Room 132

Women and Eating Disorders
1/100 of women between the ages of 10-20 are anorexic. 4/100 of college aged girls are bulimic. 1/100 of women that are from 10-21 years old are obese. Only 30% of all these women seek treatment. For many years, eating disorders have been a way for women to get a better body image by making themselves thinner, unhealthily, in very short amounts of time. The three main types of eating disorders are: Bulimia, Anorexia, and Obesity. Unfortunately, these are not very uncommon in a lot of women. I think that it is a sad thing, because, these women think that they have no control over anything in their life and feel that the only thing they do have say in is food, and try to control that, which pretty much ends up with a bad situation.
To start off with, bulimia is probably one of the most common types of eating disorders among women and men. People with this illness usually come upon it because of stress, family issues, or anger. The person will eat large amounts of food, then a short while after, take laxatives, diuretics, or gag themselves. Family members and friends might not be able to notice the weight loss because, this disorder mostly keeps the person at the same weight, it just helps them stay that way because they throw it up. Over a long period of time, bulimia can cause hair loss and rotting teeth (because of the acid in your vomit). Some people choose to become bulimic instead of anorexic because they cannot handle not eating anything for a long time, and feel that it would be easier to just force it out of their bodies. Actually, one of our family friends struggled with bulimia from the ages of 18-21. The thing is, that her family didn’t know she had an eating disorder because her weight was balanced. (that’s what she was trying to go for, not an overly-thin body) She finally started to loose hair and was sick all the time, so she confessed to her mom that she had this ill-ness. (now she is getting treated and is in therapy!)
Anorexia is the more dangerous disorder. People become anorexic because of low self esteem, need to feel perfect, or a distorted body image. The process is carried on by not eating barely anything for a long time, and when they do put something into their body, it is something with very low fat content and that most likely has no sugar in it (just to be extra cautious). This is an even bigger health risk because it can lead to death a lot quicker. The effects of anorexia are: rapid weight loss, hair loss, shrinking heart, sometimes bad teeth. The heart shrinks because it does not get enough nutrients. Anorexia makes you a lot skinnier, because you do not eat anything, and you would defiantly be able to tell if your friend or family member was anorexic.
Obesity is very common in American’s, all ages, and it is very easy to become overweight. Obesity is almost always caused by a bad family and home life, social issues, and or school problems. The person probably starts out at a normal weight, some issue occurs, then they eat excessively and gain a lot of weight. The effects of obesity is a massive gain of weight in a short amount of time.
To conclude, eating disorders are a very dangerous thing, and can lead to death. If you, or anyone you know is anorexic, bulimic, or overweight, you should talk to them and tell them to get help. I think that if women that are “plus size” were advertised more on television, then we would have a less teens and adults with eating disorders. American advertisements do not help because they always show skinny “perfect” girls and guys. All that does is make people want to look like them, and that can start out at a very young age. And if larger people were put out more, then teens would not care as much what weight they were.