The critical approach to anthropological study can be vital to understanding how a disease affects an individual. This approach involves applying biomedicine, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals to a disease in order to heal or cure it. From a social aspect, bulimia is usually thought of as a disease that mostly affects teenage girls who are unhappy with their appearance or are seeking attention. This is not always the case: many people across genders and ages suffer from bulimia and it is not only a disease that is brought about by a negative body image, but also a desire for control and perfection that is manifested through control of body weight and food intake. Bulimia nervosa is also a serious disease that is not just simply attention seeking and should be treated as soon as possible before serious organ and tissue damage can be caused. The way products are marketed, particularly women’s clothes, also affects how people see themselves and how they view the “ideal” body and if those images are negative or harmful, they can encourage harmful behavior such as purging in order to achieve this ideal. For instance, some individuals suffering from eating disorders will keep images of extremely thin models as a sort of inspiration for losing weight, which can be extremely harmful to their mental health. Bulimia nervosa has become biomedicalized in western culture by being treated by pharmaceutical drugs, such as medications that are used as treatments for depression, anxiety, or other conditions that can be related to bulimia and other eating disorders as many of these conditions are experienced in multiples by individuals. These pharmaceutical drugs can be helpful in treating eating disorders like bulimia, but they can also be ineffective or have a negative effect on individuals suffering from bulimia. This illness is often portrayed in television shows (such as Degrassi) and teen novels (such as novels written by Ellen Hopkins) as well as being addressed in magazines and other articles. Some of these exposures can be harmful and may put the idea in some individuals’ heads that bulimia is a convenient way to lose weight, but many of these media express how harmful bulimia nervosa can be not only to the physical health of an individual but also the mental health of an individual as well. Treatment for this illness can be extremely difficult and struggling with this disease can last for a lifetime, which is expressed in many of these television shows and novels as to not encourage people to mimic this behavior.