Eating Disorders in America

Eating Disorders in America

All over the world, especially in the U.S. young women are trying to build new self image. They want to feel good about themselves, but are always dissatisfied with the way they look just because they don't have the body of a model .

An eating disorder is a severe disturbance of a persons eating habits. The person's behavior in regards to food and eating becomes noticeably different.

The 1960's promoted the flat-chested hipless look. It began with a British Teenager named Twiggy, who was 5'7" and 92 pounds. She was on magazine covers across the country. At this time, a woman who wanted to feel beautiful and feminine needed to loose signs that she was a female. This era, unsurprisingly brought a surge of anorexia among teenage girls.

Anorexia Nervosa or just Anorexia, is characterized by an extreme and intense fear of gaining weight, which leads the person to pursue continuous weight loss. Sometimes, a diet can begin innocently, but anorexics don't stop at a rational point. They keep going until their lives may be threatened. Anorexics may use many methods of weight loss along with dieting and fasting. They use excessive exercise, diet pills, laxatives, diuretics, or vomiting as ways of feeling thinner or controlling calories, but whatever the method, the primary goal is thinness. One may wonder why anorexics don't stop dieting once they become skinny. The reason is that a major characteristic of anorexia is a problem called distorted body image. This means that anorexics look at their bodies very differently than other people do. When they look in the mirror, they never see themselves as being too thin. They "feel fat" And usually overestimate their weight. If an anorexic is told she is too skinny, she is more likely to be happy than upset. Many times, anorexics don't believe that they have a problem. Using weight reduction is just a way of coping with other pressures.

The word "anorexia" itself means lack of appetite. But that doesn't mean anorexics aren't hungry. Usually they do crave food and just deny their feelings. Most of them even dream about food or become focused on cooking for others. Despite their real hunger, their struggle for thinness is more important to them than anything.