Anorexia

Anorexia Nervosa and Media Influence.

Girls are given the message at a very young age that in order to be beautiful they must be thin. Our society today places much value on being thin so it’s not surprising that eating disorders are on the increase. If you think about it, every time you walk into a store, you are surrounded by the images of thin models and celebrities that appear on the covers of magazines. Once opened up you see pages filled with these thin beauties and adds promoting diets, workouts, and fashions for them. What you also see is celebrities or people who are slightly over weight having their flaws pointed out or being ridiculed in the magazine for being overweight or “not in shape.” Thousands of teenage girls read these magazines and look up to the people they see inside. In part, as a result they are starving themselves daily in an effort to attain what the fashion industry considers to be the perfect figure.

The average model weighs 23% less than the average woman. Maintaining a weight 20% below your expected body weight fits the criteria for the emotional eating disorder known as anorexia. Most models, according to medical standards, fit into the category of being anorexic (Thompson, Colleen. Mirror Mirror website).

Anorexia has been known and recognized by doctors for at least 300 years. Most researchers agree that the number of patients with this life threatening disease is increasing at an alarming rate. The DSM IV: 307.1 Anorexia Nervosa defines anorexia as an emotional disorder characterized by an intense fear of becoming obese, lack of self-esteem and distorted body image which results in self-induced starvation. The development of this disease generally begins at the age of 11 or 18. Significantly, these ages coincide with new phases of a girl’s life, the commencement and ending of adolescence. Recent estimates suggest that out of every 200 American girls between this age span, one will develop anorexia to some degree. The disease develops over a period of time during which the sufferer changes her eating patterns from normal or near normal to a very restricted diet (S.C.A.R.E.D. Website). This process can take anywhere from months to years.

Clinically, an anorexic is diagnosed by having a body weight 20% below the expected body weight of a healthy person at the same age and height of the eating disorder patient. The anorexic often becomes frightened of gaining weight and even of food itself. The patient may feel fat, even though their body weight is well below the normal weight for their height. Some also feel they do not deserve pleasure out of life and will deprive themselves of situations offering pleasure, including eating. The fears of anorexics become so difficult to manage that the sufferer will gradually isolate him/herself from other people and social activities (S.C.A.R.E.D. Website). This happens so the sufferer can continue the exhausting anorexic behaviors. Although 30% of anorexics eventually die from the disorder, approximately one third overcome the disease with psychiatric help.

While the cause of anorexia is still unknown, a combination of psychological, environmental, and physiological factors is associated with the development of this disorder (Cove, Judy). The most common cause of anorexia in a girl is perception of her weight. Anorexics feel as if they are heavier than the others around them, and believe the quickest way to lose weight is to simply stop eating. Ironically, when a person stops eating, their body goes into starvation mode losing very small amounts of weight. When the body receives food, it is then stored away until the next time food is obtained. At first, this method may seem to work and the subject loses weight, but as the body soon adjusts to the lack of food it learns to use the energy it is given stingily. (Cove, Judy)

Another cause of anorexia is the need to obtain perfection. A perfectionist desires excellence in all aspects of their life. When they cannot achieve perfection in their endeavors, they will sometimes punish themselves by restriction or starvation. A perfectionist likes to be better than everyone else, if she sees someone with a waist an inch smaller, her waist must be two inches smaller. Anorexics sometimes desire control over their lives, including their physical and emotional surroundings. People who fall towards anorexia often times feel they have a lack of control in their lives and the only thing they can control is what they eat. They have control over their body and eat exactly what they want or eat nothing at all.

The part about this eating disorder I find most ironic for lack of a better word is that it begins because of the desire to look “beautiful”, but the effects of this disease are anything but that.

“The effects of anorexia nervosa are severe and sometimes irreversible. It can cause changes externally, internally, and psychologically. The external changes can be dramatic weight loss, headaches, kidney infections, dry skin, hair loss,