Eating Disorders Essay Research Paper In recent

Eating Disorders Essay, Research Paper

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 health