How Body Image Affects Weight Management Krueger 1

10-20-13
Mrs. Parsons
Period 3 Health
Austin Krueger
How Body Image Affects Weight Management
Have you ever wondered how body image affects weight management? Do you ever wonder how the teens and celebrities handle it? Body image affects teenagers and celebrities all over the country in everyday life. From the high school years to the college years, teenagers/adults go through the hardship of wondering if they have the “Perfect Body” or not. People start to wonder, “Am I to fat? Am I to skinny?” There are many ways that people are able to gain fat and become skinny by using medications or supplements, etc. There are some ways though that people can lose weight or gain weight….and it is not healthy for the body. One thing people might ask is, “What is body image?” Body image is how we perceive our bodies visually; how we feel about our appearance, how we think and talk about our bodies; how we think other people view our bodies, and our level of connectedness to our body (brown.edu pg.1). People think about these things about themselves in everyday life, which is very saddening. Another thing you may ask is, “Which factors affect body image?” There are many factors that can affect the way people think about their body. Some of them include comments from family, friends, and others about how you look; how we look up to celebrities and how they are this idealized, and we compare ourselves to other people (brown.edu pg.1). All of these factors are what affects people’s body image and then affects their weight management. There are many ways that you can lose the weight in a healthy way. You can eliminate all the fake processed foods; you can change what you eat, you can start exercising on a daily basis. All these are healthy ways that you can lose weight, but it takes a long time to do it. So why not take the easier way. You can just go throw up all the time and not eat anything at all. Yes, it may be easy, but is it healthy? No! People do not see the bad side effects to bulimia (throwing up) and being anorexic. By being anorexic or throwing up, you can become malnutrition; you can start losing your hair. You can start to lose your hair on your head and start to grow hair on your body. You can start becoming dizzy and lose all of your strength. You can start losing muscle and start to lose bone mass (The Perfect Body). These are all major side effects of throwing up or being anorexic, and it can lead to death at the end. How can you boost your body image? People ask themselves this when they are trying to recover from people either making fun of them or trying to stop being anorexic or bulimia. I will tell you how you can boost your body image. One of them is talking back to the media. Media is one of the leading causes that make people