Shanice Edwards
Jen Aubrecht
5 May, 2014
Truth Behind the Magazine Cover Flipping through magazine pages is like entering a world of perfection. As you turn each page, glamour and beauty begin to unfold. But deep under this stylish photography is a gruesome secret— eating disorders. This is a huge problem considering that Cable News Network uncovered 93.3 percent of models are under the age of twenty one. America’s model industry tends to pursue young models because youth keeps this business thriving. Girls even twelve and under, are plastered with makeup, clipped with extensions, and clothed with the bare minimum. As clothes begin to shrink and latch tighter to the body, imperfections are spotted all over. Broad shoulders, large hips, double chins, love handles, stretch marks, and flaws you haven't even imagined, are targeted in the modeling industry daily. The top imperfection girls fixate mostly on is weight. Having thick thighs or stomach pouches are not acceptable. The industry rejects girls who are not a size zero, making them in most cases feel vulnerable, worthless, and ugly. But there is a solution to everything. Many of these young models turn to starvation, as a solution, in hopes to fix their weight problems. This is a huge problem that leads to eating disorders. A professor at Oxford University’s institute of social and cultural anthropology, Stanley Ulijaszek, noted in his book, Obesity, Eating Disorders and the Media, that the industry’s “stories about eating disorders often create images that bear little resemblance to the scientific, clinical, and even lived realities of these conditions.” In order to fully understand the extremity involving eating disorders, like Ulijqszek endorsed, you have to remove media’s false impression of perfection and understand the biological concepts of eating behaviors. Anorexia Nervosa is a type of eating disorder that is described as an extreme deprivation of food intake. National Eating Disorders Association, NEDA, states “A patient with anorexia nervosa, has a distorted body image and an exaggerated fear of becoming overweight or obese - so a deliberate effort is made to lose weight.” The consequences for this psychological disorder are life-threatening. Anorexia abnormally, lowers patients’ heart rates and blood pressure which, change heart muscle formation, and leads to high risks of heart failure. NEDA also states that anorexia causes “fainting, fatigue, hair loss, and a growth of a downy layer of hair called lanugo all over the body, including the face, in an effort to keep the body warm.” Usually, people with this illness obsess over weight control, which should not be a top concern for child in the modeling industry or for children in general. Justine J. Reel, author of Eating Disorders An Encyclopedia of Causes, treatment, and prevention, reported that 80 percent of ten year olds are afraid of being fat and 42 percent of first through third grader girls want to be skinner. She also states that “specifically, hospitalizations for eating disorders rose 119 percent between 1999 and 2006 for children younger than 12 years old.” After the diagnostics and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders reviewed, then updated their diagnostic categories and criteria, more divisions dealing with serious eating disorders, sprouted like bulimia. This psychological disorder is often tied with anorexia considering most people switch off between the these two disorders. Bulimia is characterized by NEDA as “recurrent binge-and-purge cycles [that] can affect the entire digestive system and can lead to electrolyte and chemical imbalances in the body that affect the heart and other major organ functions.” Electrolytes are crucial to the body; Bulimia’s cause of imbalanced electrolytes can lead to serious heart failure and even in some cases death. Other effects include, “chronic irregular bowel movements, constipation, pancreatitis, rupture of the esophagus, and gastric rupture