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Dying to Be Thin

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Dying to be Thin: America’s Obsession with the Anorexic Profile.
Matthew Smith
Strayer University
SOC100 Sociology
Professor Sheila Farr
April 29, 2012

In today’s society we have a standard by which we compare ourselves to others. We judge the people around us by physical appearance before we even meet and get to know them. Mental disorders revolved around eating stem from this kind of mass judgment. These standards are often not based around our own appearance but by the standards set for us via the Media. We allow ourselves to become over saturated with these images of the ”perfect” person. Why is it that the people who aren’t even in our live get to decide the way we look? We put our bodies through hell trying to meet and manage these expectations that society has placed on us. Is this really necessary with all the other pressures we face on a daily basis? Which begs the question, why is our society dying to be thin? In many other cultures it is a sign of wealth and prosperity to be overweight. This girth is afforded by a station above all others and looked upon with envy. (Popenoe, 2004)As a result there are few without this stature within these cultures. The small and skinny are those who can’t afford to eat as robustly. Other societies, like our own have taken an opposing stance on this. The small are suspended on pedestals while the over -weight are rejected. It has not always been this way, however. Through the years our perspectives have been skewed by images of rail skinny models and taught young studs flooding our lives. As generation after generation passes these models get tinier and tinier, conversely our expectations of one another also follow suit. At this point a woman with any more than a size 4 waist falls outside of what society has deemed normal. Even our doctors have adjusted their diagnoses and followed these new guidelines. So

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