Eating Disorders

Can you imagine yourself waking up every morning with the room spinning around you? As you enter the bathroom and as you go over to the mirror, you study and criticize every last inch of your body as the words “fat, ugly, worthless” echo in your head. When you go out during the rest of your day, you skip meals and think to yourself that your body isn’t good enough. There are about eight million people in America that have an eating disorder that wake up every morning feeling dizzy and the rest of their days, skipping meals. Many people who develop an eating disorder are between 13 and 20 years old. This is a time of emotional and physical changes, academic pressures, and a lot of peer pressure. Moreover, eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorder affect over five million people. Teenager between the ages of 13 and 20 suffer from an eating disorder, teenage girls between the ages of 10 and 20 suffer from an eating disorder mostly every day. Eating disorders in children and teens cause serious changes in eating habits that can lead to major, even life threatening health problems. The three main types of eating disorders are Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge Eating. Anorexia is a condition when a person refuses to eat anything and that person has a fear of gaining weight so they eat nothing at all. Bulimia is an eating disorder that causes a person to self induce vomit or for them to use laxatives, just after eating. Binge Eating is when a person eats a lot of food in a short period of time. Anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder all involve unhealthy eating patterns that begin gradually and build to the point where a person feels unable to control them.
Furthermore, eating disorders are serious medical illnesses. The effects of multiple eating disorders are dry, scaly skin, brittle hair and nails, and slow heart rate decreased blood pressure, lower body temperature, and abdominal pain. Rapid weight loss occurs in girls with Anorexia.

Bibliography: http://kidshealth.org/teen/food_fitness/problems/eat_disorder.html http://www.mirasol.net/eating-disorders/information/eating-disorder-statistics.php