A recent national news related to the female body image in the media was titled “The overweight debate: Healthy and heavy?” on MSNBC. The news article discusses other potential hazardous factors that can affect ones health other than being overweight. These are your age, family history, waist measurement, your regular fitness, cholesterol and inflammation. "Being overweight may not be associated with any risk of heart disease," says Robert Eckel, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado and past president of the American Heart Association. Even though some of these factors can correlate with being overweight they have an effect on anyone no matter their weight. Even if someone who is overweight lost a few pounds the other factors would continue to affect the individual and probably increase the potentials of contracting more diseases. This is another place were we begin to see the power of the media. If studies continue to come out with proof that being overweight due to their standards is healthy than why do many continue to strive for the “perfect” body? The media has been able to impose this “moral panic” towards society that being overweight is unhealthy because it is not beautiful and not the norm. In order to change this false perception the media has to popularize and impose that being heavy can also be healthy. Will that ever happen? It would take a lot of effort and time. The media is engraved with Hollywood and the music industry that have used body, sex, and beauty to make millions and nobody is bound to change something that is making money. Society must start educating and informing itself about health facts and issue than the media influences would not be so powerful. By taking the right measures and not those from the media one would become healthier and better fit.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26957675/