La anorexia

UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE ZACATECAS
“FRANCISCO GARCIA SALINAS”

FISIOLOGIA I

The campaign to increase the understanding of mental health problems and reduce their [stigma] and discrimination.

FATIMA NUÑEZ DE LA CRUZ
2”C” NUTRICION

ZACATECAS ZACATECAS A 24 DE MAYO DEL 2010
The campaign to increase the understanding of mental health problems and reduce their [stigma] anddiscrimination.

They say size isn't important. But when does a girl become a woman? Is it when she is seventeen? Or when she has her first kiss? No, it is when she no longer looks like a girl. But that isn't all of it.
A woman is woman-sized. She is also mature, responsible, motherly, caring, supportive, submissive, strong, reliable, successful, sensual, compassionate, kind, sensible and … that is abit much when you are forty let alone fourteen. No wonder it takes time to grow into and come to terms with the shape that nature has given you
It can be a problem discovering what sort of woman-sized woman to be. It is not just about being fat or thin. It is about being gay or straight, or a mother or a daughter, working, playing, anything that makes life what it is. It is about control of yourimpulses and destiny.
Sometimes it seems impossible to control all this. Or if you do everything might go wrong. You might not fit anymore and everything will fall apart.
One way of coping is to develop an eating disorder. The girl who starves herself to a low weight shows desperate determination. She knows exactly what she needs to be. Child-sized. But she can’t be eleven forever. Her body isgrowing. The world is moving on and expecting her to come with it. It becomes irresistible. Maybe she will eat, but she will vomit until she is happy to be woman-sized
This girl thinks Marilyn Monroe is great. She hates Kate Moss. She thinks Kate Moss is thinner than she is.
The girl with anorexia is convinced that she is fat even though she is not. She is so fixed in this belief that it seemslike she is being stubborn, or stupid. In fact she has her back to the wall.
She has to be the thinnest person in the world. It’s the only way she can survive. She’s on a knife edge. Too fat and she has to face the world. Too thin and she dies. Being in the world is so awful she would rather die.
This girl would rather die than eat a cheese sandwich. It’s not that she isn’t hungry. She isstarving. It’s that if she eats she will put on weight. If she puts on weight she will go totally out of control. She will grow and grow and grow. And everything that she is terrified of will happen.
The girl with anorexia nervosa doesn’t have a problem with being fat. She has a problem with being woman-sized. Becoming a woman means growing up, leaving home, trying to have relationships but notrupturing family links. This is frightening for everyone. For her it is petrifying. Starving makes time stand still.
If this girl thought she was going to put on weight she would throw up.She wants to be thin. She wants to eat.
Women with bulimia binge and may then vomit. They feel they cannot control life. They are taken over by the urge to eat. They cannot stop themselves. So they make themselvessick. If they didn’t, they’d get fat and they couldn’t bear that.
The girl with bulimia is in a no-win situation. She has two intense and conflicting desires. Vomiting is the only way she can either protect her low weight, if she has anorexia nervosa, or avoid becoming really fat if she has bulimia nervosa.
If you are what you eat then this girl is nothing. She used to eat a bowl of cereal aday. Now she can manage half a carrot. When she starves herself she is somebody.
Her behaviour fills those around her with fear and frustration. They cannot understand why she won’t eat. They say, ‘It’s easy, all you have to do is pick up a knife and fork’.
She can’t get them to understand. It is hard to explain the fear she has. How can she tell them she would rather die than be a normal...