Anorexia is an emotional disorder that influences teenagers especially girls who persistently starve themselves to lose weight. This usually happens when girls progress into high school and their surroundings affect their beliefs and feelings about their body image. The change of environment blinds them to unfavorable effects of anorexic attitudes on their health.
Anorexia additionally influences the mental health of these teenage girls; including their confidence; these negative effects are additionally enhanced by the media's portrayal of beauty. The constant advertisement of unrealistic views of a women's body having very thin model results in unhealthy objectives for many teenage girls; therefore, leading to a loss of confidence and low self-esteem. In my article, I will scour socio-cultural impacts on adolescent health, with an emphasis on the social issue of eating disorders and the media's effect on mental health among teenage girls.
Numerous girls entering their adolescent years are at high risk of developing dietary problems. High school is a significant time when young girls are self-conscious about their body image and some formulate an eating disorder such as anorexia. It is imperative to recognize the typical period of youths and when they build up a dietary problem. When they examine their body image such as weight, and size, which becomes their priority; it is frequently mistaken as a sign of an eating disorder, it is an ordinary stage when teenagers begin to ponder their actual appearance. Researchers have studied many socio-cultural aspects that are linked to their incidence, the categories of disorders expressed, and the psychological profiles associated with different types.
Teenagers who engage in extracurricular activities that have an emphasis on their weight and body image, such as ballet, are at the possibility of experiencing a dietary problem than a secondary school student who doesn't take part in such exercises. Parents are also another component that can influence the teenager's self-perception of themselves. The acknowledgment the teenager receives from her parents indirectly influences their body satisfaction. With positive acknowledgment from the parents about a healthy body image, the teenager can reveal a positive attitude.
Also, the media vital plays a role in shaping societies' expectations of an acceptable structure.
Social guidelines that associate greatness, accomplishment, and fulfillment to an unstable body shape may make loads to keep up a thin form that can incite the headway of unnecessary abstaining from excessive food intake dieting and other unhealthful weight regulation practices.
These unrealistic expectations are the main worry of teenage girls when even, in fact, research conducted by Killen stated that "33% of 10th-grade females" saw themselves as being overweight or even obese, when their weight was considered the average of their age and height. The girls' constant disclosure to unrealistic body images illustrated by the media leads girls to accept the media's inaccurate representations of reality. Due to this, it causes distorted awareness of how a women's body is viewed, leading to low self-efficacy and low self-esteem.
The issue of anorexia among teenage girls is a clasping mental health issue that needs to be better comprehended. Health-promoting programs that target both parents and their teenagers can help lessen misleading self-images and views of an acceptable figure. Girls entering their adolescent years require supportive social networks, beginning with their families to their friends. The support motivates ladies to abstain from being impacted by society's expectations on an excellent body image, as well as to be able to differentiate between inaccurate and healthy images. These health-promoting programs can help adolescent girls grow up with an optimistic view of how to be prosperous without falling into the media's body image criterion.
Very insightful article sir, much appreciated!