The Ideal Body Image

Supermodel Ideal

With Junior year comes the Junior Theme. This project can be on any topic that has some historical significance, which is why it was so difficult for me to pick a topic. After going through multiple topics I landed on eating disorders. In particular I'm studying "why eating disorders are on the rise?" According to a CQ Researcher article about eating disorders anorexia and bulimia affect nearly 10 million women and 1 million men.

One cause of eating disorders is the ideal body image that we have in our society. With models and actresses being extremely thin, girls and women are striving to be more like them; however, these are truly unrealistic and unhealthy ideals. The average supermodel is 5'10'' and weighs only 120 pounds, while the average women is 5'4'' and 169 pounds. The numbers themselves show how difficult it would be for the average women to reach these ideals. In order for the average woman to have the same body mass index (bmi)  as the average supermodel she would have to lose 69 pounds. The bmi of the supermodel is 17.2 and anything under 18.5 is underweight; so not to mention the difficulty of losing 69 pounds, but those that strive for the ideal body image are striving to be underweight. The way that women and girls are reaching these ideals is by developing eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia.