Common Misperceptions About Anorexia Nervosa

Common Misperceptions about Anorexia
Women are consistently the punchline of many jokes, regardless of their size. One day, a woman decides that she can no longer tolerate the hurtful comments about her being overweight. So she decides to stop eating, only to be slammed with similarly hurtful comments such as, “she needs to go eat a cheeseburger”, “she looks like a pre-pubescent twelve year old boy”. These phrases are apart of a global epidemic showing how unfairly we stigmatize Anorexia Nervosa. We think it is a good idea make these manipulative comments to someone with anorexia to show that we care, but in the end it only feeds their hunger to continue. The majority of the problem is that we are just simply misinformed and we tend to conform to the popular ideals about anorexia before even educating ourselves.
According to widely-accepted belief, you have to be emaciated to have anorexia. This is true but only from a medical standpoint. The standard diagnostic criterion for anorexia as a mental disorder is restriction of caloric intake, an intense fear
A lot of suffering individuals are actually very ashamed of their condition and will go to any possible lengths to conceal their habits. “I already ate”, “I’m not hungry”. Most families of individuals with anorexia did not have the slightest inkling it was even in their presence. A method people with anorexia use to hide behind is by wearing baggy clothes and eating in private (Harmon 56). But with that being said, some people with anorexia do use their condition to get attention. Society labels them as “attention whores”. However, this is absolutely not a bad thing. Think about it - if someone starves themselves for other people to take notice of them… we really should be just as concerned as we would be if they were hiding it. Wanting attention because of your illness does not denote your illness in any