“Eat Something:” Not as Harmless as It May Seem
Isabella Luckage is a senior at Columbus School for Girls and an active member of YAC.
Almost one in every ten Americans will suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their life. The National Institute of Mental Health describes eating disorders as “serious and often fatal illnesses that are associated with severe disturbances in people’s eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions”.
I chose to write about eating disorders because they are something that I have noticed becoming more and more common among teenagers and are something I see discussed a lot on Instagram. These posts that I see related to eating disorders often showcase women who are recovering from an eating disorder and their advice to build a healthy relationship with your body. On top of this, because of the deeply personal aspects of having an eating disorder, it is important that we, as a society, not comment negatively or positively on the bodies of others. No matter how someone’s body looks, anyone can have an eating disorder, making comments about bodies being “too small,” “too large,” or saying things like “you look like you need to eat a sandwich” could all be very harmful as someone navigates their mental wellness and builds a healthy relationship with food. Additionally, by further understanding the specific eating disorders that are most common, like Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge Eating Disorder, we will continue to break the stigma surrounding this topic for both women and men.
Anorexia Nervosa is when someone will not eat certain foods, limits the food they eat to an extreme, or only eats small amounts of a limited variety of foods. There are two types of Anorexia Nervosa, including restrictive and binge-purge. Restrictive Anorexia Nervosa is when someone has a very strict diet where they only consume very small amounts of a very narrow variety of foods. Whereas binge-purge Anorexia Nervosa involves the same actions as restrictive, but when these behaviors are then followed by eating a large amount of food and then using laxatives or forcibly vomiting in order to rid oneself of whatever they ate. Eating disorders can be very serious and may lead to death, with Anorexia Nervosa being one of the most likely to result in the death of the person. This illness is so devastating that one in every five individuals with Anorexia Nervosa deaths was a result of suicide.
Bulimia Nervosa involves periods of binge eating with very limited control over food consumption and is then followed by overcompensation for that binge-eating period. This may be done through the use of laxatives, unnatural vomiting, avoidance of food, extreme increase in exercise, or it may be a combination of two or more of these different behaviors. A common misconception about people with eating disorders is that they are all underweight, but this is not always the case.
Binge Eating Disorder is characterized by periods of eating a very large amount of food, however, it is not followed by any sort of fasting or purging. Due to these behaviors, people with this disorder are often overweight. This disorder is particularly common in The United States.
If you are suffering from an eating disorder and are in need of free, anonymous support, call the SAMHSA Hotline at 1-800-662-4357. Additionally, if you are in need of the Crisis and Suicide Lifeline, call 988.
References:
https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/do-you-know-the-deadliest-mental-health-disorder-its-not-what-you-think/
https://anad.org/eating-disorders statistics/#:~:text=General%20Eating%20Disorder%20Statistics,9%25%20of%20the%20population%20worldwide.&text=9%25%20of%20the%20U.S.%20population,eating%20disorder%20in%20their%20lifetime.&text=Less%20than%206%25%20of%20people,medically%20diagnosed%20as%20%E2%80%9Cunderweight.%E2%80%9D
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/eating-disorders
https://healthyteenproject.com/about-eating-disorders/ 5. https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline