One in four girls and one in ten boys are shown to have at least one eating disorder that needs professional help. Celebrities and role models can greatly affect the health of teenagers. Celebrities make eating disorders seem attractive. Celebrities are always determined to lose weight and become thinner by taking necessary measures to do so. The celebrities are told to lose weight for movies or appearances which shows their fans that people cannot succeed in this if they are not thin. So many celebrities had eating disorders and some died from an eating disorder because it was so dangerous. These eating disorders can be so serious and can lead to death. Celebrities and other role models make eating disorders glamorous which is harmful to a teenager’s mental and physical health.

Younger children and teenagers are more susceptible to develop eating disorders because they are impressionable. Role models affect children’s decisions. If children had a terrible past and parents gave no attention, the children have a need to control something like weight. Students also get bullied by their weight and have a high stress level. When this happens younger children look toward a role model for help. Girls are more likely to have an eating disorder than a boy because girls care more about how they look. “The National Eating Disorder Screening Program coordinated the first-ever nationwide eating disorders screening initiative for high schools in the United States in 2000. Students completed a self-report screening questionnaire that included the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) and items on vomiting or exercising to control weight, binge eating, and history of treatment for eating disorders.” (Austin). This survey showed how many boys and girls had a dangerous eating disorder and never got help or a treatment. This survey helped many teenagers because it made the U.S. Senate help give these students treatments to make the students better.

Although many teenagers have eating disorders, older women also develop the same eating disorders. A forty-eight year old woman named Michelle Trotta fought for size 0 all her life. She had an eating disorder and this showed her children that being thin is the only thing that matters. “’To me, the zero feels like empty, nothing’, she says, ‘’and when I get there everything with be OK, and I’ll feel good and I’ll like life. But I’ve never gotten there.’ For 30 years, Trotta has battled various eating disorders in tortured pursuit of the size nothing” (Ramsey). After her divorce and her kids moved out, the forty year old mother had nobody and she was lonely so she made a goal to exercise everyday. Older women have a difficult life. Divorce leads a lot of women to depression, making women work harder to look better and younger. Also, when the women’s children leave to start their life, the parents find it is easier to deal with the loneliness by making a new goal.

Is it really Hollywood’s fault for an eating disorder? “In an interview, actor Christina Ricci blames the pressures of success for her prior struggle with the disease. The headline flashed, ‘Ricci: Hollywood made me anorexic’” (Gura). This actress dealt with Hollywood just like every other celebrity who was called fat. Many people are thin and the actors that are overweight are made fun of and frown upon. She also blames the stress of Hollywood that made her get an eating disorder. Someone with mixed emotions is likely to get an eating disorder. Some people believe that an eating disorder is led on by mixed emotions and bad pasts that were never forgotten. People with a bad past, especially celebrities, looks for something that can make them feel better and that is normally weight loss. Hollywood is a huge part to an eating disorder.

Overall, celebrities and other role models show the glamour of eating disorders and being thin which can harm a teenager’s mental and physical health. Hollywood has so much stress on actors and actresses to become thinner and these actors are role models to many young children who try to follow everything their role model does. Up to 20% of people die from a serious eating disorder without treatment and about 20% make a partial recovery and a little percent makes a small recovery. To conclude, celebrities show the glamour of being thin, but the role models and celebrities never show the dangers of the disorder which affects teenagers by receiving the wrong message.