Study reveals secondhand media exposure may influence body image

By Staff Writer

According to a new study by researchers from Harvard Medical School, indirect media exposure - or having friends who watch television - may be damaging to a teen's body image regardless of whether they have a TV at home.

Time reports that the researchers studied girls who were living in Fiji, as only 8 percent of houses have TVs in rural regions and 85 percent own them in more urban areas. The results of the study showed that girls who had access to TV were 60 percent more likely to demonstrate abnormal eating patterns.

"Our study not only showed a second-hand effect but demonstrated that this second-hand effect is the exposure of interest," Anne Becker, a professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard as well as lead researcher, told the news source. "Even among those with direct exposure, the harm from the exposure couldn't be avoided because there may be friends and a social network that can transmit the exposure."

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, as many as 10 million women are fighting a life-or-death battle with some type of eating disorder.