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BODYWHYS, THE EATING disorder association of Ireland has warned that the surge of fad diet books entering the market in recent years is having a dangerous impact on the way people think about body image.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Fiona Flynn, Youth Development Officer at the association, said the books place a huge emphasis on body image “making it seem as if it’s the most important thing, ahead of other aspects of a person’s attributes.”
“There’s a risk that if a person doesn’t achieve this body image, it will have an affect on the overall health of their self esteem,” she said.
Flynn said the books encouraging unhealthy eating habits or extreme dieting can often act as a trigger for those already suffering through an eating disorder.
What can happen is that once someone starts to deprive themselves of food, it’s all that they can think of and they have all these obsessional thougths about it. Having the books, magazines, television programmes like can encourage a person to binge. It’s very triggering because it perpetuates their own thinking about themselves, that body image is most important.
The prevalence of these kinds of books, encouraging people to fast for a number of days or confine their diets to certain types of foods in order to rapidly loose weight has increased over the last few years. Flynn said:
So many people try these diets, these fad diets have been around for a long time. It’s everywhere, you really can’t get away from it, especially in January. You have ‘New Year, new you’, then in spring it’s ‘shape up for summer’, in the summer it’s all the bikini diets and after that it’s ‘get in shape for Christmas’. It does promote a dangerous way of thinking and there’s a direct link established between this kind of reading material and the likelihood of engaging in dangerous eating behaviour.
As Eating Disorder Awareness Week draws to a close, the association is encouraging people to to focus on positive thoughts about themselves.
People should turn their attention away from body image and focus on the things they like about themselves, hobbies they might have or other things they enjoy,” Flynn said. “They should also try to find their own style and try not to be influenced by the celebrity culture – if it’s something that’s giving you negative thoughts, don’t read it or change the channel.
Bodywhys can be contacted on 1890 200 444 or through its website.
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Love Tesco – they quietly raise prices on items by a cent or two – leave it for a few weeks, then announce a ‘price drop’! lol classic
One of the last times i was in Tesco you could buy a 2 litre bottle of cola for €1 or a 2 litre twin pack for €2.50…go figure
If Tesco were to hand out a weeks free groceries I would not toutch them . Terrible bad in handleing
Apologies cannot finish this text
Did you need to catch that plane Alan?
Yes OK but Tesco are threatening to cut wages for long term staff . Am I correct ?
Are they back selling horse meat?
@akan scott – Yes they’re cutting the pay for long service staff (following agreement, of course) – An ever popular practice for many Irish Companies – Its called AGEISM.
What about all the cash they built up from yours of dodging paying taxes etc…….oh wait the lads at the top want us all pitying them and tesco, even though they are currently trying to screw over their Irish work force. Ya sorry lads no sympathy here
Every LIDL helps
As they’ve registered loss for a number of years they can weigh that loss against profits for a few years to avoid paying tax, increased profits will then allow them to invest for growth and increased employment will lead to more tax into government coffers.
Or something.
It’s deceptive… None of that loss is from trading and operations. They declared £7 billion in ‘one off losses’ last year. Took a write down on the value of their property portfolio by almost £4 billion and wrote off other losses from closing their USA ‘fresh and easy’ connivence stores as well as online and certain Asian markets.
Investors beware… It actually looks like their profits fell further £600m to £450m if you exclude such exceptional items on the balance sheet.
Hmm…it’s as kosher as Paddy’s pigs.
All their beef is Halal, the Hijrah must be good for business.
Aldi profit in the world wouldn’t make me shop in Tesco.
Found a new recipe for cooking the books have they?
Oh, this is sure going to help their position when they sit down with the strikers…
I don’t like Tesco anymore, they’re too inconsistent. You can walk into any Dunnes, or even SuperValu when you want a specific item, but you can’t do the same in Tesco, because all of the stores seem to be different.
I tried to get around this by asking my local Tesco to stock a particular item. After three attempts over several weeks, they finally got the item in stock. When they sold them all, they didn’t bother re-stocking, and they haven’t bothered their arse since. If I drive to another Tesco 20 odd miles away, I find shelves full of what the other store isn’t stocking. Tesco can take a hike and stop pretending that they’re listening to their customers.
Local Tesco is manky. Gone off fruit. Gone off cheese. Rotten dirty shop.
Surprised they turned a profit here as with all the honouring of competitors vouchers from newspapers has to have hurt the bottom line, I must have saved €200 with Aldi and lidl vouchers!
Hate tesco, no price ever the same from month to month. Keep changing them so as we don’t know how much things really are. Rip off
Ah now i see why they want to screw their employees but seeking wage decreases and terms and conditions. They make millions but want more. So buck the workers
Back in profit but trying to cut pay. Typical corporate entity
I used to enjoy shopping at tesco in Dublin but since they put in them awful self payment checkout leading to job loses I don’t shop there and won’t until they remove them.thats why I don’t go into d banks anymore either
Liam they are extra checkouts , nobody lost their jobs over them being installed .
Back in profits and still trying to cut wages. Typical corporate entity
That’s a shame the way they treat there staff
Lowering wages of their staff with these massive profits. Tesco can get fu*ked
F**K Tesco
They still squeezing small businesses out except our family business we will fight them & we are ahead on our quality Irish grown plants not Deutch that Tesco claim are Irish .
As a retailer it makes me happy & sad to see them letting plants drying out then dumping them . Tesco are not a good operator in Irl in comparison to uk . Supervalu are undergoing revamps off most stores & putting the Superquinn touch back to them finally .
Tesco have lowered SOME of their prices since 2012. Big deal.
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