Overview+of+Media+and+Teenagers

The top three mental health problems caused by the media:
1. Eating Disorders 2. Low Self-esteem 3. Depression

__**What are eating disorders?**__
====Eating disorders are illnesses that involve serious problems with normal eating behaviors, such as feelings of distress and concern about body shape or weight, severe overeating, or starving oneself. Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder are types of eating disorders. Binge eating disorder is the most forgotten one of the three because most people do not consider over eating to be a problem like not eating at all.====

__**What is low self-esteem?**__
====Self-esteem is a term used in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. However if you have low self-esteem you feel wrong about yourself or not feeling ready for life. Feelings like this can also lead into depression.====

__**What is depression?**__
====Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings and physical well-being. It may include feelings of sadness, anxiety, emptiness, hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt, irritability, or restlessness and may even cause thoughts of suicide.====

==== Media usage is heavy among youth; they often turn to the media to help them deal with issues such as their changing bodies and identities. The media sends messages to teens regarding the desirability and undesirability of physical apperances. Female adolescents seek out magazines and use the media as a source of information about how to improve their physical appearance. In early adolescence, girls who look to magazines as important modes of defining the ideal body are more likely to experience body dissatisfaction due to the obvious discrepancy between their actual body size and the ideal depicted in the media. According to a survey of adolescent girls 69% reported that images of females displayed in magazines influence their perceptions of the ideal body figure, and 47% reported that the images evoked in them a desire to diet and lose weight. In addition, simply watching television has been associated with an increased desire among preadolescent girls to have a thin body when they mature, and also with increased disordered eating over time. (Ata) ====

===//"Throughout U.S. culture, and particularly in mainstream media, women and girls are depicted in a sexualizing manner," declares the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls.//===

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 * The following video is an overview of the aspects incorporated in media that extremely affect youth as of this century. Viewer discretion is advised as some of the images are very graphic.***