies accordingly.

One research project, in particular, has endeavoured to analyse the attitudes of adolescents towards the Tv and to investigate into such aspect as how much time adolescents spend watching Tv, how Tv influences what they choose to buy, their ideal body image and their choice of Tv programmes. The results were very revealing. From a test group of at least 67 adolescents (36 female and 31 male) of which 24 female adolescents suffered from eating disorders, a definite psychological dependance on the Tv emerged among the adolescents with eating disorders (longer periods of time spent watching Tv and buying attitudes heavily influenced by Tv advertising).
The tall, thin body image was preferred by all, both those with and without eating disorders, although body apperance and proportions proved far more important for a ‘fuller’ figure both for boys and girls. The conclusione drawn from this research indicated the importance of controlling the message, myths and flasehoods propagated by the media and above all by the television.