Eating Disorders: More common than we think

Eating disorders are becoming more common in today?s society. What is it like inside a head of a girl with an eating disorder and what makes this illness so frequent? While doing research for this article a fifteen year old girl approached me and told the story of a girl who had bulimia. She asked me if I was interested in writing about her. We will call this girl Mary. Mary then admitted that the girl was herself but she found it easier to talk about it in the third person. Mary, like many other girls, has developed bulimia. ?It started with a burp that came out all wrong (as a vomit). Mary discovered she could make herself vomit on command. Since then she started using it to assist with dieting. ?Now it is a habit and I feel heavy, bloated and disappointed with myself if I don?t do it.? Mary uses bulimia as a way of ?dealing? with her weight and, unlike a lot of other people, Mary can?t push the fact that her body is not the way she would like it to be, out of her head. She sees herself as overweight despite her very slender figure. ?Having a boyfriend and thinking that he is looking at you in that way doesn?t make it any easier,? says Mary. ?It is my problem and I?m the one having to deal with it as I think my boyfriend is scared to think about it let alone help.? Mary doesn?t like the feeling of having food in her stomach. ?If I have a meal, I feel big.? One night Mary indulged in a chocolate bar and the next day she didn?t eat at all. ? I don?t eat at all at school and if I do I sometimes throw it up when I get home. I eat minimally. I eat not nearly as much as other people.? Mary lost three kgs that week. She sees that telling someone about her problem is the first big step. Her problem is a control issue. Her weight is the only thing she feels she can control. Bulimia is a disease, its victims become obsessed with weight gain, it is not an attention seeking activity and severe cases can be fatal. The worst part of this disease is that girls with eating disorders are experts at hiding their illness from everybody. Mary like other girls with bulima or anorexia doesn?t like to worry other people with her problem. What is to blame for this dangerous obsession? Part of the reason is the hundreds of images everyday of skinny models in the media pushed in our faces portraying what the fashion industry deems as beautiful. Women?s magazines are one of the worst culprits according to Mary who ?hates looking in Cosmopolitan magazines and seeing girls who are considered beautiful. It makes me feel hideous.? Everyone needs to be happy with who they are and what they are, ? I know this but consider myself an exception to the rule.? Mary is improving with her illness. She is increasing the amount of food that she eats. She has to do this slowly because her stomach has become used to holding only small amounts of food at a time. It is just one example of a sad and possibly fatal illness that becomes part of our society, one that occurs in dangerously large numbers. -- Josephine Knowles