Thursday, January 24, 2013

Spin On Eating Disorders.

      65 percent of women in America have eating disorders.  That was the statement said in the video.  The video didn’t define eating disorder.  They just used whatever statistics they could to drive their point home.  They made a connotation that those eating disorders were anorexia, bulimia, and nervosa.   I did some research and found out a source from SELF Magazine, where the information was taken from.  (Here is a link if you want to read it yourself)
     The first sentence in the article stated that only 10 percent of women have anorexia, bulimia, or nervosa. 10 percent.  That is a far reach from the 65 percent that they were trying to sell us.  The article continues to say that we have 75 percent of women with an unhealthy relationship with food.  The change in words frames the statistics.  What is an unhealthy relationship with food?  I will accept the statistic they say that sixteen percent of women have less than 1000 calories a day.  It is unhealthy and they have a disorder.  SELF Magazine considers overeating and dieting and unhealthy relationship with food.  Those two groups push the numbers to 65 percent.       
      SELF Magazine has their own personal interests with posting a high amount of women with eating disorders.  They could have easily framed the questions to get more shocking results.  Shocking results sells magazines, not true results.  The more people that can be classified as having an eating disorder, the more shocking the story will be.  That is exactly what they did.  Their sample size wasn’t listed and they probably asked their viewers.  This isn’t a random sampling and is very prone to errors in data.  
      SELF Magazine also tried to include women smokers as an eating disorder.   Granted, some women start smoking to lose weight.  I get that.  Most women, who smoke however, do it because they are addicted to the nicotine.  They would like to think they are smoking to lose weight, but that is just an excuse they make because they don’t want to stop smoking.  It is another misrepresentation that was thrown in this statistic.   
      The video took the title of the statistic and put it in.  They wanted a big number to shock people.  65 percent of women have an eating disorder.  That is if you consider women between the ages of 20-45, the age of women that were surveyed.  Doctors may argue the case for obesity as an eating disorder.  I don’t have a problem adding that in, but the video has to identify what an eating disorder is.  You can’t just say that 60 percent of Americans hate popcorn.  Maybe it was a certain type of popcorn that most people don’t like.  The point is, the video took data from a survey and misrepresented it.  Only 10 percent of women have a medical eating disorder.  The video will try and make it seem bigger than it is, but the truth stands, no matter what spin or connotations are put on it.    
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