A commonly made claim about the media’s obsession with thin, young women is that such images create a poor self-image in young women who don’t measure up to that ideal. A small minority of them then turn to self-destructive behaviors to try to look like the model on the cover of the magazine, leading […]
Category Archives: Eating Disorders
Mayo Clinic Study: Death Rate Among Anorexia Nervosa Patients Exaggerated
June 8, 2003 – 12:00 am
A Mayo Clinic study that looked at mortality rates among patients with anorexia nervosa over a period of 60 years concluded that people diagnosed with the disorder die at the same rate as people who do not have the disorder. This contradicts both previous clinical studies as well as many commonly cited claims that […]
Does a Genetic Disorder Cause Some Anorexia Cases?
October 9, 2001 – 12:00 am
A claim popularized by feminists is that anorexia (and other eating disorders) are caused by unhealthy media images of thin women. In the past decade this claim has been undermined by cross-cultural studies of societies with very different ideal female body images, but a recent Dutch survey is the first to provide any evidence […]