Dear Editor:
Who does not care about the weight and the perfect body shape? People try to do as much sport activities as they can, watch the food they eat, read numerous articles and scroll the websites’ pages through the posts about the right diet and lifestyle. But how to understand when chasing the models’ shapes of the body turns into a mental illness that becomes beyond the power to prevent?
According to the www.mirror-mirror.com statistics, up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder) in the U.S.A. The age of 95 percent of people with eating disorders varies from 12 to 25. Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents. Let us talk especially about the teen-girls’ cases, as they are number one victims of eating disorders.
Anorexia starts easily. People will never find the point when playing the “game” in losing 3-5 pounds to look exactly as the model on the most popular magazine’s cover turns into mental illness and starts ruling the life, actions, pressures the girl. Avoiding food becomes the only thing young lady cares about. She feels nasty to herself, but cannot stop it.
The stories of gaining this illness are similar. Based on a pattern teen-ager Katie shared on the web: http://www.nhs.uk., most of the anorexia victims’ life stories sound the same. First of all, girls are not satisfied with their pretty much (in the most of the cases) normal, not even a little overweight bodies. They feel themselves unconfident and know that losing couple of pounds will make their life brighter, they will become the most attractive and popular girls in their schools and the boys they are dreaming about every night will notice them, but these “thick” legs do not let them enjoy the life. Solution: start the diet.
Usually the diets are “homemade” by the girls, that do not have enough knowledge to create the right and healthy nutrition. The timeliness is the main thing that takes over them. Faster she loses odd pounds sooner she will become popular! Let us see what the diet includes. The perfect combination is: skipping meals (breakfasts, snacks), eating only raw and boiled vegetables, cereals, avoiding any fats, learning the calories table by heart, as a favorite poem, and making the food portions on the plate smaller and smaller. Eating slower and cutting food into small pieces helps to feel full sooner. Girls try to skip family dinners so that nobody can watch them and control. No eating after 6 p.m., as it is written in fashion magazines. Confirmation to this is shown on the web: www.newportacademy.com.
According to the http://www.helpguide.org/ the worst part is when a girl loses self-control and thoughts about food become the number one passion of her life, she loses the ability to see herself as she truly is. Girls are convinced that they just follow the healthy lifestyle, but instead they ruin their body and health. In some cases losing weight makes teenagers start smoking or drinking to kill the sense of hunger. Taking laxatives and vomiting when nobody sees them become an everyday routine.
Tears on mother’s face and all conversations with relatives and friends, who try to help stop killing themselves do not work, but make it even worse. She loses sleep, becomes nervous and cannot concentrate well, depressions and bad mood hit the brain. Relationships with friends and family become rough.
Anorectics pretend be the most positive and happy people in society with the widest smile and cheerful attitude to everything, but in fact they are closed in themselves. Instead of enjoying life, as it was planned to be the goal of the program, teenager gains miserableness and absolute unsatisfaction, because bones of the body, that everybody sees and she can easily count in the mirror, still remain fats in poor girls’ eyes. People sick with anorexia see different pictures of themselves every time they look in the mirror. What goes next? Anorexia, in my opinion, is slow way of committing the suicide: without pain and real actions reach the same goal.
Now this woman is 32 years old, she struggled with eating disorder for 10 years of her life since she was 16. Anorexia made her change colleges and cities, broke her relationships with her family and husband, she was on her rock bottom. She tried all possible ways to heal it, but everything was in vain. Long conversations with psychologists and special “treating” groups made her feel worse and worse. Nobody could help, neither she could find the end of this slough.
Understanding she behaves immorally when vomits after every meal did not stop her. She knew that she was close to the end, in all the meanings of this word, but still could not deal with this. Anorexia is the most difficult addiction that you are not able to give up, it changes your mind and becomes stronger over you to fight with.
Doctors and psychologists come up with the same answer- it cannot be treated by anybody. The sick girl has to manage it by herself and if she is lucky she will survive. Nobody ever understands when and how they became ill, neither how it leaves the mind. Once girl gets up in the morning she feels her mind has cleaned, she does not think about the calories’ amount and the food she eats any more. It is a mental illness and only strong people can achieve the victory and heal themselves when the doctors and psychologists give up.
Unfortunately, the number of those, who can stop in the right time is less than of those, who lost the game. Researching the web http://www.futuresofpalmbeach.com, every year around 1000 women and girls die because of anorexia. The chance that you will not be in their number is low, even if it does not seem true. Nobody believes, till experiences anorexia by their own.
It is proved that fashion magazines are the main sources to propagandize anorexia. The redactors pretend to push the plus size models to become more popular, but photos and articles with plus size models still remain as the minor part of the world’s press. Once a girl starts her diet she never knows if she is not one of those, who cannot stop in the right time and become anorexia victim. It does not worth such a big risk of the life. As it was already mentioned nobody knows when it starts, neither when it finishes and what the end will be like.
Sincerely,
Ann Ramishvili, junior
