Imagine you're going out with your friends to get dinner. They all order their skinnylicious low-cal meals, and you get a burger. They all seem fine, but you finish eating your burger, and they all have leftovers. Seems fine, right? All your friends are talking about how full they are and how they couldn't eat another bite of their bird-sized meals. You awkwardly look down at your normal-sized body with a little chin and think, 'I could stand to lose a few pounds. A few weeks go by, and you start thinking, 'what if I skipped dinner tonight? Just to cut out the extra calories….' So you skip dinner that night, and you feel good. The hunger is exhilarating. You haven't eaten since the hard-boiled egg yesterday for lunch. You get up and feel dizzy. But you can hear one thing over the pounding in your head… 'it's all going to be worth it in the long run. Drink some water, and it'll help.' A month later and you're hardly eating one meal a day. You're exercising two hours every day plus track practice after school. You're running on water and the 'compliments' of how skinny you're getting. Eating disorders are significant illnesses caused by uncontrollable eating habits that negatively influence your health, emotions, and capacity to perform in crucial areas of life. Most eating disorders entail obsessing over your weight, body form, and food, leading to unhealthy eating habits. These habits can significantly impact your body's ability to get enough nutrition.

Eating disorders can injure the heart, digestive system, bones, teeth, and mouth and cause other health problems. Eating disorders are frequently blamed on simple causes, such as the media promoting impossibly thin models or poor parenting. Even some medical professionals believe these claims. However, evidence suggests that families, who have traditionally been blamed for eating disorders, do not create them in any easy or obvious way. Genes may increase a person's susceptibility to developing an eating disorder. According to the Mayo Clinic, "People with first-degree relatives who have an eating disorder are more likely to have one. If you're part of sports teams or artistic groups, you're at an increased risk. The same is true for community members driven by appearance to symbolize social status, including athletes, actors, dancers, models, and television personalities. Coaches, parents, and professionals in these areas may inadvertently contribute to eating disorders by encouraging weight loss. 

Obviously, the rise of social media in the twenty-first century has intensified influences and encouraged people, especially young women, to be thin at any cost. "Any social networking site will overwhelm you with information on what diet you should be on, what size you should be, and how happy other people are that are thin and beautiful," Maria Snell, assistant director of nursing at Maryville University told Forbes in December 2019. Young people appear to be encouraged by social media to focus on their looks and how it is regarded or viewed by others. Researchers in Australia, led by Dr. Simon M. Wilksch of Flinders University, looked at social media's effect on body image. The study results were published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. It found that eating disorders "were reported by 51% of girls and 45% of boys, with strict exercise and meal skipping the most common. 75% of girls and 69% of boys had at least one social media account, where Instagram was the most common. The discovery of these strong links between disordered eating and social media use in young adolescent girls and boys shows that much more work is needed to improve resilience in young people so that social media influences negatively impact them. Advocates claim that the media regularly presents a dangerously unrealistic vision of beauty.  

Naturally, opponents of the theory that social and cultural factors primarily cause eating disorders argue that too much focus has been placed on television, fashion, social media, and sports to explain anorexia and bulimia. "While the media may have a role in triggering discontent with our bodies, its role in causing a level of body dissatisfaction that would lead to illnesses like eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorder is overblown," wrote Brian Cuban in Greatist in 2014. Opponents point out that people with anorexia and bulimia frequently reject that ideas of thinness have anything to do with their illness. Individual accounts demonstrate that, while thinness is not always a primary objective, it can become essential to individuals already suffering from an eating disorder. If thinness isn't necessarily a goal for those with eating disorders, then looking at slim people's pictures online should not be a contributing factor. In addition, most researchers focus on one selected risk factor, such as the impact of media. Research indicates that the risk factors of eating disorders should not be considered separately because several factors seem to constitute the specific syndrome related to the culture of thinness. 

In summary, the causes of eating disorders directly impact how they are treated, and many academics conclude that they are more complex than previously assumed. It is thought that some people are genetically prone to the disease. Some people have strong reactions to childhood traumas and other triggers. Then there is the social and environmental factor. More research and understanding of the origins of anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating is hoped to develop more effective treatments. Eating disorders are mostly blamed on social media, but eating disorders can happen due to other reasons. Like: bad parenting, bullying, genes, etc. These are dangerous disorders that can cause victims to suffer for the rest of their lives, even if they do not engage in eating disorder activities. Although eating disorders can be life-threatening, there are several warning indicators.

Works Cited

Healthwise Staff. "Eating Disorders: Cultural and Social Factors." Alberta, Alberta Health, 16 June 2021, myhealth.alberta.ca/Health/Pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=hw47995. Accessed 13 May 2022.

Izydorcyk, Bernadetta. "Sociocultural Appearance Standards and Risk Factors for Eating Disorders in Adolescents and Women of Various Ages." Fronties in phycology, Fronties, 29 Mar. 2018, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00429/full. Accessed 17 May 2022.

Mayo Clinc Staff. "Eating Disorders." Mayo Clinic, -, 4 June 2021, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/eating-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20353603. Accessed 12 May 2022.

Pamela, Keel. "Eating Disorders." Infobase, 29 Sept. 2020, icof.infobase.com/articles/QXJ0aWNsZVRleHQ6MTY1MTA=. Accessed 16 May 2022.

Stockton, Chrissy. "The Pros And Cons Of Having An Eating Disorder." Thought Catalog, 31 Aug. 2017, thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2013/08/the-pros-and-cons-of-having-an-eating-disorder/. Accessed 13 May 2022.