A Societal Issue

The societal issue that I would like to choose for my final paper is eating disorders. I think it is definitely a current issue and something that affects our society more than people realize which is why I would like to investigate it further. I find this topic very interesting because it is often overlooked and people don’t really like to talk about it. Therefore, I would like to learn more about it because I think overlooking it or downplaying it is a mistake. I think it is an important societal issue. I have seen people go through eating disorders and I would like to learn more about what caused it and what they were experiencing.

This problem is most prominent in teenagers and young women. I plan on researching every aspect I can on this topic but I am most interested about researching how society puts pressure on women to be skinny. The media and society promote the image that skinny women are beautiful and a lot of women struggle when they don’t fit this image which in some cases causes them to develop an eating disorder. There are two main eating disorders that I plan on researching; anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is a type of eating disorder where a person doesn’t eat and starves themselves in order to lose weight. There is also bulimia, which is when a person will binge and eat everything they want and when they are finished they force themselves to throw it all up to prevent them from gaining weight. Once people succumb to an eating disorder, it is very hard for them to stop. There are psychological factors that tie into eating disorders and I would like to research those as well. I am very interested in what drives people to the point of getting an eating disorder, how many people struggle with this, and I would like to try to understand this struggle.