Anorexia Nervosa: Society's Fault

Essay by niky_devilUniversity, Bachelor'sB+, March 2010

download word file, 9 pages 0.0

TABLE OF CONTENTS:INTRODUCTION3MAIN BODY3CONCLUSION5REFERENCING7INTRODUCTION“Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by unrealistic fear of weight gain, self-starvation, and conspicuous distortion of body image.” (Rebecca. J. F: Medical Encyclopaedia – Anorexia Nervosa).

Many different assumptions can be made for why a person has anorexia nervosa, it happens due to a state of depression, low self esteem, mental health problems, family history of eating disorders, and two of the most common reasons for the disease is normative social influence and informational social influence. In this project I intend to discuss the different reasons that a person is diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in more detail, and discussing the symptoms of the disease, further more I aim to take one of the main causes of the disease, normative social influence and examine whether it is really the society’s fault or not. I will be taking a possible scenario about a 17 year old girl named Kate in hand; Kate has been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa.

Additionally, by figuring out what encourages this disorder and discussing the symptoms I will be able to conclude with a probable diagnosis.

MAIN BODYEmotions are the opposite of fingerprints. Everybody has their own point of view of different situations. One of these situations of this topic is weight. Women all victimize this more than men because of the social cognition we have. In today’s society more and more teenage girls are being diagnosed with the disease, it is usually due to a mental state which develops among teens who perceive themselves as being over-weight which is due to informational social influence and normative social influence which is mainly caused by the media. Nowadays having a thin body defines attractiveness in almost every culture, mainly the western culture which influences the rest of the world. People worldwide are influenced...