Sexualistation of Young People

effect, with dissatisfaction leading to more
problematic internet use leading in turn to
greater dissatisfaction and so on. 309
Eating disorders
“I think that today’s...media puts a lot of
pressure on young people. In the last year
or so I’ve started worrying a lot more about
my weight and body image. That could be
caused by all the magazines I read in a
week.” 310
The eating disorder charity BEAT
estimates that 1.6 million people in the
UK have an eating disorder. The vast
majority of these – some 1.4 million – are
female. 311 Over time, the fluctuation in
eating disorder levels reflect changes in
fashion and, therefore, in the ‘desirability’ of
the idealised thin body shape. 312
“The ratios of bust-to-waist and hip-to-waist
measurements of women depicted in Vogue
and Ladies Home Journal were low in the
1920s and 1930s, high in the 1950s, and low
again in the 1960s and 1970s. ...these ratios
varied over time inversely with the occurrence
of anorexia nervosa in 10-19-year-old girls.
The thin, non-curvaceous standard preceded
the time periods when the rates for anorexia
nervosa were highest.” 313
Numerous studies link sexualisation and
the depiction of women as sex objects
to the occurrence of eating disorders.
This supports findings pointing to a link
between exposure to adverts and TV
programmes featuring slim models and
inaccurate estimations of body size, 314
309 Peter and Valkenburg (2006)
310 Girl quoted in Growing up in a material world –
Charter on Commercialisation (2007)
311 www.b-eat.co.uk/PressMediaInformation#iHn0,
retrieved December 2009
312 Lucas, Beard, O’Fallon and Kurland (1991)
313 Lucas, Beard, O’Fallon and Kurland (1991)
314 Myers and Biocca (1992); Sumner, Waller et al.
(1993)
body dissatisfaction, 315 and eating disorder
symptomatology. 316, 317 These links cannot
be explained away by a prior interest in
fitness and dieting. 318
Furthermore, a study involving 366
adolescents found that exposure to socalled
‘fat character TV’ (where fatness
is portrayed in a negative light and/or as
being synonymous with traits like gluttony,
untrustworthiness and sloppiness)
predicted eating disorders in older
girls, while ‘fat character TV’ predicted
body dissatisfaction among younger
boys. 319 There is also a link between
the consumption of fashion and beauty
magazines and dieting practices such as
limiting the intake of calories and taking
diet pills. 320
Just as with body image (see page 55),
eating disorders are affecting children at
a younger and younger age. The same
research 321 found that 42 per cent of
girls aged 11–16 had either carefully
monitored their food intake or restricted
their intake of certain foods ‘to excess’.
Another study 322 surveyed 581 nine- and
10-year-old girls and found that 11 per
cent of nine-year-olds and 7 per cent of
10-year-olds scored ‘in the anorexic range’.
Over a third of girls selected ‘ideal’ figures
that were smaller than their actual bodies.
While levels of body dissatisfaction were
consistent across ethnic groups, girls from
minority ethnic backgrounds scored higher
for eating disturbances.
315 Irving (1990); Richins (1991); Stice and Shaw
(1994)
316 Harrison and Cantor (1997); Stice et al. (1994)
317 Stice and Schupak-Neuberg et al. (1994)
318 Harrison and Cantor (1997)
319 Harrison (2000)
320 Thomsen, Weber, & Brown (2002)
321 The Guide Association (2009)
322 DeLeel, Hughes and Miller et al. (2009)
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