A Content Analysis of Popular Magazine Articles on Eating Disorders

Abstract

This study tested two hypotheses about popular magazine articles on eating disorders: (a) anorexics would be profiled more often than bulimics due to their conformity to the thin beauty ideal projected in the Western media, and (b) disordered behaviors used to achieve weight loss would be mentioned more often than their physical consequences. Forty-two popular magazine articles on eating disorders published in the last five years were coded for illness type, mention of weight loss, disordered behaviors, and health impacts. The findings confirmed both hypotheses.

Communication Challenges Within Eating Disorders: What People Say and What Individuals Hear

“…Ref. [74] found that magazine articles tended to focus on unusually thin sufferers of eating disorders with a disproportionate focus on anorexia nervosa, such that readers can get the erroneous view that someone who is overweight cannot have an eating disorder. This concern seems to be merited as many times normal weight individuals who struggle with bulimia report that others have made comments to them that they do not look like they have an eating disorder.…”

“…This concern seems to be merited as many times normal weight individuals who struggle with bulimia report that others have made comments to them that they do not look like they have an eating disorder. The articles often provide a superficial presentation of eating disorders, so that readers do not get a sense of the complex emotional issues that underlie eating disorders and the complex path for recovery [74]. Articles about eating disorders are typically placed in the entertainment-related sections, so are seen as "soft" news stories [75].…”

Collage Inquiry: Creative and Particular Applications

“…Moreover, current discussions of eating disorders note the prevalence of "Ophelia" discourses around female adolescence, flattening the experience of real persons into tropes of crisis (Mastronardi, 2006). A scenario emerges in which the media construct, and authority figures must rescue or punish, essentially passive women who are judged incompetent to claim or voice their own power (Burke, 2006;Inch & Morali, 2006;Ferris, 2003). For example, although conventional treatment seldom resolves anorexia, "Pro-Ana" web communities are condemned as deadly traps and shut down, in effect silencing alternative possibilities.…”