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Body image negative effects with social media anorexic
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I am always hungry. Sometimes I am physically hungry, most often I am intellectually hungry; hunger stimulates my world. It is both my greatest strength and my most dangerous weakness. It makes me impatient to understand the world, to learn, and to explore new places. It drives me to help others, to defend the environment, and to run a new fast time. Nevertheless it is also an importune life necessity, a bodily desire that I experienced conquering. The same hunger that nourishes my ambition gnaws away at my empty stomach, daring me to eat when eating seemed like an impossible task.
Feeding your hunger and nourishing your body makes perfect sense. In a perfect world we would all be assured the means to nourish our bodies and our minds. But the world is not perfect, and neither am I. Describing an eating disorder (even when it is far in the past) is no easy task, for the most common response is that you are sadistic, narcissistic, or simply senseless, for who would ever
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There is no way around the sad fact that starvation has been my coping mechanism when anxious or insecure. In my last year of middle school I became a walking paradox: while I had no problem feeding my hunger to learn, I struggled every single day with feeding my hunger to live. I explored dark terrible places of starvation and mental anguish, where denying myself nourishment was a way to test my strength and fortitude. I found my way back from my disorder by exploring the joy of running, volunteering, and learning. Even though overcoming my disorder was by all means an undeniably painful process; deprivation and emptiness taught me what truly matters in life. My anorexic journey was one of self-discovery. It revealed to me, myself: a compassionate, highly organized, hardworking, and determined young man. My hunger to study medicine was born from the realization that I can make a difference in this world by helping those who cannot help
A Case For Tragic Optimism by Victor Frankl states “ With the increase of the imperative urge of hunger all individual differences will blur, and in their stead will appear the uniform expression of the one instilled urge.”The one urge this piece discusses is the urge to exist. The basis of human nature is to avoid mortality. All of the experiences of life will blur and all that remains is the urge to exist.
Anorexic: this word is an adjective, a label, and to some, a lifestyle. Medically speaking, it is someone who suffers from the deadly and heartbreaking disease, Anorexia Nervosa. This term translates to “nervous loss of appetite”, but anyone who has battled through this sickness is aware how that is anything but true. Eating disorder patients do not, in fact, lose their appetite; there is more to it than that. Many perceive eating disorders as a choice to be thin, a diet, or a cry for attention; they do not see the mental destruction going on inside of the mind. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, yet only 30% of people fully recover (ANAD). The general mindset that society has about eating disorders walks hand in hand with these statistics, slowing down any advances patients may be able to make. Eating disorder patients are not getting proper treatment because of ignorant misconceptions about the illness.
The lecture discussed a single case study of sixteen-year-old girl who was dealing with anorexia. The speaker, Fisher, stated that he spoke to her parents only twice over the span of four and a half years that he worked with the girl. The initial meeting was to get some background information before the sessions started and the other was further into the sessions. During the only face to face meeting with the parents, he found that there were no outstanding issues in the family that could have caused the eating disorder, anorexia. In the first sixteen years of her life, she was a good daughter who seemed to be almost too good. She was obedient and kind and never got in trouble. She was an honor roll student who was in clubs that were considered
“Fighting Anorexia” and “cookie monster” are two different articles based on research by some group of psychiatrists that focuses on eating disorder, which in psychology is referred to as a mental illness. Anorexia nervosa is a mental condition that describes a person’s obsession with food and the acute anxiety over weight gain (Newsweek cover, 2005). This disorder is categorized by an individual’s phobia on what to eat and what not to eat; as a result, the person begins to starve his or her self just to avoid adding more weight. The article published on the “Cookie Monster” expatiate on a research that describes how food is being used by some individuals to change their mood (McCarthy, 2001). This research shows that individuals especially college students try to subdue their emotions through the use of sweets and cookies. To further understand of these two experimental research in both articles, some important questions will be answered below.
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.
I had found so much of my comfort in food at times when I was stressed, despite my generally smiley appearance. I have never found another word to properly express how I actually felt during any of this other than stressed. Ultimately, the fear of constant approval from peers and relatives caused me to not diet, but take away the only source of comfort I had. In 8th grade, I heard a peer whom I am now very close with mentioned they hadn’t eaten a lot the entire summer for one reason or another. Which led me to the idea to stop eating and lose weight. It was horrible at first, so I lessened the pain by eating only at dinner. As this went on though, I got less hungry. The stomach pains weakened as school days turned to school weeks, as they formed into two years of living off bare minimum. I reduced my portions in half and snacking became less of an enjoyment and turned into a horrid guilt. It got to the point where friends grew concerned and ask me about bringing me
Voltaire once said, “Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.” This quote makes me remember that as much pleasure food may bring us, we should never forget that we need it to survive. I guess most of us don’t, but once again, I remembered there are some people that do. If we were to look at the world as a whole, we would realize that for every 100 teenage girls, 1 to 5 suffers from anorexia. As defined by the National Eating Disorders Association, “Anorexia Nervosa is a serious, potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.”
I did my research on eating disorders, specifically, Anorexia Nervosa (anorexia) and Bulimia Nervosa (bulimia). I chose anorexia and bulimia as my topic because eating disorders are common in today’s society and I often hear about girls suffering from it. I also have friends that have suffered from eating disorders and it makes me worry. I have even noticed that my little eight year old sister is concerned about her body. She asks me questions like “What do you think my butt looks like? Does it have the right shape?” Even at a young age girls have the impression of needing to look perfect. I think one of the biggest factors is how much pressure teenagers are under but especially how girls are getting the wrong impression from the media of what “perfect” is. Girls get this image of how they have to look from celebrities and also from magazines. Today almost every picture is photo shopped and it is impossible to look like girls that have been photo shopped to what society calls “perfect”. I have even seen a video on how an image of a girl on a magazine is made up of four different images of girls to make one “perfect” girl. I feel it is very sad how girls are judged on their bodies. I am hoping to learn about these eating disorders and understand better how to help my family and friends and also how to prevent them.
Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder with the highest mortality rate of any other mental disorder. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders characterizes the disorder as “a relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy body weight”. (2014) Individuals also experience a “distortion of body image, intense fear of gaining weight and extremely disturbed eating behavior.” (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Related Disorders, 2014) As a result, they experience complications physically, mentally and socially. About 80% of individuals with eating disorders suffer from cardiac complications with death due to arrhythmias being the most common cause. This paper will focus on the connection between AN and cardiovascular rhythm disturbances. Individuals with this disorder have an increased chance of sudden death due to cardiovascular abnormalities like bradycardia, myocardial modification including atrophy and refeeding syndrome. (Casiero & Frishman, 2006)
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.
An eating disorder is a life-threatening mental illness where someone has an abnormal or dangerous eating habit, which is brought on by past and present body views, family, or mental off-balances. There are many different options for someone with an eating disorder: (Engel) nutritional rehabilitation, individual psychotherapy, group inpatient or outpatient therapy, and family therapy (Miller). Eating disorders are not abnormal in todays society….(add more here) (Engel).
In 1978, Brunch called anorexia nervosa a 'new disease' and noted that the condition seemed to overtake ?the daughters of the well-to-do, educated and successful families.? Today it is acknowledged and accepted that anorexia affects more than just one gender or socio-economic class; however, much of the current research is focused on the female gender. ?Anorexia nervosa is characterized by extreme dieting, intense fear of gaining weight, and obsessive exercising. The weight loss eventually produces a variety of physical symptoms associated with starvation: sleep disturbance, cessation of menstruation, insensitivity to pain, loss of hair on the head, low blood pressure, a variety of cardiovascular problems and reduced body temperature. Between 10% and 15% of anorexics literally starve themselves to death; others die because of some type of cardiovascular dysfunction (Bee and Boyd, 2001).?
Hunger is a term that is often defined as the physical feeling for the need to eat. However, the Hunger Artist in Kafka's A Hunger Artist places a different, more complex meaning to this word, making the Hunger Artist's name rather ironic. The hunger of the Hunger Artist is not for food. As described at the end of the essay, the Hunger Artist states that he was in fact never hungry, he just never found anything that he liked. So then, what does this man's hunger truly mean? What drives the Hunger Artist to fast for so long, if he is truly not hungry? The Hunger Artist salivates not for the food which he is teased with, nor does he even sneak food when he alone. The Hunger Artist has a hunger for fame, reputation, and honor. This hunger seems to create in the mind of the Artist, a powerfully controlling dream schema. These dreams drive the Artist to unavoidable failure and alienation, which ultimately uncovers the sad truth about the artist. The truth is that the Artist was never an artist; he was a fraudulent outcast who fought to the last moment for fame, which ultimately became a thing of the past.
Anorexia represents one percent of most prevalent eating disorder diseases. The word anorexia itself means, “ lack of appetite”. Anorexia is an all-encompassing pursuit of thinness. The person effected by Anorexia has an absolute fear of becoming obese (Matthew 4).
Out of all mental illnesses found throughout the world, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate. Anorexia nervosa is one of the more common eating disorders found in society, along with bulimia nervosa. Despite having many definitions, anorexia nervosa is simply defined as the refusal to maintain a normal body weight (Michel, 2003). Anorexia nervosa is derived from two Latin words meaning “nervous inability to eat” (Frey, 2002). Although anorexics, those suffering from anorexia, have this “nervous inability to eat,” it does not mean that they do not have an appetite—anorexics literally starve themselves. They feel that they cannot trust or believe their perceptions of hunger and satiation (Abraham, 2008). Anorexics lose at least 15 percent of normal weight for height (Michel, 2003). This amount of weight loss is significant enough to cause malnutrition with impairment of normal bodily functions and rational thinking (Lucas, 2004). Anorexics have an unrealistic view of their bodies—they believe that they are overweight, even if the mirror and friends or family say otherwise. They often weigh themselves because they possess an irrational fear of gaining weight or becoming obese (Abraham, 2008). Many anorexics derive their own self-esteem and self-worth from body weight, size, and shape (“Body Image and Disordered Eating,” 2000). Obsession with becoming increasingly thinner and limiting food intake compromises the health of individuals suffering from anorexia. No matter the amount of weight they lose or how much their health is in jeopardy, anorexics will never be satisfied with their body and will continue to lose more weight.