Eating disorders are a problem in America because not only do most people have no idea what the actual workings of eating disorders are, but over five people die everyday due to eating disorders.There are a few things you must know about eating disorders. One, an eating disorder is categorized as a mental illness where there is an unhealthy relationship with food. Someone who suffers from an eating disorder often struggles with body image and changes their normal activities with unusual eating habits to become skinnier. Two, when one hears something about an eating disorder you would hope they could empathize and try to help, but in reality they find it shameful and disgusting that one would do that to themselves. When the truth of the matter is, you can’t help if you have an eating disorder. Three, there are three main types of eating disorders.


























Anorexia Nervosa is the disorder associated with fear of gaining weight or becoming fat. People with anorexia often skip meals, cut calories, or starve themselves. This is what most people think of when eating disorders are mentioned, but there are two others as well. Bulimia Nervosa is the disorder associated with intense fear of gaining weight, paired with eating large amounts of food, binge eating, followed by a huge guilt trip, where they then vomit to keep off the weight.The other assumption that is made about eating disorders is that you either don’t eat or you vomit it up, causing you to be malnourished, but there are eating disorders with overeating such as Binge Eating Disorder. Binge Eating Disorder is when someone is frequently eating large amounts of food in one sitting until uncomfortably full. The person is then unable to stop eating or control how much they eat causing major weight gain.
So now that we have covered the basics on eating disorders, let’s get to the real question that everyone is asking; How does someone end up with an eating disorder? The answer for that question is different for every person. Eating disorders can be genetic or caused by psychological issues like coping skills, control issues, trauma, family trouble, or social issues. Sometimes, an eating disorder is also used as self harm. Like an instant release that doesn’t “hurt” as much as cutting would, but essentially, it hurts just as bad, because you are killing yourself unconsciously.
This is a problem in society because according to the National Eating Disorders Association, also known as the NEDA, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate out of all mental illnesses, and for women ages 13-24 anorexia is 12 times higher than any other mortality rate. Approximately 24 million people in the U.S. struggle with an eating disorder. Almost 50 percent of these people also meet the criteria for depression. The worst part is that only 12% of those 24 million people receive any kind of treatment, and only 35% of those 12% are at a facility that specializes in eating disorders. So while everyone is worrying about world hunger, we should also be worrying about starvation for perfection. People tend to blame all the worlds problems on society, but the truth is, we are society. So when one blames society, they are only blaming themselves.











When I decided to write about this topic, I got a lot of questions on why I chose this topic, why does it matter, and why do you care so much? The reason I’m so passionate about this is, that I suffer from anorexia nervosa and a smaller case of bulimia nervosa. My case is caused from verbal, and physical bullying. Up until the age of five I was a very small and skinny kid. I still remember the day my sister pointed out that I was growing a belly. I looked down and pinched my stomach. As a five year old I didn’t think much of it mostly because I didn’t understand what she meant. I first realized I was bigger than the other kids was when I was in second grade. I had a crush on a boy. When I looked at him, I saw he was smaller than me, and it was more than just height. I realized that I had wider arms, and my thighs were bigger. I began to notice that everyone was smaller than me. I started to notice people calling me fat, it would hurt and I would just run away and cry. I also remember a time in third grade I was on the playground with my best friend when I said I couldn’t go slide the pole or climb the monkey bars because I wasn’t able to hold myself up. She told me I should lose some weight. It hurt, but I didn’t cry. I just proved her wrong and went down the pole. These days from my past have been burned into my memory. I remember every person who called me fat, told me I was ugly, and made fun of me. They would call me fatty, cow, whale, lard, chubby, fluffy, and everything inbetween. Sometimes kids would poke me in the stomach and ask where my abs were, and why I had no ribs and just fat. They would push me to the ground and tell me it was okay because it wouldn’t hurt me because I had so much fat to protect me. They would pull chairs from under me, and kick me in the back. For me everyday was a nightmare! I would attempt to lose weight, but nothing worked. I started dance lessons and in third grade, I began to compete to have more classes, so I could lose weight easier. I had a lot of fun, and made many of friends. I began to lose weight, and everything died down a little, not entirely though. Puberty hit, and I got a little taller, and lost some more weight, but I was still fatter than everyone else. The first day I stopped eating was January 23, 2013 before I left for Hawaii. I was at dance, and was sitting behind a couch relaxing after a very intense class of strength and conditioning. I got really hot and sweaty. Like many of the other girls in my class I took off my shirt leaving me in a sports bra and spandex shorts. That was normal there! While cooling off I heard two girls who at the time I thought were my good friends. They sat on the couch and began to talk about me. They called me fat, gross, nasty, and a terrible dancer. They also added they could not believe that I took off my shirt, and that it burned their eyes. This was devastating! I ran into the bathroom crying, and I skipped all my other dance classes. After calming down I went on my ipod, and looked up ways to lose weight, they all stated to eat healthier, but I was! I love vegetables, nuts are my best friend, I hate soda, and salad is my all time favorite food. Plus my mom is an organic freak, that was all we had, and all I knew! My weight came from my genetics, and I couldn’t change it drastically like I longed for. After that day, I had decided to stop eating. The first week was difficult. One will never understand starvation until they have hallucinations of or about food or cry because of hunger. I began to get skinnier and I was happier, but it still wasn’t enough. At the mere mention of food I would tense up and become petrified. To prevent suspicion I would wear baggy clothes or lots of layers to make myself look larger. I eventually realized after blacking out in school, and dance bathrooms, feeling faint 24/7, and extreme hunger, that I would have to eat something. So from that point on I would eat one full meal a week, and drink a lot of water.
My parents never found out, and honestly I do not plan on them ever knowing because of how ashamed I am. I was fortunate enough to figure things out for myself and receive treatment, but the after effects of eating once a week have not gone away. I still wake up nauseous every morning, I have an extremely small stomach so I am unable to eat large amounts, I throw up almost everyday due to my super sensitive stomach, I am still extremely self conscious, and unfortunately these effects may never leave.



There are solutions to terminating eating disorders once and for all. For one we could start bringing people who are larger than life size Barbies into the media. People who are not stick thin are considered unattractive, when in reality they are just a different kind of beautiful. My friends and I always discuss which Disney princess we would be, and we realized that, there is not one Disney princess that is fat, or just a little curvier than most. Disney does a very good job at bringing different ethnicities and cultures into their company, but not different sizes! Now, there are larger characters, but they are always the ones made fun of, and goofing off, they are never the princess. The same goes for other companies such as; American Girl Doll, Barbie, Polly Pocket, and modeling companies around the world. I hate to say it, but Teen Ink does it as well. Every cover photo that has a person on it, is always a very fit person. Although the content of Teen Ink builds confidence, and allows teens to connect, the cover and ads just make us even more self conscious. Did you hear that? Yeah, that’s the 21 century calling, so let’s bring some diversity in size into the media.That way every girl can feel like a perfect princess.
That is the other thing, just that one word. Perfect. I hate that word almost as much as I hate the “R” word. That one word makes people go crazy to achieve it, when really they were already perfect. So let’s get rid of that one word, let us all understand that to be perfect you need to be yourself, so you need to be imperfect. Why do we keep a word that destroys us all. A group of kids decided that the “R” word should not be in our vocabulary or the dictionary, so why can’t we get rid of the word perfect? According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NLMH) out of their 123 patients 80% claimed that they did starve for “Perfection” or “The perfect body”. If we were to eliminate that one word, we would be eliminating 80% of 120 people with eating disorders.
The final solution, that may be the most important out of all of them, is to raise awareness. As I stated earlier, most of America does not know the first thing about eating disorders, so let’s educate them! The President is all about education. So let’s have middle schools bring in guest speakers, and bring in fellow teens to discuss their past. Some may say that no teen will want to talk about their past, and their story, but I know from experience that this isn’t true. I would love to hold an assembly and teach people how to deal with this, who to talk to if they show symptoms, and who to talk to for help about a friend. I would love to see the faces of the kids who bullied me to the point of near death due to starvation, once they see what they did to me. I want people to know what to do before it’s too late or someone they know personally is suffering from an eating disorder.
In conclusion, I believe the solutions for terminating eating disorders are composed of three parts. One is awareness, then bring diversity of size into the media, and finally we dispose of the word “Perfect.” With these three steps we can not only have happier and healthier teens, but we can have a healthier and kinder America.