Have you ever looked in the mirror and felt insecure at the woman looking back at you? You’re not alone. 91% of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting; and about 25% of college-aged women engage in binging and purging as a weight-management technique.
Although some people consider eating disorders to be uninteresting, unimportant, or overrated, they have a huge toll on a physical, emotional, and psychological level. Because of body image issues caused by bullying, peer pressure, and media images, eating disorders mostly happen to teens and young adults (95% of those who have eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25), although it’s not rare to come upon an older adult that suffers from an eating disorder, as well.
Since I was a kid, I used to be the chubby kid around school, and that was okay with me. But you know, as soon as you hit puberty, every part of you matters. The length of your hair, your jean size, the way you do your make-up, etc. As a tomboy, I hit this whole “girly” stage pretty late (some would even debate that I still haven’t gone through it, yet), and because of this, when it hit me, it hit me hard. I was around 12, and had lost all the baby weight by doing sports. But it wasn’t until this happened, that boys began to notice me. Add this to the passion of modeling, and you could have a potential time bomb. Boys are usually the least of my worries, but what actually destroyed me was modeling.
Everytime you’re going to model, they take your measurements. You lose one inch, it’s glorious, you gain an inch, it’s the devil’s wrath upon you. And I guess it’s sort of understandable, because designers have a certain “type”. But you’re talking about a girl that, at the age of 12, didn’t comprehend any of this. A girl who did not know how to control anything that was going on around her. If you want to have the “perfect” (please note my sarcasm) mix for chaos: add traumatic events. For a girl (or a boy), traumatic events are a key to hell.
Let me remind you once more: PUBERTY. When you’re a teenager, you think you can do so much more. You think you can control every little thing around you, especially that one little detail that can make or break you: food intake. You get ashamed of the actions you take to lose weight: you over-exercise, you start eating less, and even when you take desperate measures… you NEVER tell anyone. Why? Because you think they’ll judge you. But people start noticing, and that’s not exactly a great feeling. You get comments like: “OMG you look so pretty now.” Really? You’re telling your friend that she was ugly when she had a couple of pounds more? Are you insane?
The saddest part that after the whole “you look so much better!” stage part ends, a new one begins: The moment when people start telling you that you’re too skinny. You can’t control the urges. And you really, really want to… because even you realize it’s getting out of hand. When you get to this point, please tell someone you trust. ANA or MIA (anorexia or bulimia) are not a joke. They are the worst friends you can have, along with your self destructive thoughts. Those are the girls your mom tells you to stay away from, and they won’t leave until you’re gone. There are so many people out there who are going through the same thing, believe me. Usually the person you least expect also has it. There are a lot of pshycologists around, and you really could use their help. Don’t wait until it’s too late. You are worth everything, it doesn’t matter what your weight is, just believe in yourself and you’ll get through it. You have friends who will help you throughout the journey, but it takes your willpower to finally make a stand. You became your worst enemy, but now it’s time to love yourself again.
And please, if you are planning to lose weight, do it for your health, not for anyone else… and obviously in a healthy way. Sometimes you never know when it’s too late.