Study highlights impacts of second hand TV on young girls

A new study on the impacts of television on adolescent girls in Fiji shows how many girls suffer from eating disorders due to exposure to certain types of television programs.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine have found a link between media consumption and eating disorders among adolescent girls in Fiji.

An initial study by lead author Anne Becker, the vice chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School found a rise in eating disorder symptoms among adolescent girls in Fiji following the introduction of broadcast television in 1995.

She said what makes Fiji a particularly interesting case is that traditional culture prizes a robust body shape, in sharp contrast to the image presented by Western television shows such as Beverly Hills 90210, Seinfeld and Melrose Place, which were quite popular in Fiji when television debuted here in the 1990s.

Becker said girls would see actresses as role models and began noting how a slender body shape was often accompanied by success in those shows.

This perception appears to have been one of the factors leading to a rise in eating pathology among the Fijian teenagers.

But until now, it was not known how much of this effect came from an individual’s social network.

The findings published in a Medical Journal highlights that for parents wanting to reduce the negative influence of TV on their children, the first step is normally to switch off the television set.

But a new study suggests that might not be enough.

The survey shows that it turns out indirect media exposure, therefore, having friends who watch a lot of TV, might be even more damaging to a teenager’s body image.

What they found was surprising.

The study’s subjects did not even need to have a television at home to see raised risk levels of eating disorder symptoms amongst the adolescent girls in Fiji.

The researchers said it appeared that changing attitudes within a group that had been exposed to television were a more powerful factor than actually watching the programs themselves.


Story by: Roneel Lal