Elucidate media’s role in body image issues and eating behaviour.

 Sociocultural factors, specifically media exposure, play an important role in the development of disordered body image. Of significant concern, studies have revealed a link between media exposure and the likelihood of having symptoms of disordered eating or a frank eating disorder. The feminine body ideal changed throughout history and became much more uniform with the growing influence of the mass media. As a result of this influence, the ideal female body shape has become increasingly thin, even as the size of the average woman has become progressively larger. In this chapter, we review some of the survey, experimental, and longitudinal data indicting media as a formative and pervasive factor in women's and girl's body-image disturbance and eating dysfunction, outline recent theoretical approaches, and summarize promising new avenues in the prevention and early intervention arena. As social media continues to play a central rolein the lives of adolescent girls and young women, its influence on body image and the perception of beauty continues to grow. Social media not only exposes young girls to certain beauty standards and cultural ideals of womanhood, but emerging research shows it may contribute to the development of eating disorders and body dysmorphi. There is no doubt that mass media are important sources of what we think about, how we evaluate what we think about, what we overlook and ignore, and how we interact with important people in our lives. There is also no doubt that media portrayals of attractiveness, gender, and technologies of health both reflect and contribute to body dissatisfaction, unhealthy eating and weight management, and disordered eating in females and males who are vulnerable to these influences. We are gratified to see that many first-rate researchers around the world are turning their attention to the developmental interactions and transactions among mass media, other sociocultural factors, and personal factors that increase vulnerability or resistance. The media, including social media and blogs may be a catalyst for triggering body image issues such as Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) and eating disorders (Phillips, 2005, p. 178). Body Dysmorphic Disorder, BDD will be explained later. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, even the smallest amount of exposure to these sites could be harmful and msky (2013). Borzekowski (2010) describes these blogs and websites as a way to inform, encourage and motivate participation in disordered eating habits and routines to achieve “successfully” low body weight, and typically contain information on how men and women can starve their bodies and how to binge and purge. These websites facilitate these disorders by validating unhealthy behavior. Not only can the users find information on the support and maintenance of an eating disorder, but also, these websites offer a cyber-community where young women and men can connect with others from all over the world who suffer from an eating disorder.

There are a few different types of eating disorders. Eating Disorders are defined as a “persistent disturbance of eating or eating related behavior that results in the altered consumption or absorption of food that impairs physical health or psychological functioning” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p.329). Eating disorders include avoiding food, restricting food intake, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder.

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