Eating desorders

Maria Manrique
August 31, 2011
Eating disorders
food has been essential to the development of human’s life, not just because food is one of the basic needs of all living beings, but also because it is closely linked to its origins, customs, traditions and lifestyle. Eating disorders arise from centuries ago, since then, many women and some men think that being thin is a symbol of beauty andsuccess.
In every culture or country there is a different concept of beauty, for example in Africa woman with long neck and big lips are more pretty and attractive, and because of that young women try to imitate them.
The beauty concept that society has developed is thinness. This causes that the third part of the young people want to lose weight because they think that if they don’t lose weightthey will be rejected; in the other hand they try to imitate each other and not be seen as a fool.
There are multiple eating disorders but the most common are Anorexia and Bulimia; Anorexia is a mental illness that involves loss of weight, it results from an intense fear of obesity and achieved by the person who becomes ill through a series of behaviors. Anorexia affects mainly young womenbetween 14 and 18 years old. Girls get an intense fear of gaining weight, keeping it below the normal rate, they feel fat when you are thin, they feel guilt or contempt for eating, they become hyperactive and exercise excessively, they have mood changes really easy (irritability, sadness, insomnia, etc), so they prefer to stop eating. Bulimia is is a mental disorder characterized by repeated episodesof overeating in a short space of time and an exaggerated concern for control of body weight that leads to the affected person to adopt inappropriate and dangerous behaviors that can be really bad for your health. It also affects mainly young women but not as much as Anorexia. The most common symptoms are : Constant concern about food and weight, use of drugs, laxatives, diuretics, and self-inducedvomiting, weight may be normal or even high, mood changes including depression, sadness, guilt and hate towards themselves.
I believe that women in general started to worry about their body appearance when they stopped using the corset which they used for almost four centuries. Women started to show their bodies in a different way. Instantly fashion began to appear which points to a progressivestyling, the dresses are shorter, the legs are shown and there is a suppression of curves. This exhibition of the female body it is unstoppable and makes women worry as it begins to be observed and critiqued. It is about these years when concerns about eating disorders is obvious because they begin to be studied from different perspectives, considering not only biological and psychologicalfactors but also social and educational influence in this new culture of thinness. Also Women started to work and study ,so the absence of a person that was responsible for meal times (role attributed to the mother) the disappearance of family eating habits, the removal of the snack and dinner time are highlighted as factors that may lead to a wrong diet.
I am writing about this topic because I havehad several friends that decided to be bulimic. They spent all day eating and eating without getting tired and without know the risks that they were exposed to; At the end of the day or after every meal they wanted to throw up, so that way they could get thinner. Even thought they were the most skinnier people in the entire world they felt awful and ugly and disgusting when they saw themselves onthe mirror thinking that they were obese. Same situation happened when they saw a pretty girl with a beautiful body. Being able to see and share with those people change the way I started to see life, I thought that my life was not worthy enough or that I was not happy because I did not have everything I wanted. When I was surrounded by that people I stated to value everything I have around me,...