BILLBOARDS/EATING DISORDERS
Whilst in the tube I was reminded of another, less blatant way in which culture frames eating: through fitness advertisements. When I decided to turn my attention to ads I saw in London about body image, I found plenty of commonalities with US ads.
The US and UK ads for gym memberships that I've seen often involve shaming bodies or criticizing eating habits. However, humiliation is not an efficient or sustainable tactic for convincing someone to get in shape. Telling me I'm fat and lazy won't transform my soft stomach into a six-pack—it may even make me fatter and lazier. In fact, you've pressured me so much already that I've decided I HATE exercise. Where's the closest McDonald's?
It would be irresponsible to have a blog that discusses emotions and eating without acknowledging eating disorders, too. While stress eating is very real and very common, people develop other disorders including anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating disorder, and more. The debate isn't if mainstream media's literature of bodies and food has an effect on a person's self-image, it is how much.
Hadley Freeman of The Guardian notes how airbrushed ads don't create the eating disorders, but definitely don't help them. She notes, "You know the problem with eating disorders? They're just so photogenic!"
Speaking to the hypocrisy of popular magazines, Freeman observes how one page will feature a heartbreaking exposé on anorexia, and the next will praise whichever celebrities rock the skinniest "bikini bod."
I think the literature of food is most powerful in the form of these visual ads. If a "picture is worth a thousand words," just imagine the number of words we absorb subconsciously from ads like these, and the effect they have on us without our permission.
Hadley Freeman of The Guardian notes how airbrushed ads don't create the eating disorders, but definitely don't help them. She notes, "You know the problem with eating disorders? They're just so photogenic!"
Speaking to the hypocrisy of popular magazines, Freeman observes how one page will feature a heartbreaking exposé on anorexia, and the next will praise whichever celebrities rock the skinniest "bikini bod."
I think the literature of food is most powerful in the form of these visual ads. If a "picture is worth a thousand words," just imagine the number of words we absorb subconsciously from ads like these, and the effect they have on us without our permission.
Just one example of the type of ad I've seen at the Equinox, near one of my campuses at High Street Kensington. "Sex sells," as they say.
And yet another positive message instilling the idea that one should achieve such an exclusive status, that not even his/her significant other has full access
A link to Hadley Freeman's article (well worth the read!):
In addition, a link to the author of Food: The Good Girl's Drug Sunny Sea Gold's homepage. Gold provides support for young women in particular for binge eating disorder. She is extremely articulate when discussing emotional eating habits and how tell-tale signs often go undiagnosed and unacknowledged by society:
(Sources of images:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/01/06/2472D99C00000578-2898577-image-a-1_1420538186807.jpg,
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