Society and eating disorders?

I told someone that I don't think society and the media is the cause of eating disorders. I believe it can be a factor and it certainly doesn't help, but there are underlying causes as well.

I know, for me anyway, it wasn't society.

I feel like, people who don't have eating disorders, think it's from media and seeing skinny girls on tv. That wasn't the cause for me and I'm feeling alone in this (then again, I'm a guy. I did start looking at male thinspo after a few months of my ED though, but it didn't start that way.)

Hey Schrei,

You're not alone. You brought this up a while ago in the forum and many others agreed that the media has very little to do with, if at all, to the development of eating disorders.

anorexia-nervosa/topic85864.html

On the subject of society being a cause, I think for some people it might be a trigger but not a cause. Western culture is very image-driven and someone who has obsessive & controlling patterns could fall into an eating disorder if they're trying to achieve a socially-accepted image. I don't believe this happens often, but I have heard of this being the case for some people.

I very much agree. Eating disorders may start somehow related to the media (mostly thinspo it seems), but if they're getting bad thoughts about their body image, then their mental state is already a bit of a wreck. Ex: my ED did start as a healthy diet, and much of my self hate started to come from envy of people that I thought were better looking than me (who were usually famous or models). That made me want to look what I thought was "perfect", and faster. So that caused it to progress a bit but it eventually turned into control, addiction to it, etc. So, media was a bit of a factor, but not the actual cause.

I agree there are other factors - serious ones - like bullying, abuse, heartbreak - I have seen all of these in devastating cases of anorexia and bulimia. For myself, it was abuse.

To me, when horrendous things happen, and we feel lost, out of control, worthless, unattractive, we look to what society tells us is good, desirable, attractive, powerful - and this, at the moment in our society - is to be slim, but also, to be slim and eat food (just check out all the adverts where slim women are stuffing chocolate and ice cream - seriously!?). This is how I see society having a role in both disorders, though in itself I dont think its the main cause or trigger.

Jessee