Research/Analysis
Research and Analysis of Anorexia Nervosa
When people think about the problems that young adults of Generation X face,
the one's that most often come to mind are those of drugs, alcohol, depression,
and the divorce of parents. I have, through experience, found that the issue of
eating disorders is often overlooked. Unfortunately, this is a major problem of
the generation, especially among females. The society that we live in today
emphasizes the ideal body as one of thinness, and it is being taken too
seriously, and often to detrimental extremes. Girls, as young as nine and ten
years old are beginning to diet and worry about the appearance of their body. So,
the question to be asked is, why are our girls starving themselves?
In
February of 1992, Tracey Gold appeared on the cover of People magazine
below the title "Starving for Beauty: The Exclusive story of the TV star's battle
with anorexia, which forced her to leave her show to save her life." The article
begins by talking about a time that Tracey's mother saw her changing clothes, and
was horrified by what she saw. At 5'3", Tracey had "wasted away to 90 lbs." For
three years, she had struggled and fought against the one thing that powerfully
gripped her life, anorexia. According to People, "...the baffling disease
of self-induced starvation that, along with other eating disorders, currently
afflicts an estimated 8 million Americans, the majority of them women."
People did a follow-up story in January 1994, telling of her "Battle to
Live". Many may think that this title is drastic, or exaggerates the disease of
anorexia, but from a knowledgeable standpoint, the truth is that everyday is a
struggle to continue eating, which means to continue living. Six months after
her interview in 1992, Tracey relapsed, and "...plummeted to 80 pounds, and, she
says, 'all life meant was losing weight, counting calories'"
One example of
the ignorance surrounding the disease of anorexia came a couple of days ago when
I was riding the shuttle bus home from school. The bus driver was listening to a
radio program in which the D.J. was having young women call in to try and get
tickets to some sort of show. He asked each candidate what she looked like (if
she was pretty or not), what her bra size was, and her height and weight. One
caller responding was 21 years old, 5 ft. 7 inches tall, and weighed 135 lbs. The
announcer, upon hearing this began making dog and cow noises, proclaiming that
she was what he believed to be a "large" woman, giving her the following advice:
"Haven't you ever heard of anorexia? I hear that it helps out a lot of people
with fat problems", followed by his own laughter. Hearing such stupidity and
ignorance made me very angry that someone could be so clueless and cruel. Had
this D.J. known anything about height/weight correspondence, he would have known
that the caller is not at all "fat".
In another issue of People
magazine (September 1993), "How Thin is Too Thin?", the author wrote, "Even
without the deadly specter of anorexia, the skin-and-bones look,..underlines the
idea that thinness is a principal yardstick of a woman's worth...A woman becomes
anorexic because her soul has been battered by the unreasonable expectation that
you can never be too thin and that fat--any fat--equals failure..." This idea is
what underlies the reasoning behind why women who are anorexic don't, or can't,
eat. As an anorexic, the entirety of one's life is filled with how to avoid the
next meal, and what not to eat. The anorexia is in control, not the individual.
Anorexics are not always refusing to eat, as much as they are incapable of doing
so. Many people would say, "Just pick up a fork with food, and put it in your
mouth", but unfortunately, it is not that easy. The anorexic is not controlling
what enters her mouth, but rather her expectations of thinness have taken over.
I think that the only cure for this deadly disease that has taken hold of
many lives in our society, is to change the expectations. A woman is no longer
considered beautiful unless she is thin, and this mentality is taking over the
minds of women, and even young girls, to the point that thin means skeletal. The
lack of information and ignorance that surrounds the disease needs to be dealt
with, and people need to try and understand the depth of the disorder. Anorexia
is not only about looks, but about how a woman feels about herself. It's people
like the D.J. mentioned earlier that need to be educated and understand the harm
that such statements can lead to, as well as the deadliness of words.