Anorexia And Young Women Research Paper

Are young women dying to have the perfect body? Each year millions of people in the United States are affected by serious and sometimes life-threatening eating disorders. The vast majority, more than 90 percent of those afflicted with eating disorders are adolescent girls and young women. Thousands of magazines, newspaper articles, TV shows, and movies bombard them with images of today’s most attractive models: Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, Heidi Klum and Paris Hilton with their “perfect” skinny bodies. Their first thought is: “I have to lose weight.” Young women starve themselves to death to gain the perfect body and to follow their idols.
Anorexia is one of the most dangerous types of eating disorders. The word is originally Greek and
means “lack of appetite”. It is an emotional illness in which people refuse to eat. Although the majority may actually be extremely hungry, they avoid eating for a variety of reasons. Some anorexics experience bouts of bulimia; an overwhelming craving for food that is vomited after it is consumed. Teens may limit their nutrition to 200-400 calories a day, the equivalent of an apple and a cereal bar; which is extremely low, considering that an average teenager needs more than 2000 calories a day to stay healthy. This is followed by an extreme weight loss. Surprisingly many teens and young women are not aware of the potential to develop an eating disorder. Many think they have found a good way to lose weight secretly. But why do so many girls starve themselves painfully to death?

The media provides the answer: magazines abound with photos of the favorite top ten models, stories about losing weight, and articles about common body complaints other stories which influence young teens to care about their body weight. The media is primarily responsible for the prevalence of anorexia, and it continues to encourage its victims with their advertisements. “Nowadays advertisers have already turned their job into a game titled “Whose Models are skinnier?”” (Van Nostrand 4). Models are approximately 98% thinner than most Americans, and the maximum weight range continues to drop. Models – idols for the majority of adolescent girls – are a source of intense pressure for American teens. They smile, and pose “perfectly” on the title page of “Vogue” or “Glamour”, and their image is the dream of most American girls in high school. Some start to touch their body rolls and their skin, some start to look for calories and fat in granola bars, some start to exercise hardly and others start talking about weight. Then a salad replaces a hamburger, some strawberries replace a chocolate bar until two apples are enough for one day. Someday the parents will find out. But how long can the illness be kept in secret?
The development of Anorexia can be invisible, if parents don’t care about their children and observe their eating habits.
Overbearing, controlling and critical parents who do not show emotional warmth are a fact that can lead the child to be lonely and unaccepted. Those children often have a tendency towards perfectionism, a desire to always be perceived as being “good”. “Not eating, according to some experts, is a passive act of revenge directed toward those who will never love the person because of her lack of perfection” (UT Medical Center 2). Nobody can be perfect, although some people think they do. This belief can cause young girls to become very sick, so that they starve themselves to gain attention and a sense of being special; special like the ones who they see on covers of
magazines. Being special is a dream of ballerinas and athletes. To succeed, they have to be thin and fit.
“In fact, in a Sports Illustrated special report on eating disorders, reporter Merrell Noden notes, “The average size of women on the U.S. Olympic gymnastic team has shrunk from 5’3” 105 pounds in 1976 to 4’9 88 pounds in 1992“(Cotter, 27).
The risk of developing an eating disorder as an athlete is high, and it won’t change as long as there is continued pressure to be excessively thin. Christy Henrich, a world class gymnast, died of multiple organ failure in 1994 as a result of her ongoing struggle with anorexia and bulimia. She weighed 60 pounds when she died. Uncontrolled, this disorder can lead to death. The idea of being the world champion or the chance to participate in the Olympic Games is so appealing to many athletes that they would do anything to realize their dream.
Although anorexics cover up their increasingly “skinny bodies”, the illness is no longer invisible at a certain point.
Their hair becomes thin, their skin becomes dry, and their hands and feet become swollen. Unusual behaviors related to food and eating, such as refusing to eat in public, eating only one type of food and an intense study of diets and calories are typical signs of the illness. Depression combined with a loss of interest in friends and family is common. Girls cease to have their menstrual periods; there is a question as to whether they can ever get pregnant after a severe illness. Sadly, anorexics will never reach the ideal figure they strive for. They strictly follow their diet without knowing the difference between a healthy and a sick looking body. Their mirror image always appears as “fat” in their eyes, no matter how thin they really
are.

Although anorexia is a severe illness, it is sometimes the only way to lose weight. Weight is the topic of discussions in high school and many girls who take care of their body know about eating disorders. Everybody keeps saying that they are life threatening. But who cares? The girls want to be skinny and attractive, so they help each other to stay committed to not eating. Of course they will make sure that nobody gets too skinny or sick from anything. No matter how dangerous this illness can be, most teens don’t take it as a serious illness. It is a better alternative than dieting to lose weight, because it is effective and fast. It is only questioned how long it can stay under control.
Overall, anorexia develops as a result of several reasons. Models in the media, parents and friends, living under the pressure of perfectionism or special sports are factors that affect the development. On the other hand the weight loss is more effective and faster than “only” dieting. But is everybody supposed to look like the models and actors we see in movies, and television, and advertisements? Is that what will make us successful and acceptable to others? Think carefully about that. We are perfect just as God made us.