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Biological impact of anorexia
The effects of eating disorders on society
Eating disorders and its effects
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Recommended: Biological impact of anorexia
Frail, boney, and hardly able to move, my junior year of high school was dominated by an eating disorder, trapping me in a prison of self-destruction. Though not considered a part of my identity, my struggle with Anorexia has made an immense imprint on my life and who I am as a person. Not only did the illness itself change the way I carried myself, but the process of recovery and healing contributed to monumental personal growth in my character as well as my general outlook on life. While entangled in the sinister disorder, my physical, as well as mental, state was bleak and rapidly deteriorating. I could not think, walk, speak, exist without using every bit of energy within me, which was not very much. I began isolating myself from those
who loved me for fear that they might “get in my way.” From my eyes, there was no hope upon the horizon for any sort of happiness or normalcy. Completely consumed b Anorexia, my mind was no longer my own. Upon going to a cardiologist for an EKG, it was found that due to malnutrition, the threat of a heart attack was looming just around the corner. To be frank, I looked frightening. Though this obviously took a toll on my body, it also altered my personality. I was flippant to anyone that tried to speak to me and manipulated those that allowed me to. The caring, generous, empathetic person was consumed, chewed up, and spit out as a bitter husk.
The book Stick Figure A Diary Of My Former Self is a personal journal written by Lori Gottlieb when she was 11 years old suffering from anorexia nervosa. “Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that causes people to obsess about their weight and the food they eat.” (mayclinic.com) Most eating disorders are physiological due to friends and family, stress, and the social media. Anorexia nervosa, like all other eating disorders, is extremely dangerous and unhealthy for the human body to endure. Although eating disorders are destructive to one's life, is there explainable reasoning behind why a person may have one?
“Eating disorders are ‘about’: yes, control, and history, philosophy, society, personal strangeness, family fuck-ups, autoerotics, myth, mirrors, love and death and S&M, magazines and religion, the individual’s blindfolded stumble-walk through an ever-stranger world.” (Hornbacher, 4)
To begin, Rys proposes that one of the main psychological factors of anorexia is the unknown identity of oneself and the ideal image of a woman. In this present day, media is everywhere. Women are constantly trying to change themselves to become the image that the population as a whole...
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.
Anorexia Nervosa may be described directly as an eating disease classified by a deficit in weight, not being able to maintain weight appropriate for one’s height. Anorexia means loss of appetite while Anorexia Nervosa means a lack of appetite from nervous causes. Before the 1970s, most people never heard of Anorexia Nervosa. It was identified and named in the 1870s, before then people lived with this mental illness, not knowing what it was, or that they were even sick. It is a mental disorder, which distorts an individual’s perception of how they look. Looking in the mirror, they may see someone overweight
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
There may be murmurs about that girl who only fixes herself a salad with only vinegar at dining services or suspicious glances at someone who spends 45 minutes on the treadmill and then switches to the stair stepper at the rec. On-campus eating disorders are talked about everywhere and yet are not really talked about at all. There is observation, concern, and gossip, but hushed conversation and larger scale efforts to help and change never seem to earn public attention.
The majority of people who suffer from anorexia begin, as we did, with an innocent diet that gradually progressed to extreme and unhealthy weight loss (Shaw, 2002). Unlike normal dieting which stops when the desired weight is reached, people who become anorexic atribute positive feelings to their ability to control their weight and become dangerously preoccupied with food and fear weight gain. Research suggests that stringent dieting can play a key role in triggering eating disorders. Adolescent and young adult women are more vulnerable to these disorders due to their tendency to go on strict diets in order to achieve an “ideal” figure (Lehrman, 1987).
Purpose: The purpose of this speech is to inform my audience about the eating disorder anorexia nervosa.
Christmas eve ended with me crying on our living room floor because my mom wanted me to eat just one of her famous sugar cookies. Her cookies had always been one of my favorite Christmas traditions, but this year when I looked at the cookies, all I could see were calories and guilt. They smelled and looked delicious, but just the thought of taking one bite filled me with anxiety and fear. I consider this the moment I realized my eating disorder had completely taken over my life. I had become obsessed with calories and weight as a way to feel in control of my life and gain confidence. In reality, my eating disorder had slowly stripped me of my independence, health, and happiness. After that Christmas, I finally decided to seek help after months of struggling, and at the age of 17, I began an intensive outpatient treatment program.
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.
The superordinate theme of Self vs ED encompassed this idea, including the personification of the ED and the internal battles they faced. The experience of the self was both positive and negative throughout the course of recovery. Negative experiences included an internal battle with their authentic selves versus the ED. Often the ‘voice’ of the eating disorder was mentioned. Describing an ED ‘voice’ is a common phenomenon expressed in research (Dias, 2003; Bowlby, Anderson, Hall & Willingham, 2015). Tierney & Fox (2010) studied both men and women and found their participants struggled to rid themselves of their anorexic voice and treated it as a companion; it became difficult to battle the voice because it had become so familiar. However, fighting back often resulted in preventing the voice from having as big a hold on participants. The participants had to change their perception of the voice to conquer it, as did the men in the current study. It was expressed there was a battle between listening to their voice versus listening to the ‘voice’ of the eating
My diet does not give me the proper amount of calories, carbohydrates, and protein. However, I need to reduce my fat intake. To do all this, I could probably add some different things to my salad that I have for lunch, and have less red meat. I could maybe add some chicken instead of cheese to my salad. And instead of beef for some dinners, I could replace it with either chicken, or fish. Apparently I also have to eat more calories, so instead of bigger meals, I could have some snacks throughout the day that are a bit more filling then applesauce. I also noticed that I am eating too many of the bad carbohydrates. I could replace the white breads and pastas with whole wheat or whole grain breads. I could also change the white rice to brown or wild rice.
Our earliest memories have a way of shaping who we are; we experienced things that influence us as adults, for me this was my struggle with childhood obesity. This struggle haunted me for most of my childhood; I have always noticed how society perceived others by the way that they looked. People who were considered pretty got positive attention, while I felt ridiculed and excluded.
Many people are faced with great obstacles in their lives but have found ways to conquer and benefit from them. I struggled with obesity for many years. It has been one of the most difficult life challenges which helped mode the person I am today.