(and others') work
             indicating that being obese is the number one reason children are
             ridiculed, there is ample reason to begin to investigate the ways in which
             the "effect on the soul of the child" manifest.
             People have spent a lot of time searching for the causes of obesity,
             and most have concluded it is from lack of exercise, or poor eating habits,
             or genetics, or TV. In fact, a recent study of TV and obesity did show
             that television affected sleep routines and family meals in a negative
             manner. However, the researcher noted five major effects that might be a
             result. These ranged from weight gain to neglect of other activities, but
             the one the researcher found most intriguing was the effect of TV on body
             image. Moreover, that effect was not due simply to the possibility that
             too few calories are expended by couch potatoes,' making them fat, but
             rather that it was the content of the TV programs themselves that was doing
             the damage to body image. (Van den Buick, 2000)
             Numerous content analyses show that overall, TV's message is "thin is
             beautiful." Short-term effects were demonstrated in experiments,
             confirming that females who watch "idealized thin body types" begin to
             attach greater importance than before on beauty and attractiveness, which
             in turn affects their estimates of their own body size and feelings about
             it. Also, other authors provide evidence that long-term exposure to TV's
             ideal bodies may lead to serious behavioral pathologies such as eating
             disorders in an attempt to overcome perceived obesity. (Van den Buick,
             Unfortunately, the ideas about the ideal body and attractiveness can
             be acquired as early as age seven. Researchers found that media both
             affected feelings of dissatisfaction with looks and caused changes in
             behavior based on those altered self-perceptions. (Van den Buick, 2000)
             Van den Buick's study failed to find a relations...