Behind Anorexia
Anorexia is a serious eating disorder that affects you both mentally and
physically. It’s mostly known throughout young females, but the number of males
affected increases each year. Anorexia Nervosa is disorders were the victim
refuses to eat and will excessively exercise and in a result that has
dramatically loss weight. This disorder affects many people in their childhood
and it’ll go with them to their early adulthood. Many victims of anorexia are
unnoticed because they seem healthy and normal. People with anorexia refuse to
eat in public and will always make an excuse to not eat a meal. At least
15% to as much as 60% of normal body weight is lost.
Eating disorders can cause many problems to your body and in this case anorexia
can cause brain damage as well as hurt you physically. About 90% of people with
anorexia experience osteopenia in other words loss of bone calcium and 40% have
osteoporosis in other words more advanced loss of bone density. Up to two-thirds
of children and adolescent girls with anorexia fail to develop strong bones
during their critical growing period. Heart disease is the most common reason
if deaths for those who suffer from anorexia. The heart of an anorexic can have
dangerous heart rhythms, including slow rhythms known as bradycardia. They also
seem to have reduced blood flow and their blood pressure would have a dramatic
drop. The heart muscles would starve and in result lose size. Once again
anorexia can cause permanent brain damage and it can also cause things as
seizures. It can also make the victim have disorderly thinking and numbness or
sensations to hands or feet.
Why are so many people affected by this
disorder?
There are so many
reasons why so many people especially young females become affected with the
disorder. To begin with society is a huge contribution to this disorder. The
media constantly show images of every young celebrity; slim, tall and
beautiful. These images can break a trigger to all the young people watching
and set them to lose weight and become beautiful like the celebrities. Known
celebrities like Lucy Hale from the TV show “Pretty Little Lairs” to Singer
Demi Lavato opened up about their eating disorder. They thought the only way to
make it in Hollywood was to be skinny so even they were sucked into the media.
It hard for young teenagers to stay away from the media because there are just
so many ways to stay in touch with the media from cellphones to tablets. The
media increase the thought of young adolescents to fall into the peer pressure
of the perfect body because they are access to pro Ana websites. Pro Ana
websites are sites control by other victims of eating disorders that help
victims around the world keep them motivated to lose as much as weight as they
can and give them tips of how to hide the evidence to their love ones.
It’s so easy to find pro
Ana websites. According to study examines done by Students Faculty & Staff
JHSPH Alumni Public Health Professionals Protecting Health, Saving Lives—Millions
at a Time about 91% of these types of websites are open to the public.
More than 79% had interactive features, such calorie and body-mass index
(BMI) calculators. 84% of the sites surveyed offered pro-anorexia content.
While 64% provided pro-bulimia content, “Thinspiration” material appeared on
85% of the sites; this included photographs of extremely thin models and
celebrities. About 83% provided overt suggestions on eating disordered
behaviors, including ways to engage in extreme exercise, go on a several-day
fast, purge after meals, and hide rapid weight loss from concerned family and
friends. Over 80% of young teenagers around the world watch television or are in the
social media. On a typical day, 8 to18-year-olds are engaged with some form of
media about 7.5 hours. Even young children are aimed by the media and are told
to be active and they also seem emphasize the importance of being attractive.
It not just the media like shows and certain websites, it’s also portrayed in
magazines and in posters. Things like those magazines and posters are consist
reminder to young females that the only way that they’d be attractive is to
slim. About 55 % of females that took anonymous survey wrote that they were
anorexic because they thought that it was the only way guys would seem them
attractive.About 40% of people with anorexia were a way for them to control
something in their life. Young adults especially those with very controlling
parents seem to develop anorexia for the reason of having control of something.
Anorexia doesn't always show physically and it isn’t always involving their
appearance it comes mentally. There are young adults that feel that the only way
that they can take control of their life is to stay in control of their
calories. Most time in the beginning of a small diet counting calories isn’t
anything that can be harmful but slowly they can start to count calories for
everything and soon they can ingest smaller counts of calories a day till they
feel that eating any calories is fearful. Many of the people that
suffered from anorexia that only began with a small diet began to receive compliments
and liking the attention they seem to think that the more they lose the
more attention they would receive from everyone else and they are correct, but
instead of getting the attention that they want they receive attention of
people who are worry about their weight.
People with this type of eating disorder describe it like living as a puppet.
The victims are the puppets smiling and making things seem that everything is
well from the outside and “it” is calling all the shots and pulling all the
strings. Many of these victims suddenly forget about their state of health or
the friends that they’ve lost, all they care about is being thin. Many don’t
even know exactly how strong it got or even when it happened. Mostly every
victim that recovered from anorexia say that anorexia was a like a whole
different person that suddenly grew stronger and took over and 100% control how
much food the victim would eat if any at all. They describe it as a disorder
that slowly tournaments you both physically and mentally. A mental state of an
anorexic is that no matter how much weight they lose it’s never enough, all
they see is fat above more fat. “It” is always telling them that they aren’t
thin enough and eating or even drinking anything can make you gain the weight
that they worked so hard to lose. They describe it as a dark whole an endless
dark hole that you can barely come out of.
For example Amy from the
article Amy’s Story, she talks about living and battling with anorexia. Amy
talks about the struggle of slowly losing everything that she worked so hard
for because everyone started to worry about her health because as she described
it that at one point she was so thin that her hair was falling out and her skin
tone became a green/yellow leathery tint. She talked about her excessive
exercising going to the extreme just to stay thin. Amy also talked about her
recovery and even though to other it might be simple task for anorexic to eat,
it was a huge step for her to admit that she needed help. She described it like
as if she was starting her life over again. She talked about how she wanted to
relapse many times especially when times were really rough. The only
thing that has helped her stay in a healthy health was the people that stuck
with her through it all.
All this just prove that in the
United States alone about 20 million of females suffer from an eating disorder
and 10 million males. The rates of eating disorders only seem to increase each
year and every year there seems to be a new way to increase there are new
reason for these dangerous eating disorder to continue. Sources:
A.D.A.M. (2014). Eating disorders.University of Maryland Medical Center. http://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/eating-disorders#ixzz3130kzHY2.University of Maryland Medical Center
A.D.A.M.
Anorexia Nervosa (Wednesday May14, 2014).
New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/anorexia-nervosa/complications-of-anorexia.html.
John Hopkins. Studies Examines Pro-Anorexia and Pro-Bulimia
Websites (June17, 2010) John Hopkins
Bloomberg school and public health. http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2010/borzekowski-e-ana-websites.htmlml.
http://www.keltyeatingdisorders.ca/types-eating-disorders/anorexia-nervosa/amys-story
