A nine year old girl is school shopping with her mom, she tells her mom she doesn't want a certain top because she doesn't look "good enough" in it. A teen girl walks into a restaurant and within ten minutes is comparing herself to every other girl in the restaurant. Only about 3 percent of girls can truly call themselves beautiful. No matter how many people tell you how skinny you are you still see yourself as "fat or overweight". Females have to maintain a "normal weight" in order to fit it with society. This can make you sick, sick enough for you to die. Young girls and guys should not be starving them self to fit in with society, resulting in deaths. First I will tell you what anorexia is, anorexia is an eating problem that occurs when …show more content…
Males are under pressure to have an athletic, fit appearance. Many children under the age of 10 are becoming obsessed with dieting. Today’s society has the wrong idea that being thin is always pretty. They don't just learn this from the media, they also learn this from their parents or siblings. Anorexia doesn't only affect the people that have it, it also affects the family and society. Many famous people have been affected by anorexia. One in particular was Karen Carpenter. She felt pressured by her job as a singer to look thin and beautiful so she starved herself. She went to New York for a year of treatment, but the damage had apparently been done. She remained obsessed-or trapped-by it. She had an extreme case and she fought to overcome the disease throughout the last two years of her life, but she couldn't or she just simply ran out of time. Her body couldn't take anymore. She'd been starving herself for seven years. Karen Carpenter died February 4, 1983 of heart failure caused by …show more content…
Surprisingly, not much is being done about this disorder. We watch the news and learn that there are a 2% increase of anorexics. Nothing is being done to help stop anorexia. There are many websites and books that are about eating disorders, many of them written by doctors and researchers that have done study after study, determining the effects of anorexia, but who cares? Yes, there is treatment centers to help anorexic people, but that doesn't help the fact that more and more people are becoming anorexic each
Anorexia is a condition that goes beyond out-of-control dieting. This psychological disorder initially begins with dieting to lose weight. The excessive drive to lose weight becomes secondary to the concerns about control and fear of one’s own body. An adolescent continues an endless cycle of controlled eating which is then often accompanied by other psychological and emotional behaviors. In an FDA consumer special report, Dixie Farley states, “the anorectic becomes obsessed with a fear of fat and losing weight[…] she sees normal folds of flesh as fat that must be eliminated[…] Anorectics are described as having low self-esteem and feeling that others are controlling their lives. Some may be overactive and her obsession increasingly controls her life. It’s an addiction.” A teenage girl with anorexia often restricts her dieting, sometimes to a point of starvation in order to feel control over her body. As she keeps dieting, a domino of emotional and psychological stress begins to affect her body and the endless cycle of restrictive eating and over exercising begins to lead to depression. In the end, this depression ultimately leads to a cycle that becomes an obsession and an addiction.
In conclusion, society’s influence sparks the initial thought that skinny is pleasurable and desirable. Adolescents will buy into this misconception that they get from the media and society. When this misconception is bought into, it can cause serious consequences as the individual looks for extreme measures of weight control. This weight control can be contained by helping individuals struggling with Anorexia and Bulimia fix their distorted view of themselves, eliminating the negative influence one media source at a time.
Anorexia is a serious and life threatening condition. It can result in death due to starvation, heart failure, or electrolyte imbalance. The first step in helping someone suffering with anorexia is to diagnose the physical characteristics attributed with the disease...
Anorexia is a mental illness that can be identified by its victims starving themselves in order to drop weight to dangerous levels. Most often, anorexics will restrict their food or exercise excessively in order to decrease their body weight. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. This is mainly due to suicide and the complications that occur consequently from starvation. These complications include heart and kidney failure as well as osteoporosis and muscle atrophy. Females may also stop menstruating. The gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and endocrine systems may also be affected. Thus, Anorexia has detrimental effects on a person’s physical and mental health.
Eating Disorders (EDs) are a series of often life-threatening mental health disorders which are commonly used as coping mechanisms or as ways to mask one’s problems. The causes of these illnesses are still being researched, and the effects they have on a person’s physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing can often be as long as the sufferer’s life.
Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by severe restriction of food, an intense fear of gaining weight, a distorted body image and a body mass index of less than 18.5 (Kring, Johnson, Davison, Neale, 2013). There are two subtypes of anorexia, Restricting and Binge Eating/Purging. An individual who falls under the Restricting subtype severely restricts food intake, while an individual who falls under the Bing Eating/Purging subtype regularly engages in binge eating and purging. Anorexia typically begins in adolescence and primarily affects women. The disorder is more common in women than in men mainly because of the cultural emphasis that is placed on women’s beauty. Individuals with anorexia generally have a low self-esteem, a very critical self-evaluation and a belief that they can never be too thin. Due to the seriousness of the disorder, the issue of whether or not an individual should have the right the refuse life-sustaining treatment is highly debated.
intro- Ninety percent of teenage girls have been on a diet. Some take it too far and starve themselves to be thin. Over one million people in just the US are afflicted with anorexia. If what is on the inside matters, then why are does society and the media constantly promote being thin? The influence of society’s promotion of a thin body plays a significant role in the development of such eating disorders as anorexia.
Researchers and doctors find eating disorders to be very complicated to figure out due to the many different factors leading to eating disorders. The majority of these issues derive from media images portraying the “perfect” bodies bringing people to believe that they need to change their eating habits to become that “perfect” image. On average, people waste around 31 hours a week on the internet and spend anywhere from two to four hours a day looking up cosmetic surgery procedures and investigating dietary and weight loss plans in an attempt to get that model worthy body (The Telegraph). Men and women should be proud of whom they are and not be envious of others so much as to want to change their entire appearance; God made us all perfect through his eyes; why would anyone want to change that uniqueness about them?
Anorexia has many negative effects as well. According to the University of Maryland Medical Centers article Eating Disorders, “Anorexia nervosa can increase the risk for serious health problems such as: hormonal changes including reproductive, thyroid, stress, and growth hormones, heart problems such as abnormal heart rhythm, electrolyte imbalance, fertility problems, bone density loss, anemia, and neurological problems.” Anorexia can severely affect a person internally. The continuous lack of nutrients can leave an anorexic person extremely frail. The heart in particular can grow so weak, that heart failure occurs. Eating disorders can lead too permanent health damages can stay with a person for the rest of their life.
The World Book Encyclopedia defines anorexia as, "one who avoids food for psychological reasons". Most "experts" believe that those who suffer from anorexia are starving themselves to avoid growing into adults. It is also common knowledge among these experts that anorexics "want to gain attention and a sense of being special". People say that anorexia doesn't stop at affecting the victim at hand; instead, it surpasses the anorexic. Which means that anorexia affects the personality of the person; that it branches off to affect other parts of that anorexics life. Body image obsession, self-devotion, attention grabbing, selfishness, are all attributes which keenly describe anorexia in the eyes of the media and most hospital institutions. It is that view point which affect modern societies view eating disorders, and anorexia in particular.
Most of you probably already know what anorexia is, however in case you don't anorexia is basically a disease involving self-starvation. Anorexia victims have a very low "ideal" weight. It might begin as a normal diet carried to extremes, reducing their food intake to a bare minimum. Rules are made of how much food they can eat in one day and how much exercise is required after eating certain amounts of food. With anorexia, there is a strong almost overwhelming fear of putting on weight and they are preoccupied with the way that their bodies look. Anorexia sometimes involves use of laxatives, diet pills, or self-induced vomiting to lose or to keep weight off (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/anorexianervosa.htm). Anorexics may show symptoms such as extreme weight loss for no medical reason. Also, many deny their hunger, chew excessively, choosing low calorie foods and exercising excessively (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health).
Of the three eating disorders, anorexia gets the most attention and has the highest mortality rate of six percent out of any mental illness. According to the International Journal of Eating Disorders, half of the deaths caused by anorexia are suicide. Anorexia is when an individual feels that his or her body is distorted. Anorexia is also when an individual starves himself or herself because of the fear of being overweight (Elkins 44). If an individual suffers from anorexia they will loose anywhere from fifteen to sixty percent of their body weight by starving his or herself. Some of the symptoms of anorexia are heart problems, anemia, and fertility problems (“Eating Disorders”). Another horrible eating disorder is bulimia, which is when a person over eats, feels guilty, and then purges, take...
The overwhelming idea of thinness is probably the most predominant and pressuring standard. Tiggeman, Marika writes, “This is not surprising when current societal standards for beauty inordinately emphasize the desirability of thinness, an ideal accepted by most women but impossible for many to achieve.” (1) In another study it is noted that unhealthy attitudes are the norm in term of female body image, “Widespread body dissatisfaction among women and girls, particularly with body shape and weight has been well documented in many studies, so much so that weight has been aptly described as ‘a normative discontent’”. (79) Particularly in adolescent and prepubescent girls are the effects of poor self-image jarring, as the increased level of dis...
In order to make the claim that anorexia is an eating disorder, the precise definition was needed. Oxford English Dictionary online describes anorexia as, “a lack or loss of appetite for food (as a medical condition)” as well as “an emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat” (OED). The definition stated that this is an emotional disorder that is inflicted upon oneself by refusing to eat. Not a single word was mentioned about a disease or the disorder being hereditary. Anorexia was also called medical condition by OED which in a sense is also the same thing as a disorder. In all of these readings and articles, the consensus was clear to me that Anorexia truly is an eating disorder that is impacting people because of they are being e...
Anorexia is a type of eating disorder who has an intense fear of gaining weight. They severely limit the amount of food they eat and can become dangerously thin (1). Anorexia affects both the mind and body and can even become deadly. Anorexia usually starts in the teen years and can go into adult hood. Untreated anorexia can lead to starvation and serious health problems, such as osteoporosis, kidney damage, and heart problems. Some people die from these problems (1). The cause of anorexia is not fully understood. It is thought to be from a mix of physical, emotional,, and social triggers (2). Extreme dieting changes how the brain and metabolism work, and it stresses the body. Genetics play a big part in anorexia. A combination of certain personality traits such as low self-confidence along with perfectionism and cultural and social pressures can play a big part in anorexia. For some teens, anorexia can be a way of coping with stressful events, such as moving, divorce, or the death of a love one (2).