Blog 9

The films and articles that we read for today were honestly disturbing at a bit hard to handle at times. There have been a number of people in my life who have been directly effected by various eating disorders. I am sure many of us watching and reading these materials have had either personal experience with these things or know someone who has. While watching the film Killing Us Softly 3, I initially patted myself on the back for not watching much TV or taking much notice of the advertisements around me everywhere. Then when the speaker mentioned that everyone thinks that they are immune to the messages and consequences various ads have on our psyche and subconscious. That made me realize that I am likely less of an independent thinker than I realize. I see advertisements in various publications such as The Stranger (Seattle weekly magazine) and What's Up! Music Magazine (local music magazine) for things I often buy or places I often shop, and I wonder how much of that has to do with me viewing some of the same ads week after week in the pages of these magazines. It was quite disturbing to read out the young lady's teeth rotting out of her head and disintegrating from vomitting so often. I often feel invincible just like she did, and I guess it is a hard realization to know that your body will not regenerate and fix whatever is damaged or goes wrong (although the anatomy of human beings is impressive, the body cannot do everything!).

I think one of the reasons that the media continues to push extreme thinness on the consumer is to sort of gloss over the problem and pretend that it is not really happening. It is no secret, with numerous studies done and TV specials and news reports on the increasing size of Americans, yet sometimes it is easier to pretend the problem does not exist by focusing more attention on this "ideal beauty" portrayed in advertisements.

Executive personality traits and eating behavior.Spinella, Marcello¹; Lyke, Jennifer¹

Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Pomona, NJ, US.International Journal of Neuroscience. Vol 114(1), Jan 2004, pp. 83-93