Would eating disorders exist if there was no mass media?

It'a a trigger: While there is extreme pressure to look a certain way due to mass media, eating disorders have much deeper psychological origins. Many times eating disorders have to do with a fundamental need for control. Your question is a good one though, mass media is probably one of the main triggers that aid in the development of eating disorders.

A challenging ?: If we dig back in the research, we see that developing countries have much lower incidences of disordered eating than do heavily industrialized nations. Not only that, but when there is an influx of mass media from western countries, we tend to see the rates of eating disorders rising. There is more to the development of an eating disorder than exposure to mass media, but media plays a role.