FREE ESSAY ON EATING DISORDERS

EATING DISORDERS

In recent history, the idea of feminine beauty has been shifting toward a less healthy,
overly thin model. More than 25,000 years ago when humans first evolved, women
exaggerated their reproductive organs, like breasts and hips, using fertility symbols.
Slim women were not considered beautiful because they did not seem healthy enough to
nourish and raise a family, or make it through the winter. Slim women were also
considered to be poor, because they could not afford enough food to keep their body full
and healthy. During the Renaissance era, beautiful paintings from world famous artists,
including Michelangelo, featured full-figured women. Full figures continued to be popular
throughout the Mannerism and Baroque periods, which continued up through the 1730's. In
the mid-1700's, women's figures started to change. The women began to wear girdles,
cinching up their waist to exaggerate their curves. The girdles were painful but women
wanted to get their waist as small as they could. In the 1900's, waists became even
smaller. 
The Roaring 20's brought radical changes to women and their bodies. Young girls called
flappers became popular. They wore their hair short and boyish, wore rolled down
stockings and short, baggy dresses exposing their arms and legs. They were defined as
rebels, and embarrassed the older generation by the way they dressed and acted. They
refused to be lady-like, and they were wild. Twiggy was the most popular fashion model in
the 1960's, named for her ultra-thin body. She exposed more and more of her stick-like
body to the camera, and inspired other girls to become like her, because she was popular,
different, and wild. The super-skinny image is still portrayed today, even though it is
not healthy. 
In the early 1990's a magazine headline read, You Can Never Be Too Thin. Some women
literally believed this, and died of starvation and suffered from anorexia nervosa.
Teenagers are directly targeted because they always conform to high fashion. We live in a
society where it's the standard for a teenager to worry excessively about her body and
gaining weight...this aberrant behavior has become the norm (Bell 67). Women now are so
worried with their figure that they develop life-threatening psychological habits, get
plastic surgery, go on crash diets, and even starve themselves. Women's obsession with
their weight is causing them serious health problems.
Anorexia nervosa has the highest death rate of any psychologically based disorder. It is
not a new disease, but one which has recently become more widely recognized (84-88). The
reason anorexia nervosa has the highest death rate is because it can be kept a secret,
until it is almost too late. When victims start to become anorexic the public might
compliment them because they've lost a little weight and look good. When they start to
become too thin, concerned comments like are you losing weight? may actually be taken as
a compliment by anorexic victims because they have brainwashed themselves and now have
the mindset to be as thin as they can. Victims of anorexia nervosa develop a warped view
of optimal thinness. Even when their bodies become dangerously thin, they feel that they
are too fat and this drives them to even more drastic food reduction (89). In the process
of starvation, when women lose too much weight they have trouble regulating their
internal body temperature resulting in cold blue hands and feet. A layer of hair called
lungo grows on the skin as a coping mechanism to help keep the body warm due to a loss of
insulating fat (Nikles 1). Anorexia nervosa victims can not stop dieting, and sometimes
they die because they are too thin (Ahrens 70). In order to die from starvation, one must
not eat anything for over 2 months, and their own body eats itself. This is very painful
and weakening for the woman, she may need to stay in bed or be hospitalized. That kind of
self-discipline proves how obsessed women are with becoming thin.
Many anorexic women also indulge in occasional eating binges, and half of them make the
transition to bulimia. About 40% of the most severely bulimic patients have a history of
anorexia. It's not clear whether the combination of anorexia with bingeing and purging is
more debilitating, physically or emotionally, than anorexia alone (Grinspoon and Batalar
1). Both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are psychological disorders that also cause
physical harm. Brittle bones are common from a lack of calcium; muscles dissolve and
begin eating themselves because there is not enough caloric intake. Some anorexic victims
exercise profusely without eating, which causes their body to self-destruct. Anorexic
victims also have problems with their heart and blood from the lack of iron in their
diet.
Bulimia Nervosa is defined as two or more episodes of binge eating (rapid consumption of
a large amount of food, up to 5,000 calories) every week for at least three months. The
binges are sometimes followed by vomiting or purging (use of laxatives) and may alternate
with compulsive exercise and fasting (1). The consumption of high-calorie junk food, even
though they throw it up, may cause the victim to gain fat cells. The victim gains some
weight, goes on a diet, and the cycle repeats itself (Nardo 97). Though bulimia is not as
dangerous as anorexia because the victims almost always maintain a healthy weight,
bulimia has far more side effects. These include fatigue, weakness, bloating, and
dehydration from overuse of laxatives. The cause of bulimia is unclear, although it is
thought to be a combination of many different physical, emotional, and environmental
issues (Grinspoon and Batalar 1). Dentists can actually tell if a woman is bulimic from
the shape of her teeth. They are more rounded, with the erosion of dental enamel because
when they throw up, they are causing stomach acids to enter back through their mouths.
Stomach acid is very powerful; it eats away all of the protective enamel on their teeth.
These side effects may not seem life threatening, but they are very unpleasant. Aside
from the fact that bulimia victims are depriving their bodies of essential vitamins when
they purge, bulimic victims are less stable emotionally and are more likely to commit
suicide (1). 
Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is another mental disorder where women are overly obsessed
with their body. Approximately 5 million Americans have BDD (Brody 79). BDD victims
usually obsess over something very slight, or imaginary. Whatever the imagined defect -
and often there are several - living with BDD is a pretty dismal existence, especially
for teens. Some drop out of school. One-third are unable to leave the house for a week or
more. One-quarter attempt suicide...it causes a tremendous amount of suffering (80).
The desire for a woman to change her body still exists even if she doesn't develop a
mental condition or obsession. Cosmetic surgery has become known as a quick fix for
weight problems but the combination of side effects during surgery and the treatments
after surgery can be very unpleasant, painful, and even life-threatening. The fastest
growing form of cosmetic surgery is liposuction. In 1986, 100,000 operations were
performed. By 1989, 200,000 pounds of body tissue was sucked out of 130,000 women. Even
though liposuction is dangerous and can cause death, women continue to enjoy it (Davis
26-27). All surgery from a heart transplant to cosmetic surgery is dangerous and has the
same risks because any time someone is put under anesthesia it can be life threatening.
Negative reactions to anesthesia are so common that they are called routine
complications, although in some cases they can be fatal...most operations have side
effects, many of which are serious and even permanent. Although statistics are not kept,
the list of complications accompanying cosmetic operations is long (27). Doctors are
required to let women know of all the possible side effects that can happen during and
after surgery, but that doesn't hold them back at all. Their desire for the perfect
figure is so strong they will willingly risk their lives. There is no guarantee that
after surgery the fat won't come back (Guerra 112). There is no way of knowing how one's
body is going to heal after cosmetic surgery, and the surgery often ends in
disappointment, depression, or even more cosmetic surgery to fix the scars and unexpected
flaws that the first surgery has left. Swelling can also occur for up to six weeks. The
possibility of bleeding, bruising, infection and scarring are also some of the risks of
liposuction (Ashton 121). Infections, wound disruptions, and erosion of overlying skin
are a routine byproduct of any operation. Scar tissue can harden and darken. There is no
way to prevent this kind of disfigurement and it is estimated that over twenty percent of
all cosmetic surgery involves repairing scar tissue left over from previous operations
(Davis 27).
Apparatus that must be worn after surgery may cause women to stay at home for a long
period of time. Apparatus are very uncomfortable. They are elastic wraps that are tightly
bound around the legs, stomach, or wherever the surgery was performed, to keep the
remaining tissue in place. They must be worn for ten days and up to three weeks. The
combination of the apparatus and swelling may keep patients secluded from their friends,
family, and the public for up to six months, which can be a source of depression. It may
take up to a year for all of the remaining traces of surgery to disappear. 
The fastest and the most unhealthy kind of dieting is crash dieting. Crash dieting causes
a woman to lose weight quickly for a short period of time but can quickly reverse itself.
Long term crash dieting will cause weight gain because during self-starvation. When a
small amount of food is entered into the body it is consumed as fat instead of energy
because the body is preparing for starvation. The body is saving all of the consumed
energy as fat to be able to survive longer. When dieters burn calories they are burning
muscle because their body refuses to burn the fat because the fat is more important. Fat
will help a body survive (98). These crash diets are unhealthy because they are
restricting proper vitamin and mineral intake into a body and can cause vitamin
deficiency. Under women's self-imposed condition of starvation, they may suffer from many
of the same vitamin and deficiency conditions common in impoverished countries with high
rates of malnutrition (Nardo 98). Crash dieters go on strict diets, 300 - 600 calories a
day, which is one-quarter less than average calorie consumption (98). 
The combination of losing weight to their body's absolute minimum and nutritional
imbalance can cause serious harm to a woman's reproductive system. Crash dieting women
may not be able to get pregnant because their reproductive system may shut itself down.
Most anorexic women have this problem and if proper amounts of protein and calories are
not taken into their body they could lose the chance to have a baby forever. Anorexia
causes a cessation of menstruation in women, which can be permanent depending on how
severe the disorder is and how long it continues...preadolescent females fail to
menstruate all together (Nikles 1). Women's bodies stop ovulating so they won't be able
to become pregnant because their body has a hard time storing enough energy to keep
themselves alive, let alone keep a baby alive. Strict vegetarian diets may also cause a
woman's body to stop ovulating because of the lack of protein (Perloe and Christie 91). 
If a woman with an eating disorder does become pregnant she may have trouble carrying her
baby to term. The closer her weight is to normal and the healthier her diet the better
chance of a successful pregnancy. Women with eating disorders have higher rates of
miscarriages than healthy normal women. A woman's fertility is not only jeopardized, but
her chances of supporting a fetus are seriously impaired due to a drop in hormone levels
(Nikles 1).
A premature baby can also be a sign of an eating disorder during pregnancy. Lower birth
weight babies are at risk of many medical problems, and some are life threatening. Babies
born to eating disordered mothers may be retarded or slow to develop. They can be smaller
in size, weaker, and slower growing than other children of the same age. Intellectually
they lag behind their classmates. They are not quite as fully developed socially and have
a hard time developing relationships with other people (ANRED 1).
If a woman obsessed with being thin becomes pregnant she may be torn apart emotionally
because of her weight gain. Women who are anorexic are usually very controlling and
self-disciplined and when they find that they can't control their weight gain may try and
hurt themselves, or their baby.
When a woman doesn't have enough nourishment for herself and becomes pregnant, the baby's
needs come first and may starve the mother of important nutrients, such as protein and
calcium. Protein is one of the most important nutrients for pregnant women because it
develops the tissue of the fetus and increases the mother's blood volume as well as the
amniotic fluid (Eating for two 1). Starvation of calcium in the mother will make her
teeth and bones very fragile. Stress fractures and broken bones may appear later in years
because of the lack of calcium. Once calcium is lost from a woman's bones it is very
difficult if not impossible to regain (ANRED 1).
A woman with an eating disorder and pregnant is at high risk for serious health problems.
Her liver can be affected, as well as her kidneys. Cardiac damage may also occur during
pregnancy (ANRED 1). 
When women were big and voluptuous they were recognized for their health and potential to
raise a big family. Since women now are so obsessed with becoming thin, they give up
everything including a chance to have a baby. A woman's body knows when she is not
healthy and doesn't have enough body fat and reacts in certain ways to tell her to eat.
She ignores her body's signals because she is afraid of becoming fat. Women's obsession
with their weight causes major psychological problems such as anorexia and bulimia. Some
women get fat surgically removed and become depressed with the results. By crash dieting
a woman's body begins to eat it's muscle. All of these health problems are caused by a
woman's conscious attempt to become slim. Most if not all of these problems could be
avoided if women were not obsessed about their weight. There are many ways to help women
with eating disorders. It takes a lot of time to be cured, but it is well worth the wait.
Counselors and psychiatrists are a good source for information, along with support
groups. If women don't get the help that they need fast enough, their life could be lost.
Too many women have lost their lives already. Too many women are dying to be thin. 
Bibliography
Anorexia Nervosa and other Related Eating Disorders, Inc. (ANRED) http://www.anred.com
(February 21, 1999). 
Arnold, Caroline. Too Fat? Too Thin? Do You Have A Choice? New York: William Morrow and
Company, 1984.
Ashton, Maria. The Pain of Plastic Surgery. Marie Claire, August 1998: 118- 121
. 
Bell, Alison. Disordered Eating - Are You One of the Silent Majority? Teen, February
1999: 66-71.
Brody, Liz. When Looks Could Kill. Jump, June 1998.
Davis, Kathy. Reshaping the Female Body - The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery. New York:
Routledge, 1995.
Eating for Two: Nutrition During Pregnancy.
http://www.parenthoodweb.com/parent_cfmfiles/pros.cfm/371 (February 19, 1999).
Grinspoon, Lester, M.D., James B. Batalar, J.D. The Harvard Mental Health Letter.
http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1.1997.h97-eat1.html (February 15, 1999).
Guerra, Gigi. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Jane, August 1998: 108 - 113.
Nardo, Don. Vitamins and Minerals. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1994.
Nikles, Nina. The Risks in the Quest for Thinness.
http://web87a.bbnplanet.com/belmont/entertainment/health/029688_2_the
031197_8bc052904c.html (February 19, 1999).
Perloe, Mark M.D. and Linda Gail Christie. Miracle Babies and Other Happy Endings. New
York, Rawson Associates, 1986.