Critical writing task

In her article for the Independent Cherry Norton writes about how “abnormally thin” presenters and actresses are causing eating disorders in young women.

The article’s biggest problem is that it has a conflicting message it starts off by quoting doctors about how unnatural body shapes are being portrayed by the media, then referencing a British Medical Association report which states that doctors are treating a large number of people with various eating disorders. However in the very next paragraph she talks about a report, which talks about how the ‘the gap between the perceived ideal body shape and reality is widening’. This completely throws the previous argument out as now you have two separate sources claiming completely different things, which means nothing in the end. The back and forth of apposing arguments goes on through the entire article. Now if you are going to write a piece titled ‘Media blamed for rise in eating disorders’ you should paint only one side of the picture and not include counter arguments within the writing itself as it just becomes convoluted and doesn’t carry either message across.

Cherry goes on to point out statistics that females on television have considerably less body fat than what is considered a healthy woman. The problem is that the source of information is dated as according to the article the research was conducted in the 90’s, which is a very vague period of ten years to when the article was writing in May of 2000. She also says the research was only on an estimate, this means that the paragraph has little relevance and carries no weight on the reader.

She has a very good quote from a Professor Nathason who states that actresses and female presenters tend to be thin, whereas males can be of all shapes and sizes. This puts a great pressure on these women to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible. That statement may be true for the most part but it doesn’t show any translation to the general public, because if women who are on the spotlight may want to be as thin as possible to get more work means nothing to the mass of women out there who have no interest in ever being in the media. Again with the conflicted messages, later in the article Cherry has quotes directly from BBC and ITV spokes people that they give equal opportunity to women no matter their size and give clear examples of the more successful ones. Now this is only from two channels but they are some of the more viewed ones and again this dismisses the argument made earlier.

One of the best arguments on this topic that she writes about is fortunately about how cultures which don’t focus on thinness eating disorders are a lot more rare, the paragraph goes onto to say as westernisation has increased so have these disorders. Even though there are many different aspects to a culture the best way one is portrayed now days is through the media. Although there is no scientific evidence for this coloration it is something that cannot be ignored. However even if there would be sufficient evidence for media causing eating disorders it would be a hard change to implement because of our cultural obsession with thinness. This is shown in the conclusion of the article where Cherry talks to Rebecca Martin the chief editor of Jump, a magazine for teenage girls. Rebecca that they try and portray women of all shapes and sizes in their magazine but it is hard not to put a ‘beautiful skinny girl on the cover’ case it is proven to sell more copies. So as much as someone may want to change our cultural views on beauty they cant because they still need to make a profit in a competing market.

The article as a whole makes some good point about the media and our obsession about thinness even if lacking sufficient evidence.  However it sabotages itself by having counter arguments which not only undermine and points made it also confuses the reader as to what message it wants to get across and neither argument in the article has enough weight and content to it to persuade anyone as to if media is or isn’t causing eating disorders.