Comparison Essay of “An Insatiable emptiness” and...

Comparison Essay of â€Å"An Insatiable emptiness† and â€Å"Distorted Image† Body- image anxiety is an issue that many people struggle with nowadays. There are many factors that contribute to one’s anxiety of body image, for example it could stem from media, social and personal view. â€Å"An Insatiable Emptiness,† by Evelyn Lau, focuses on her own personal struggles with bulimia, and her strained relationships with her mother. â€Å"Distorted Image,† by Susan McCelland focuses on the social dynamics of body image and provide reports of different cultural aspects on body image. Both of these articles explore a different perspective of how one cope with body image issue and the impact upon it. In â€Å"An Insatiable Emptiness,† Evelyn Lau narrates her†¦show more content†¦The author gives cases of woman from different cultural backgrounds that are forced to accept the westernized beauty standard. She explains that a woman named Zahra Dhanani was pressured by her mother to be thin, because her mother thought that by being thin means beautiful, and it results Zahra to developed bulimia. According to one of the interviewee, Niva Piran, a clinical psychologist, explained that â€Å"The ideal of standard beauty is uniformed by the mass media, and attractiveness is often perceived as thin body figure, and light skinned†( McCelland,2013, paragraph 3,p.445). Thus, this component has contributed to people from different culture to develop body image anxiety which can lead to eating-disorder such as, anorexia and bulimia. The author also discuss the history aspect of body image; before the 19th century woman who are larger are consider as healthy and this idea was shifted after the industrialization, and woman are now pressured to accept that being thin is considered beautiful. The author also criticized that the media are constantly demanding light skinned and thin figured woman to be presented. The essay concluded that if the media and the society do not change the idea of accepting themselves, woman will continued to be pressured and scrutinized by the society and therefore feel pressured to look like a certain way. Both authors discuss body image and eating disorder. In the â€Å"An Insatiable Emptiness†,Show MoreRelatedFrom Salvation to Self-Realization18515 Words   |  75 PagesTherapeutic Roots of the Consumer Culture, 1880-1930 T. J. Jackson Lears Lears, T.J. Jackson 1983. From salvation to self-realization: Advertising and the therapeutic roots of the consumer culture, 1880-1930. In The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 18801980, ed. by Richard Wightman Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears, New York: Pantheon Books, 1-38. Reprinted with the permission of the author. 1On or about December 1910, Virginia Woolf once said, human character changed. This