Abstract
The question that the authors presented in this project is as follows; “Does mass media contribute to distorted body images in women; which in turn contributes to eating disorders?” The researchers are assuming that women's perception of their own body is being adversely affected by the unrealistic thinness portrayed in the media, in addition to the adversity to “fat”. The researchers believe that those perceptions then contribute to eating disorders by leading women to try to obtain a look that is unattainable and unhealthy. The purpose of the research is to connect the images in the media and how that causes a distorted body image which in turn contributes to eating disorders. The research design was secondary quantitative data analysis gathered from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), during the years of 2007-2008. The NHANES survey was acquired through the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) website. There were 12,946 people selected for the sample, 10,149 of those were interviewed (78.4 percent) and 9,762 (75.4 percent) were examined in the mobile examination centers (MEC). Of the 10,149 persons who were interviewed for NHANES 2007-2008 the researchers only used 5,053 responses or 49.8% of the population that responded with female as their gender. The final findings to this project support and confirm the author’s original hypothesis that mass media is a contributing factor and has a correlation to a women’s dissatisfaction with their body image. There was a strong, positive correlation between how participants considered their weight and wanting to change their body size, which was statistically significant among ages 17 years and younger (r = .493, n = 154, p < .0001); 51-61 years (r = .468, n =531, p < .0001); 62-71 years (r = .616, n = 458, p < .0001) and 72 years and older (r = .516, n = 513, p < .0001). Although participants 18 to 50 years (equally distributed among 3 age groupings in the data runs) reflected statistically significant positive relationships, the correlation coefficients were among the lowest in this particular data analysis. The implications to the field of Social Work are that a professional can aid in a variety of settings, for example: mental health, domestic violence, medical, and community resource agencies. These are all areas that would be dealing with the outside influence that the media has on body image and how it affects the client’s daily life. This project will assist in increasing awareness of the impact of mass media and how it influences women. This knowledge will empower Social Workers; who then can use this knowledge to empower the clients to help themselves.