This week marks the National Eating Disorder Associations’ annual week of awareness.
For way too long I’ve felt like I’ve been beating a dead horse when it comes to this conversation. There are so many misconceptions when it comes to understanding what an eating disorder actually is. Based on television shows we’ve seen growing up such as Lizzie McGuire or Full House; it’s when a character gets body-conscious one day, decides to stop eating, realizes their mistake and is led back to health in less than a week all within one episode. However, this portrayal is highly false and could be a huge insinuative as to why so many people don’t recognize what having an eating disorder actually entails.
From different things I’ve read to people I’ve seen or overheard, the stigma is experienced frequently in our daily lives. People will skip dinner and jokingly refer to themselves as “anorexic,” or worse. People will see someone very skinny and jokingly call them “anorexic.”
There’s also the classic response of “if you’re anorexic, why don’t you just eat?” which is the mental illness equivalent of telling someone with two broken arms to hold a 200-pound box – to put it simply, it’s easier said than done.
What people don’t understand is that eating disorders aren’t terms for being very skinny – they are a severe mental disease where you lose control of everything. It’s not just about losing weight, it’s about finding every possible flaw in yourself and the overwhelming need to fix it. It’s about being so plagued by vicious thoughts of who you are that it feels like someone else has complete control over you. It’s about the anxiety you have about every single thing that goes into your body and punishing yourself for it later. Eating disorders will make you lose more than just weight; you lose your livelihood, every ounce of energy, your ability to focus, and control over everything you do and think.
This is why anorexia is the deadliest mental illness. Statistics show that it kills 23 people in the United States alone per day. Approximately 10 million females and 1 million males in the United States currently have an eating disorder and only one third of individuals struggling with an eating disorder actually receive treatment.
There is also the common belief that eating disorders, such as anorexia, can be used as a weight loss technique. Now I’ve heard these statements SO many times: the “I’m just going to starve myself before I have to wear a bikini this weekend,” or the “I ate so much food I wish I could just throw it all up,” and even the “Might as well just become anorexic until I drop 5-10 pounds.” Statements like these are so common, people don’t even realize the harmful effects and negative impact it could have on those around them. In relation to this, there is also the common rebuttal of “I could never be strong enough to be anorexic, I’d get too hungry and give up,” which is probably the WORST assumption you could ever make about a disease so serious and so crippling – to suggest that it takes strength to acquire.
Even Megan Trainor jumped on this bandwagon:
(Now let me just say that it is those who are able to battle and overcome this disease who are truly the strong ones)
Those who suffer from anorexia do not choose to do this to themselves. They do not make the daily conscious decision to maintain this disease. It is essentially a trap in which, even if you are completely aware of the harm of what you’re doing to your mind and body, it is impossible to put an immediate end to it. The scariest part is that a majority of people don’t even realize just how unhealthy of a state they are in. It is also nearly impossible to ever put a complete “stop” to an eating disorder because there is no “cure.” Instead, you learn how to control it rather than have it control you. Some people have it more seriously than others and some people are able to combat it more quickly than others. This disease takes no mercy.
I remember being in high school and getting these vague “eating disorder talks” in my health classes and thinking to myself “no way that could EVER happen to me, I love food too much.” Back then I could throw back an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream without even second guessing myself and still have room for more. But nevertheless, (long story very short) I ended up becoming a victim of probably the most excruciatingly painful disease I could ever imagine enduring – both mentally and physically. I learned the ugly truth about eating disorders the hard way and I had no idea of how bad it was until I was 30 pounds under what was considered the minimum “healthy weight.”
My hair became frail and fell out. My cheeks were completely sunken in and purple bags formed permanently under my eyes. It hurt me to sit or even sleep because my un-cushioned bones just piled on top of each other causing me to wake up with bruises. I had no energy whatsoever – even when I got 10 hours of sleep per night! I would still wake up the next morning drained of life. People looked at me as if I was an alien and for the longest time I thought that I was fine because I was finally skinny, but I was so wrong. I was nothing but bones protruding out of every inch of fragile skin and I was unhappier than I have ever been in my entire life.
I was anorexic.
It was from this experience I learned the most important lesson: a number will never determine your value. Your weight does not define your worth and changing your appearance will not give you instant gratification with who you are as a person.
So I write this today to say it once more for the people in the back – end the stigma. Eating disorders (and all other mental illnesses) are not a joke or an adjective or a diet method. This is not an issue to be taken lightly. Eating disorders, like all mental illnesses, are not going to go away unless we start talking about it. There should be no shame in seeking help because it can save a life. Let’s start really educating on this subject so people can stop being ashamed of or hiding behind their disease and start their road to recovery – because it is possible. Or even better, let’s start a society where people can openly love their bodies no matter what shape or size they may be because beauty has no measurements.