The Importance of Being Skinny

Those 4:00am hunger pains are striking you hard. It's the *fat time* of the day when you've starved yourself and your appetite is telling you to over eat. But whatever you do resist the temptation.

The author of that quote is a 12 year old girl, young, dependent and barely into adolescence. Yet she has already conformed to the depravity of believing in the skinny culture. She is a victim of the media, the fashion industry, peer pressure and herself. Within this article I hope to be able to explain to you the cause, the problem and the solution of anorexia, whilst also trying to erase some of the urban myths surrounding this mental and physical disorder.

“Anorexia nervosa is a devastating eating disorder...that, in extreme cases, may lead to self inflicted starvation.”

According to one leading source anorexia can be described as;

• an intense and irrational fear of body fat and weight gain
• a determination to become thinner and thinner
• a misperception of body weight and shape to the extent that the person feels fat even when underweight

“The person with anorexia loses weight and does not realize the dangers of denying food to the body. Food, calories, fat grams, weight, and weight management dominate the person's life and attempts to help are often ignored or met with denial or anger.” - Ohio state University

Causes

There are three main causes of anorexia which are well known, they are known as; social/cultural causes, psychological/emotional and biological

• Social and Cultural - A women or man will emulate what the media may represent as the perfect body size. A culture that associates thinness with popularity, attractiveness and success leads to others striving towards that goal believing it can bring them those objectives.
• Psychological and emotional - There are certain personality traits that have been linked with anorexia and can be seen as warning signs for a potential sufferer, they are; perfectionism, obsessiveness, approval-seeking, low self-esteem, withdrawal, irritability, and black-or-white (all-or-nothing) thinking. Emotional upsets in someone's life can be attributed as a cause of anorexia as the trauma affects the brain leading compulsive disorders. High risk factors vary from sexual abuse to have been bullied for weight issues. Relationship issues with a significant other or family member can trigger anorexia and depression. According to the experts; “the feelings during adolescence of being overwhelmed and powerless can bring about a desire to maintain control in some realm of life, such as control of body weight. Being in total control of what enters the mouth can give an adolescent a feeling of powerfulness. Thus, the period of adolescence may be when anorexia first arises.”
• Biological - Some experts believe that anorexia may be a case of genetics, when studying the chemical levels in the brains of anorexic patients they found that higher levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin were present, this particular chemical weakens the want of food and has the power to make the patient withdraw socially from interaction. However it has been argued the levels have been induced by anorexia and is not a cause there of.

Problems

The physical effects of anorexia not including those listed above can also be

• Hair loss
• Lowered resistance to illness
• Hypersensitivity to heat
• Less need for sleep than normal eaters
• Severe dehydration, which can result in kidney failure
• Fatigue and overall weakness

Anorexia takes a severe toll on your body, if you take away your food source; you are damaging your existence. Emotional tolls from anorexia can be the following

• Difficulty in concentrating on anything else except weight
• Isolation from family and friends
• Emotional regression to a child-like state
• Feelings of guilt
• Dependence upon alcohol or drugs to handle the negative outlook

When diagnosing Anorexia doctors will use a number of guidelines which include; addressing if your body weight is 15 percent lower than that of the average for your height and age. If you have a distorted view of your body weight and deny being skinny, if leading on from before you have an irrational fear of gaining weight and for women if you have missed more than three menstrual periods in a roll.

Solution

Treatment of Anorexia follows two paths, Medical treatment and psychotherapy. Because of the emotional toll on the body, lack of self-esteem and social interaction many sufferers seek psychological help to overcome their problem. Therapy is deemed so important that if you contact your doctor with worries over your weight loss you will automatically be referred to a psychologist in that field. There are many different areas of therapy that may be of use to a sufferer

• Group therapy - Discussing your problem with others going through the same ordeal offers a release and interaction with people you can compare yourself too, the group will be lead by a noted psychologist who will lead you through the different areas of the problem and allow you to discuss openly every area of concern.
• Behavior therapy - A therapist will teach you how to exchange excessive exercise and self-starving, for relaxation and coping techniques.
• Family therapy - You will be referred to a family clinic if you continually deny your eating disorder. Family therapy allows your parents and close relative to learn to deal with the problem and helps them become a superior support group to help you recover.
• Type A therapy - Usually known as obvious therapy, this allows you to talk about your emotional needs and how you have become to rely on your eating disorder as a way of gaining control and normality.

During the course of psychological treatment you would be monitored by someone in the medical profession, this allows you to recover physically. They will monitor your vital signs, hydration level, and electrolytes during the course of your treatment. A nutritionist will develop a dietary plan for you which will gradually allow you to gain the right amount of weight without disrupting your body in its frail state.

Statistics

Anorexia and Bulimia have existed for an astronomical amount of time, the first documented writing on a similar disorder now known as what we call it was written by Physician and Minister John Reynolds in 1669. Most cases of eating disorders occurs among young girls and women in the age range or 15 - 25, however there have been reported case of age as low as 7. Approximately 10 percent of reported eating disorders sufferers are male however this can reach as high as 25 percent for teenage boys. Government figures for the United Kingdom 2004, stipulated that 20 percent of the adolescent population suffer from a mental health problem including eating disorders. Anorexia has the highest rate of mortality in any mental health problem standing at 13-20 percent, the cause of death would be starvation or cachexia (abnormally low weight).

In the 1998 Bread for life campaign surveyed over 900 women as a part of their [i]“pressure to be perfect report”[/i.] This is the outline of that report

• Only 25% of young women were happy with their weight
• 20% of young women diet either all or most of the time
• 55% think men rate looks as the most attractive thing in a woman: only 1% said intelligence
• 22% of young women admit to staying at home because they didn't think they looked good
• 61% feel inadequate compared to the media's image of beautiful women
• 91% felt it was bad that the media always portray so-called perfect women
• 89% wanted more average sized models used in magazines
• 63% wanted fewer dieting features

In short, we don't have to comply with what the media dubs as the perfect size, because in reality there isn’t. We all come at different heights and sizes and there is a perfect mold for everyone there is not one perfect fit. There is no magical solution to obesity if you feel you need to lose weight consult a nutritionist and simply follow a healthy diet and exercise regime, in time your weight will drop with no long lasting awful effects on your body. Do not buy in to the anamia complex, if you do you are hurting your body and cause your mental health to deteriorate, seek help and talk to somebody.

In the end the most important thing a person can have is happiness, starving yourself to comply with somebody else's idea of perfection is not that. Take care of yourself.

Further Information and help sites

• Something Fishy - One of the longest running helpline sites covering eating disorders on the net. The site also includes many articles readers may find interesting.
• overcomingovereating.com - A campaign site to stop women self-hating their bodies.
• www.oa.org - Learn through the experience of others.
• Anorexia Nervosa - extremely helpful site, where I gained the majority of the information you find inside this article.