There is a lot of pressure on DePauw’s campus for women to fit into the preppy and beautiful stereotype. As classes let out, you may see many outfits straight out of the pages of a J.Crew catalogue. This pressure to dress the part leads to the pressure to fit the part—to literally fit into a size 2. Unfortunately, this emphasis on body image didn’t start at DePauw and probably won’t end here, but it is something all women should be aware of and be able to talk about. Anorexia is a deep psychological disorder in which a patient is so drawn into the lure of being skinny, that they fear being helped for the fear of being forced to gain weight.
Anorexia can be closely tied to the way our generation is raised to believe that being thin is a determinant of how beautiful a person is. Turn on any TV channel, open up any magazine, and go to any website and your eyes will be assaulted with hundreds of photo-shopped images that have made our young generation obsessed with achieving an unrealistic level of perfection. The average American woman is 5’4 and weighs 140 pounds, whereas the ideal woman portrayed in the media is 5’10 and weighs 110 pounds. These ideal women are displayed as being happy, glowing, and wear the best fashion that causes girls be envious. It is no wonder that 8 million Americans have an eating disorder of some sort today.
The happy image that models associate with being this thin is a far cry from reality, however. Side effects of anorexia are painful, unhealthy and even deadly in extreme anorectics. In the long run, as described by the Mayo Clinic, a lack of nutrient intake leads to abnormal blood counts, thinning and falling out hair, absence of menstruation in females, osteoporosis, and a depressed mood. And, this is just the beginning; the disease literally overtakes the lives that it affects. Anorectics are tired and miserable, trapped inside an obsessive, distorted mind.
There is a tremendous range across place and time of individuals who are prone to develop the disease. In modern America, someone who is likely to develop anorexia is demanding of herself, intelligent, attractive, and polite; a mirror image of the female student body at DePauw. Hilde Bruch, a psychiatrist with nearly three decades of experience with treating eating disorders said, “New diseases are rare, and a disease that selectively befalls the young, rich, and beautiful is practically unheard of. But, such a disease is affecting the daughters of well-to-do, educated, and successful families.” Although it is not always women who get anorexia, 90% of anorexics and bulimics are female, where as only 10% are male.
Anorexia can be triggered in high school and college students as a way to gain control over oneself in a stage of life where so much is planned out and demanded of an individual. College is the first time for many people to move away from their parents and to make all of their own decisions. It’s much easier to get away with eating less, skipping meals altogether, and even to seek out friends who are anorexic. In college, there is also higher social pressure to be skinny, there is more academic stress, and a complete change in environment that could cause one to seek their own form of steadiness.
The obsession goes beyond poor nutrition. On top of consuming a dangerously small amount of calories, anorexics have other obsessive behaviors such as working out excessively, binging, and purging food, along with use of diuretics and laxatives to cope with a distorted body image.
This distorted mind often leaves patients in denial of needing help. If help is needed, anorectics don’t generally bring themselves to ask for it, because they don’t want to be forced to gain weight, they fear becoming fat. Anorexia is a psychological problem that can start in the early years and grow more problematic through life; therefore it is not treated quickly.
By no means is anorexia the glamorous disease that the tremendously skinny models in the media make it out to be. It is a life threatening disease that all too often goes undetected and uncared for. This generation is growing up thinking that photo shopped models are the ideal physique. In order to move forward and begin to fix this epidemic, media outlets need to place a stronger emphasis on athletes and real women, rather than models. Girls everywhere are unable to escape this kind of image, plaguing their thought process during every waking moment.
Last semester, DePauw aired the documentary Missrepresentation. The film explored how the media misrepresents women and how much the media influences women. Anorexia can be fought, but it will take a great deal of change in the media’s portrayal of unhealthy levels of skinny. On DePauw’s campus, students struggling with an eating disorder can anonymously visit with a councilor on staff and attend eating disorder educational programs.
Sources:
· Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988. Print.
· http://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/anorexia/college-university-students
· http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027273580100112X
· http://www.byui.edu/counseling-center/self-help/eating-disorders
· http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/statistics.htm
· http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/treatment-for-anorexia/all/1/