On Thursday 20th May 1999 the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) showed a documentary on a more relaxed and spiritual culture, one the West had envied for hundreds of years but was now in decline. Since the advent of television in 1995, a huge change in eating patterns and body image occurred amongst teens in Fiji. Anne Becker, an anthropologist at Harvard Medical School, researched eating habits of Fijians in a three-year period from 1995 to 1998 when she noticed a huge change in attitudes towards the body amongst the female teens.
Obsessed With Body Image
Compared to the past, when simply "being" was the priority, Fijian teens had become as obsessive about body image and weight as teenage girls in the West who were suffering with conditions like anorexia. Prior to this invasion of television, the Fijian female body was considered more attractive when fuller and naturally feminine, which Fijians considered ideal for childbearing and child rearing. Becker noticed that almost 74% of young women in Fiji considered themselves "too fat" and thinness was what most Fijian teens craved.
Addictions Cause Emotional Stress
Over-exposure to television, magazines, advertising and the radio has brought eating disorders to the forefront. The media bombards the senses with messages that food and drink have secondary gains which cannot be missed. Air brushing photos and soft lenses on cameras are the by-product of vanity and a desire for body perfection. Watching television just two hours a day exposes a person to thousands of subtle messages each year (BBC News January 2003). While addictions cause great hardships both to the health authorities and family life. For the victims the emotional suffering of eating disorders is horrendous, according Deanne Jade of NCFED who specializes in anorexia in the UK.
Skinny Kids
On Monday the 23rd of January 2003 a documentary was broadcast on television called Skinny Kids. This documentary showed pre-teen youngsters spending large amounts of time obsessing about image. The youngest child was nine years old. Her mother, a confirmed weight watcher and addicted to clothes, shopping, gyms and beauty treatments, educated her daughter in the refinements of makeup and clothes. The mother defended her actions, believing she was preparing her daughter for "the better things in life."
Confusing Messages
Rather than being a parent, the mother was trying desperately to be a friend to her daughter. The other five children interviewed on the program were also addicted to gyms, jogging and exercising. Each night in the isolation of the bedroom, the children exercised and calorie counted rather than interacted and joined in on family activities with their parents. The lifestyle portrayed in Skinny Kids was injected with calorie counting and negative messages of disproportionate body images. The six teens pinched imaginary fat on perfectly firm underdeveloped thighs groaning in despair. One child wept openly at her lack of control over food, and because she was always hungry.
Force Fed
Articulate and bright, each one of these vulnerable children substantiated a lifestyle with phrases identical to those the mothers used to justify a need to lose weight, exercise and have the latest designer clothes to feel good. Desperate for healthy natural guidelines, these teens anticipated and obeyed their mother’s whim of a fashionable society. Looking forlorn, older and sadder than their years, each one appeared way out of their depth emotionally, portraying a bleak future for many children in an addictive society. This television program depicted an ever-increasing epidemic of disordered thinking in young people, which could well be the bedrock for other addictions and dysfunctional behavior later in life
A Thirst for Wholeness
While anorexia and bulimia hardly touches the media today, there is another extreme eating disorder that equally matches the trauma; obesity and binge eating amongst children. Christina Grof (1994) wrote in her book, The Thirst for Wholeness (p.12) in 1994 and wrote that most talked about a nonspecific hunger for something that was missing in their lives. She described it as a gnawing emptiness within, which was never filled. This insistent stirring from within is so intense according to Grof that at times the feeling was painful. Grof concluded that if this hunger is never addressed or understood the person will go through life replacing one addiction for another. This is what most eating disorder patients spoke of when therapists at a UK clinic addressed their dread at eating.
Sylvia Lerigo - Optimum Healing - Established in 1995 Psychological Healing and Training Centre Brief History in my Time After many years in the ...
