Why Eating Disorders Among Girls Are Normalized
how pervasive diet culture drives young girls toward eating disorders in pursuit of unattainable thin ideals
Soumya Chavarkar
7/13/20262 min read
Everywhere we look, in magazines, online, and in books, characters and people have unachievable bodies and diets. The goal for most young women is to become like the people they see in the media they consume. In society, a thin body is normal while anything bigger is seen as “fat”. In our world today, young teens, especially girls, are influenced constantly by everything around them.
The biggest influence on young girls is social media; people constantly post about their diets, gym workouts, skin routines, and swim suit tryons. While it may look feasible to maintain these shapes, the media is all staged. The same can be said on the opposite end, with people doing mukbangs and food contests, but somehow seem never to gain a pound. Today, content is focused on lifestyles and looks. Restrictive diets are seen as inspirational. To achieve these physiques, young teens adopt eating disorders out of stress and strive for perfection.
Not just online, but in everyday interactions and language, diet culture is embedded in labeling food. Food is named as good or bad, calorie tracking in gym machines and food containers, and the concept of guilt-free snacks, all influencing the attentive teenager. Labeling on food focuses on sounding healthy while looking good to attract people. Aunts and uncles comment on body and food habits when they see you after a year. A common conversation topic is “what did you eat for breakfast’ or even meeting people over a meal or snack. These little actions and words can affect what one thinks about themself, especially with comparison.
This normalization isn’t confined to social media and everyday interactions; in certain environments, diet culture and weight control are built into structure and training. Sports like dance, gymnastics, and wrestling cause body image issues, weight control issues, and eventually eating disorders. As well as in other sports like figure skating and diving, image and looks matter in scores and judging, pushing athletes to extremities to lose weight to create a more “perfect” image.
A big misconception is that eating disorders only affect white young girls, but in truth, anyone can develop one. In fact, 30 million Americans have suffered from an eating disorder at one point in their life. In recent studies, it has been shown that an increase in time on social media correlates with an increase in eating disorders in young girls. Furthermore, young girls are 3 times more likely to exhibit eating disorders than young boys.
Today, young girls continue to absorb ideas from everyday interactions online, with family, and with friends in hobbies and sports. Slowly, eating disorders have become a normal idea and method to achieve an image seen in the media or expectations made from comparisons or comments.
Works Cited
Currie, Alan. “Sport and eating disorders - understanding and managing the risks.” Asian journal of sports medicine vol. 1,2 (2010): 63-8. doi:10.5812/asjsm.34864
Levinson, Cheri. “The ‘silent Epidemic’ of Eating Disorders.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, May 2023, www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/eating-disorder.
Suhag, Khushi, and Shyambabu Rauniyar. “Social Media Effects Regarding Eating Disorders and Body Image in Young Adolescents.” Cureus vol. 16,4 e58674. 21 Apr. 2024, doi:10.7759/cureus.58674