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Na Nguyen
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Female Adolescent Anorexics in the Modern Era: Victims of The Media Beauty?







Na Nguyen
Professor Sarika Bose
ENG 112 O2M
March 30
th
, 2012
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Female Adolescent Anorexics in The Modern Era: Victims of The Media Beauty?
Introduction:
Fat people have little brains is that really surprising? Youd have to be missing some
brain volume anyway to let yourself get that big and sloppy in the first placeyouve done this
to yourself. Dr William Campbell Douglas in his speech in 2010 thus vindicates people who fail
to manage their weight. Could this be the very mindset that drives the increasing prevalence of
eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa in recent years?
Anorexia nervosa (AN) was identified and named by Sir William Withey Gull in 1983
(Brumberg, 71). It is a psychiatric disorder characterised by the extreme overvaluation of shape
and weight (qtd. by Morris and Twaddle, 894). Patients induce their weight loss by avoiding
fattening foods, self induced vomiting, purging, excessive exercising, or using appetite
suppressants or diuretics (or both). It has a prevalence of about 0.3% in young women, with an
average age of onset of 15 years and 80-90% of patients are female (Morris and Twaddle, 894).
Many scholars argue that the increasing prevalence of AN since the beginning of the 20
th

century could be primarily blamed on social media which features increasingly slender models
(Spettigue and Henderson, 16; Dittmar, 6; Thompson and Stice, 183; Thompson and Heinberg,
344). However, others suggest that exposure to media is insufficient for the precipitation of this
disorder (Harrison, 484; Dally and Gomez, 81; Hepworth, 29; Emmett, 95, 101, 103). This paper
will argue that personality trait, changing cultural disposition and the evolving expectation of
womens roles following modernization contributes just as substantially, if not more, to the
apparent increase in reported cases of AN.
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The apparent link between media features and prevalence of AN:
Meta-analyses of the models featured in beauty contests, television and magazine show a
trend of decreasing weight. Examples include the increasing thinness in Playboy centerfolds,
Miss America Contestants, and fashion models between the 1950s and the 1990s (Garner,
Garfinkel, Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980; Spitzer, Henderson, & Zivian, 1999; Wiseman,
Gray, Mosimann, & Ahrens, 1992) (qtd in Spettigue and Henderson). Ironically, there has been
an observable increasing trend in the real weight of women in America and Canada (Harrison,
16), thus arguably increased the sensitivity of women towards weight gain, thus an increased
effort in dieting. Research has shown that diet articles in women magazines have significantly
increased over the past 20 years (Darby, Garner, Garfinkel and Coscina, 71).
At the same time, Theander in 1970 conducted a study of 94 female patients in southern
Sweden, which reveals a sharp rise in incidence in final decade (1951-1960) of the 30-year
period surveyed. Following Jones et al. [1980] used the psychiatric case register and hospital
records to estimate the incidence of anorexia nervosa in Monroe Country, New York, over 2 time
periods: 1960-69 and 1970-76. He found that the number of diagnosed cases almost doubled in
the 2
nd
time period (Darby, Garner, Garfinkel and Coscina, 66).
Research has looked into the immediate reaction obtained in adolescent girls with
exposure to the media. Studies of 156 Australian female high school students (mean age = 14.9
years) reveals an influence of disclosure to Internet, magazine and television on altered body
image satisfaction, appreance comparison and perception (Tiggerman and Miller, 79). This is
one of the core diagnostic criteria for AN. A recent naturalistic experiment in Fiji provides
strong evidence that the media has a negative role in the development of body dissatisfaction and
eating disorder (Becker, Burwell, Herzog, Hamburg, and Gilman, 509). Until recently, Fiji was a
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society with little Western mass-media. The eating attitudes and behaviors of Fijian
adolescent girls were measured before the introduction of television and following prolonged
exposure. Results indicate that after the television exposure, these adolescents exhibited a
significant increase in disordered eating attitudes and behaviors (Spettigue and Henderson, 17)
However, the correlation should be examined with caution. The question is raised
whether an increase in social media exposure would eventually lead to anorectic behaviour of
some kind. Research into the history of AN, which first emerged in the 12
th
-13
th
century
(Brumberg, 71), suggest that this extreme fasting act does not require the pressure of media to
exist. Furthermore, despite the increasing trend and the abundance of social media, as cited
above, a very small percentage of the population suffers from this psychiatric disease.
Suggestions of how exposure to media could affect female adolescents towards food seem to
elucidate a few other factors which are just as important for the precipitation of AN.
Personality as a mediator
It is noticeable that the most dominant group of AN patients consist of adolescent girls
since the disorder was first described. Adolescence can prove to be a transformative phase of
ones life could account for many shifts in emotion and personality development, and research
has suggested that it is inherently more challenging for female than male. Bardwicks study in
1971 argues that when girls move away from a quiescent pre-puberty life to experience clear
markers of adulthood and sexuality, this might pose several difficulties for those who are
inherently unprepared and unstable (qtd. in Darby, Garner, Garfinkel and Coscina, 78). These
could help develop certain traits which could increase risk of developing AN.
Although there have not been conclusive statements about personality traits that will
predict AN, meta-analyses of studies over the years reveal certain common characteristics in AN
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patients. For example, Smart, Beumont and George surveyed 22 female patients in 1976 and
identified common traits such as high neuroticism- otherwise known as emotional reactivity to
surroundings, introversion and obsession (qtd. in Darby, Garner, Garfinkel and Coscina, 116).
These findings are consistent with other studies that find patients to be more introverted (Crisp,
Hsu and Stonehill, 1979), obsessional (Gomez and Dally, 1980; Solymon, Freemand and Miles,
1982) and neurotic (Gomez & Dally, 1980; Stonehill & Crisp 1977) (qtd. in Darby, Garner,
Garfinkel and Coscina, 116).
These could explain why social media affect some and not others. Individuals with high
neuroticism more easily react to the presentation of these slender models. Their obsessive traits
together with introversion more likely lead to the internalization- the adoption of goals for
themselves based on media-presented ideals. This has been demonstrated to be an important link
between exposure to the media and the altered behaviour and conviction of many female
adolescents (Tiggerman and Miller, 84; Dittmar, 4; Spettigue and Henderson, 18). Moreover,
when they are more introverted, adolescents tend to be unable to articulate their frustrations
during puberty and most likely experience stressors that are exaggerated which could increase
the chance of developing AN, a psychiatric order. However, these traits only could explain how
everything in the surrounding environment would influence their behaviour- there must be some
other force that makes them tend to put more attention and focus on eating habits and dieting.
The cultural brake
Another factor that might account for the resistance to adolescents negative reaction
towards social media might stem from different cultural conviction about plumpness versus
thinness. Historically, the majority of societies have associated plumpness in females with
desirable social status since it is an overt sign of wealth where food is not abundantly available
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[Ford and Beach, 1952; Rudolsky, 1972]. (qtd. by Darby, Garner, Garfinkel and Coscina, 69). It
has been argued that eating disorders are more common among Caucasians than other ethnic
groups partly because of Western attitudes towards ideal body, dieting, and thinness (Dolan).
The prevalence of eating disorders among ethnic groups increases recently but does not approach
the incidence among Caucasians in the United States (Sanders and Heiss, 16). The same paper
reports that the mean Eating Attitude Test (EAT
1
) scores for the Asians and Caucasians are 17.1
and 17.4, respectively. In a study by Lee, Ho and Hsu in 1993, the mean EAT score among
female Chinese college students in Hong Kong was 11 .4%, notably less than he score among
Asian immigrants in the study, suggesting that immigration may indeed influence eating attitudes
by inducing the change in cultural perception of thinness. (qtd. by Sanders and Heiss, 22)
A meta-analytic review by Roberts, Cash, Feingold, and Johnson (2006) found that, in
general, Black women have higher levels of body satisfaction and weight satisfaction than White
women (qtd. by Lpez-Guimer, Levine, Snchez-carracedo and Fauquet, 408). Moreover,
although actual evidence from content analyses is lacking, it appears that the vast majority of
females who constitute the cultural ideals of beauty, sexiness, and desirability in the mass media
and other avenues of social influences are White.
From the evidence we have obtained so far, it seems that the predisposition to developing
AN has a strong association with cultural environment and belief in the surrounding. Although
evidence obtained from research on the impact of cultural factors on body satisfaction is still
scarce and sometimes controversial (see Harrison & Hefner, 2008, and Levine & Smolak, 2010,
for reviews). However, globalization and the exchange of culture is only one big change that

1
Higher score on this test indicates higher tendency of disordered eating
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happens over the last few decades. Modernization, which was happening alongside, also
contributed to the apparent increase in AN.
The increasing confusion in social expectation
Since the beginning of the 20
th
century, there have been changes in the expected role of
women. From the domestic keepers, they are now expected to contribute to the building of
society and achieve increasing independence from men. On top of inherent changes in puberty,
these tasks add pressure to the development of girls and could even cause confusion in their
identity owing to the new and often contradictory roles and expectations as well as the familys
failure to adapt to the changing societal demands (Darby, Garfinkel, Garner and Coscina, 76).
Some scholars have argued that AN, like other psychiatric diseases, serves as a defense
mechanism (Morris & Twaddle, 895) against pressures from being a mother with expectations
from the family and a woman striving to succeed in society. For women that already have certain
predisposed cultural attitudes and personality trait, AN could be a way that women could achieve
perceived control at least on life (Hepworth, 58). Selvini-Palazzoli also suggested that potential
AN female patients may have trouble when faced with values independent of the family because
she herself has failed to utilize sufficient psychological resources to deal with ambiguous or
contradictory female role definitions (qtd. in Darby, Garfinkel, Garner and Coscina, 76)
Besides, the feminist move towards equity also saw a shift in sexuality liberty. This
happens simultaneously with increasing media representations of women as embodiment of
desirable commodities, which seem to influence their behavior (Hepworth, 101). Thus, it is
arguable as well that in an effort to resist the imposed function on them, women choose to resort
to AN as a conscious control over her sexuality. Loss of fat over buttocks, hips and thighs
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reassuring to girl with apprehension about her womanhood would hopefully stop reminding of
her potential for pregnancy and her ultimate responsibilities (Dally and Gomez, 80).
Evaluation:
Although there have been increasing research on AN in recent years, there still remains a lot of
debate. Research that has been done still depends on diagnostic criteria (Garner and Garfinkel,
Appendix A) which prove troublesome regarding how large a deviation from normal weight trend
would qualify as anorexic and how the aversion towards food could be empirically quantified.
In psychiatric disorders, most symptoms are not directly observable to the practitioner except
through interpretations, characteristics of specific populations and behavioral observation. These
could be very subjective from the practitioners viewpoint. These might also stem from complex
history and manifest through multiple clinical presentations (Hepworth, 72)
Most of the time, the sample size selected in these studies are convenient and thus make it
difficult to have random assignment. Hence, most results obtained still remain at the correlational
study level and much work is still needed to elucidate the mechanism through which AN develops.
Conclusion:
The decreasing trend in weight of models in social media is not the most important factor to be
associated with the apparent increase in AN female adolescent patients. The individuals
susceptibility towards these models is affected by certain personality traits such as neuroticism,
predisposition to obsession and introversion. The choice of an individual to associate lifes goals
with these thinness ideals also depend on the cultural lenses from which she perceives body
satisfaction. Lastly, the ability to strike a balance in the changing expectation of the society for a
modern woman would largely influence whether one ends up choosing to become anorexic as an
escape from the confusing, sometimes contradictory social roles.
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