Eating Disorders

Let’s get down to business; America has got a lot of problems. Obesity rates are rising and are currently at an all time high. In fact, 30% of children and 65% of adults are overweight and 15% of children and 30% of adults meet the criteria for obesity. It has gotten so bad that people now refer to it as an “obesity crisis.” We are a society obsessed with convenience and accessibility; today we work more and have less free time than we did 30 years ago, that doesn’t leave much time for healthy eating. America, gluttonous?! Neveeerrr. 

At the same time, eating disorder rates are rising as well. Eating disorders affect more than 10 million people in the United States alone. Disorders include anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and excessive exercise. Joel Yager once said, “Every society has a way of torturing its women, whether by binding their feet or by sticking them into whalebone corsets. What contemporary American culture has come up with is designer jeans." A little dramatic Joel, but I get it.  To be honest, it is pretty surprising that the rates of obesity in America as so high, especially with so much emphasis being put on healthy eating, dieting, and exercise. But once again we are directed back to that same statement I say in basically every post, magazines publish images of perfection unattainable (literally, they are airbrushed) by an average person. What’s more interesting to me is that is isn’t the typical women’s magazines like Glamour, Elle, and Cosmopolitan that are correlated with eating-disorders, it is actually the fitness magazines like Shape, Self, and Women’s Fitness. For once the magazine I work for isn’t causing more harm than good??? Actually, that’s a lie, studies also show that the whole “thin is in” kind of thing perpetuated in typical women’s magazines isn’t having that great of an influence on girls either. 

Way to be a role model, McPhee.

I found a pretty interesting article regarding fitness magazines and eating disorders. Katie Dummond writes fitness magazines are, “like heroin for the eating disordered. They often offer misleading diet information, along with airbrushed photos of impossible physical ideals, and perpetuate ugly myths about how health ought to look.” So what was kind of surprising was that Shape decided to put Katharine McPhee on their cover…twice, a woman who had openly confessed to suffering from bulimia. Seriously Shape, you gotta be kidding me. Now that is hypocrisy at its finest. After suffering from bulimia, you would think McPhee would be more sensitive to readers and wouldn’t want to bolster that same impracticable physical ideal. Honestly, what an awful message to send. Yah, her body looks banging on the cover, but how did she get that way? Was purging after meals part of the routine? I don’t want to rag on her too much, but that is pretty shameful on both her and the magazine’s part. Even worse, I literally just Googled to find a picture of her Shape cover only to find she’s on the cover of Self, THIS MONTH (March 2012). What a fucking coincidence. Girl needs to get off those fitness magazines.  Where are the role models in this world, ugh.

Self March 2012 cover