The sun was dipping below the horizon, and a fiery young girl’s room began to sink into a deep shade of gray-- deepening the ceaseless melancholy that settled upon her. Each night, Cassie would break; she would look at me with her all-too-sobered eyes and solemnly whisper that she couldn't eat, or that the latest slice in her skin was just a little too deep. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. The pain inside her was so great that she had to resort to extremes: She had to slice her skin, hoping that she just might be able to distract herself from the excruciating chaos of her mind being torn apart. It didn’t matter how much harm came to her as a result. She honestly believed that her frail, undernourished body was “pudgy” and “disgusting.” Reading …show more content…
She watched both her body and her mind deteriorate yet still found herself believing that she was not thin enough; consequently, Brosseau resorted to a life without eating. Doctors first dismissed this behavior as a “phase” that is normal among teenaged girls, but then diagnosed her with Anorexia Nervosa soon after realizing the weight-loss was not a temporary ordeal. Brosseau continued to starve herself to the very point of breaking her fingers because the bones were brittle due to malnourishment, before receiving help. She was sent to a psychiatrist to try to solve the emotional aspect of the disorder, and eventually did begin to heal-- both mentally and physically. It did, however, end up leaving irreversible damage, still present years …show more content…
What kind of mindset have we created that not only allows young girls to starve themselves, but encourages it as well-- often going as far as dismissing their cries for help? Brosseau describes herself in her piece as having the appearance of a skeleton and her organs feeding on themselves; nevertheless, it took until after she’d broken seven of her fingers due to the frailness of her bones for her doctors to realize that she needed help. It bewildered me: Why hadn’t they helped earlier on? Within her piece, Brosseau states that she was diagnosed with anorexia-- seemingly before the incident-- leaving clearly questionable actions, as to why she was not given help earlier. The Mayo Clinic-- a world-renowned medical facility in Minnesota-- put it well: “Anorexia isn’t about food. It’s an unhealthy way to cope with emotional problems.” According to Brousseau, there are over 6,000 girls a year dying from this emotionally induced disorder. One would think that there would be a more concentrated effort to at the very least discourage it. Examples such as her own, however, prove that there clearly is still a misconception; moreover, Anorexia is still looked at by many as a silly phase among teenaged girls rather than the reality of it being a life-threatening
Ethos is Haines credibility about this topic; and nearly this entire article is about her experiences and a run-down of her and her sister’s adolescent years. techniques was that she used personal stories. She describes how girls in junior high girls would go on extreme and strict diets, that nearly restricted any type of food that they could eat. Haines is generalizing that most of the popular girls are the girls who are beautiful, thin and starving themselves. In this case, Haines sister does fall into the stereotypical category. Her sister would starve herself to nearly anorexic (171). Then later on her sister became ill because she wasn’t eating. Girls who starve themselves are hurting themselves more that helping. Anorexic is a very concerning eating disorder that can lead to long term mental and physical
Incidences of Anorexia Nervosa have appeared to increase sharply in the USA, UK and western European countries since the beginning of the 60s (Gordon, 2001). The increasing prevalence of the disease has led the World Health Organisation to declare eating disorders a global priority area within adolescent mental health (Becker et al. 2011). Anorexia has in many ways become a modern epidemic (Gordon, 2000) and with a mortality rate of 10% per decade (Gorwood et al. 2003), the highest of any mental disorder (Bulik et al. 2006), it is an epidemic that social and biological scientists have been working tirelessly to understand.
Many people are unaware of the background of eating disorders. Women are more likely than men to develop an eating disorder and they usually develop in childhood before the age of 20 (Ross-Flanigan 1). Women as well as men can develop an eating disorder; it is just more likely for a woman to develop one. Eating disorders are usually developed in adolescent or childhood years when a person is influenced the most. Also “Eating disorders are psychological conditions that involve overeating, voluntary starvation, or both. Anorexia nervosa, anorexic bulimia, and binge eating are the most well-known types of eating disorders” (Ross-Flanigan 1). Many people assume that an eating disorder is when a person staves themselves; they do not realize that it can involve overeating as well. Some eating disorders also involve purging, but not all. People with an eating disorder fear gaining weight even when they are severely underweight. They do not lack an appetite (Ross-Flanigan 1). These people are
In certain cases, some adolescents develop an eating disorder. They forget that being healthy is the most important thing during this time of their life. A lot of adolescents go through puberty and if they do not eat properly, it can cause harm to their growth. In the movie, Regina wanted to lose 3 pounds. She did not eat and decided to only eat the protein bars that Caty gave to her. Regina thought the protein bars would help her lose weight. However, adolescents do not know that a healthy diet and exercise can actually help them lost weight. Instead, adolescents choose to become anorexic or bulimic. Anorexia is when an individual “voluntarily undereat and overexericis, depriving their vital organs of nourishment” (Berger, 2008, p. 459). The National Institute of Health states that “Young people with anorexia nervosa, for example, have difficulty maintaining a minimum healthy body weight. Anorexia affects one in every 100 to 200 adolescent girls and a much smaller number of boys” (National Health, 1999). Bulimia
“Dying to be Thin,” produced by PBS, is a documentary that examines the troubles that persons who are affected by eating disorders go through and the constant, daily struggles they face with health and body image. The film tells the story of a number of young women who battled mainly anorexia and bulimia and mixes a variety of ages to give a “during” and an “after” perspective. Many of the women in the video were ballet or some similar type of dancer. Dancers, by their own account, are encouraged to be thin. The issue really came to the forefront after a young ballet dancer from Boston died of heart failure at the young age of 22, with an eating disorder deemed to be the cause. The narrator goes on to introduce more young women and detail the potential illnesses that their eating disorders can cause. Chronic low blood pressure, kidney and liver damage, severe early osteoporosis, and heart failure are all common things seem in patients who suffer from eating disorders. Most patients have dangerously low body weights, body fat percentages, and, often, young women will experience amenorrhea, which is the loss of menstruation. All of the people in the video wanted to be better and were seeking a road to recovery. The video showed though, how difficult that can be since the eating disorders can be so wide ranging and have a number of different root causes. Often patients develop eating disorders as something that they have control over, in a world that they feel is out of their
A single father watched his daughter, 17 years old, dwindle down to 72 pounds. He begged her to eat, but she would cry and push the plate away. He was irritated and turned to his friends at work complaining his daughter was taking dieting way too far. He would scream at her “Stop! This is nonsense, just eat!”. This father, like many other Americans, did not understand that his daughter could not just stop being Anorexic. The common misconception is that Anorexia Nervosa is just someone obsessed with losing weight. Many people believe that Anorexics look in the mirror and smile at their thinness and progress. This is so untrue, they look in the mirror and wish for a way out.
Anorexia nervosa, otherwise stated as anorexia, is an eating disorder that occurs when an individual restricts themselves from necessary energy intake which leads to significantly low body weight. Other characteristics of this disorder include: intense fear of becoming fat or gaining weight, persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain, and disturbances of perception and experience of their own body weight and shape (DSM V, 2013). Effective treatments are still trying to be researched for this disorder, as there is not a “one size fits all” for people of all age groups, living situations, etc. Since adolescents with anorexia are such a vulnerable population,
In this article “Fighting Anorexia: No One to Blame” it discusses the struggles and challenges children face as young as 8 years old and teens from 13 to 18 years of age when dealing with the eating disorder “Anorexia Nervosa.” Which is defined in our text as an “eating disorder characterized by self-starvation” (Bee, pg. 384). The staff of “Newsweek” also discuss who or what is to blame for anorexia nervosa in the past parents have been blamed when their children have shown signs in regards to this disorder. Research has shifted from blaming the parents to the possibility anorexia might have some links to mental disorder, genetics or even environmental factors which can influence the disorder. Lastly, the article discusses various
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, anorexia holds one of the highest death rates out of all mental conditions. If girls read informative sites rather than biased bone-loving sites, they would realize that the risk outweighs the benefit. If girls read informative sites, they would learn that in an anorexic person, “the body is denied the essential nutrients it needs to function normally, so it is forced to slow down all of its processes to conserve
When I first heard about this idea of anorexia, I thought it was some magical formula that could make you skinny without doing any work. Of course that work was actually starving yourself, but everything I read made it seem effortless. That is something that Osgood brings up in her book. Being a Millennial, the internet was always just a click away. I was able to come across countless testimonies of people with anorexia and how it really did change their lives. What is shocking, however, is the amount of chat sites, websites, internet forums, and social media groups that actively promoted eating disorders, as well as images and links to thousands of “thinspiration” posters and quotes. Like Osgood states, the community glamourizes eating disorders into something that is not harmful to the body and easy to do. I remember finding how-to sites on being anorexic with one site even giving a step-by-step guide on how to hide the signs of eating disorders from your family, how to overcome feeling faint, and making the most out of your starvation. Looking back now I realize I how absurd and harmful they actually are, but at the time I actively followed their recommendations. Some of
Somewhere across the globe there are children waking up with empty stomachs, scavenging for any scrap of food they can find. For some people in America though, ironically enough, there are those who purposefully do not eat, or push back up what they have eaten. Women and men in the American society are influenced by a beauty ideal so powerful that has taken peoples lives through starvation, despite being surrounded by food. This phenomenon is known as bulimia. Bulimia, as defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary, is “a serious eating disorder … characterized by compulsive overeating usually followed
Eating disorders are no secret in this generation; it is a struggle women face all around the world. However the problem is becoming increasingly more prevalent in America as time continues. People do not die from suicide; they die from sadness. According to the South Carolina Department of Mental Health one in two hundred American women suffer from anorexia and twenty percent of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications caused by their eating disorder commonly between the ages of twelve to twenty-five. No girl at such a young age should have such “thin” expectations of herself. Images of women in magazines as well as the toys children play with are responsible for these expectations from adolescence to adulthood.
As a person who personally was diagnosed with Anorexia (AN), I’ve experienced just how detrimental it can be to one’s family. “With 2,000,000 adolescents and young adults affected, AN is the third most common chronic condition among adolescent girls, behind obesity and asthma” (Carlton & Pyle, 2007, pg. 9). Not only does this disease affect women, it also affects men. Through the Parent Education and Support Program, COPE intervention, and accepting the many environmental, psychological, and sociocultural influences, the number of cases of AN can dramatically decrease. In addition, many lives can be saved because of these three interventions.
Eating disorders are severe disturbances in eating behaviors, such as eating too little or eating too much. “Anorexia nervosa affects nearly one in 200 Americans in their lives (three-quarters of them female)” (Treating anorexia nervosa). Anorexia, when translated into Greek means “without appetite” which is not true for all suffering from anorexia most people with this disorder have not lost their appetite they simply have to ignore it. People with anorexia have an intense fear of gaining weight and have convinced themselves that they are overweight even if they are the opposite of overweight. Since the way that they view themselves is in a negative light they starve themselves and put their lives at risk. “In the most severe
How many of you have ever battled an eating disorder or known someone with an eating disorder? One or two of every 100 students will struggle or have struggled with an eating disorder. An anonymous quote from someone who struggled an eating disorder once said “Nothing matters when I’m thin”. Anyone of us in this room is at risk of an eating disorder. Females have to maintain that ‘normal’ look to fit in with society. More guys are seeking help for eating disorders as well. Guys with eating disorders tend to focus more on athletic appearance or success than just on looking thin. I’m going to inform you today about anorexia; what it is, signs, causes, effects, and possible treatments to help it.