Essay --

There are different types of eating disorders including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating. Anorexia nervosa, commonly known as anorexia, is an eating disorder in which a person starves himself or herself and often over exercises therefore depriving their vital organs of essential nutrients needed to survive (Berger, 2010). Bulimia nervosa, commonly known as bulimia, is an eating disorder characterized by binge eating followed by purging (Berger, 2010). Binge eating is a disorder in which a person loses control of their eating habits and does not compensate for the amount of food he/she eats (NEDA, 2001). Although there are some popular beliefs that these eating disorders can be the result of low-self esteem, poor family and peer support, and media influence new research has found that only some of these reasons are completely true. Although it is commonly assumed that social networking may lower a person’s self image due to online bullying and self comparison to other users, a recent Facebook study has found that viewing oneself online can actually improve self-esteem. In 2011, Dr. Amy Gonzales and Professor Jeffery Hancock from Cornell University researched the effects on self-esteem using 63 participants including 16 males and 47 females. Gonzales and Hancock split the large group into three smaller groups in which the conditions were as follows: â€Å"exposure to a mirror, exposure to one’s own Facebook site, and a control condition in which participants used the same room without any treatment† (Gonzales & Hancock, 2011, pg 81). The participants would then get surveyed concerning their own self-esteem and graded using the â€Å"Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale† (Rosenberg, 1965). The study concluded that those who were expo... ...edia does not have effect on eating disorders. Levine and Murnen (2009) concluded that if eating disorders are a psychiatric illness that begin in childhood, and all environmental factors should contribute to the development of an eating disorder, then the possibility for a child to binge eat is greater than a child developing anorexia or bulimia. The idea that mass media is responsible for anorexia and bulimia is irrelevant when considering that children will notice media concerning fatty foods more than they will notice media with visuals of thin women or bulky men. Mass media seems to be more relevant in the event of binge eating or obesity because children are more attracted to donuts then they are skinny models. A child is more likely to grow up eating the foods they see on television rather than starving themselves to look like a model they see on television.