Me

I read the essay “Anorexia Nervosa” by Nancie Brosseau, it is a true story of her

battle with anorexia and how looking just right pushed her too far. Body image is a

growing epidemic in society among girls and even boys. Everywhere you go, I think the

perception of looking a certain way and being a certain size is faced. Teens will push

themselves as far as they possibly can until they look just right and even after they get

there, they are so controlled by it all, that they can’t stop.

The story is about a fourteen-year-old girl who decides that she wants to lose

weight. It starts off with her only wanting to lose about ten pounds. But when she realizes

how good and freeing it was to lose the weight, she wants to lose more. She starts to lose

large amounts of weight, and because of this her body starts to change dramatically.

Brosseau describes what the eating disorder did to her body, how it changed everything

physically and mentally about her body and her mind. It changed the appearance of her

body from head to toe. The disorder made her so weak and brittle that her bones would

break instantly when she did something. I think the most wrenching thing she described

was when she could see her heart beating through her shirt.

In the story Brosseau also describes about what the disorder did to her mind, and

the games it played with her. Anorexia caused her to lie, sneak around, and become

depressed. She would lie to her parents, teachers, doctors, and even herself. She would

have to force herself to throw her food away and make up excuses on how she had already eaten. Brosseau would have to sneak around behind the backs of people she loved

and hurt them, all because of what the disorder was doing to her. I think the worst effect

the disorder caused was the how depressed it caused Brosseau to be. It brought her to

such a low that she had no clue what she was doing to her body. The extent she was going

to just to make herself look and feel a certain way. It pushed her to punish herself for

being the size she was and made her beat herself up for it.

Anorexia is a serious disorder; I think everyone has their own views on what