Common Problem Among Teenage Girls Eating Disorders example essay topic

Picture the world controlled by the media. Could you imagine how ugly, scarce, and hateful it would be. What would you do if a magazine or a television show told you that your body weight had to be twenty pounds lighter to be all most perfect? Would you actually consider the fact or let ignore it? Teens, mainly girls, will be sucked into these magazines.

(National Eating Disorders Info Centre 15) These could be magazines like Seventeen and Cosmo Girl. In addition with many others of course. All though, the media is a bad example at times it is not precisely the main issue for negative body image. (National Eating Disorders Association 1) All though, these constant screaming messages the media produces can progress to something more serious. (National Eating Disorders Association 1) More serious as in an eating disorder. What you are about to encounter and learn may one day save a family member's life, a friend's life, or perhaps even your own.

Hopefully you will never come across what is called an eating disorder. Present are many eating disorders. Some of which include: anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, and purging. Eating disorders can be very dangerous. On occasion they can even lead to death. There are ten million females and one million males that fight a life or death battle with an eating disorder.

(National Eating Disorders Association 9) Exactly twenty-five million more struggle with Binge Eating without realizing. (National Eating Disorders Association 9) researchers attacking this puzzling illness are scattered across the country. With only few medical articles and conferences on these disorders there are not many opportunities to pursue the cures. (Cauwels 18) Further more, only a vast amount of research has been done on the subject of eating disorders.

However, for some reason to believe, experts suspect that problems with the hypothalamus gland or other parts of the body's hormone system may increase a person's chances of having an eating disorder. (Eranger 29) Eating patterns can be triggered by anxiety and / or stress. (Maloney 29) Emotional problems are the main concerns. Many eating disorders have been proven to emerge during adolescence and often serve to more serious problems. Some teen girls will suffer with anorexia. They will starve themselves down to the point where they are skeletal thinness.

Yet, after doing so, they still think they are over weight. Each year millions in the united states are affected from the media with anorexia. Still, the vast majority are adolescents and young adults. Approximately one percent of adolescent girls develop anorexia, and dangerous conditions where they will literally starve themselves to death. (National Eating Disorders Info Centre 1) Warning signs of anorexia include the following: dramatic weight loss, refusal of eating certain foods, frequent comments about being or feeling fat, denial of hunger, constant excuses to avoid meal time, and withdrawal from usual friends or activities. (National Eating Disorders Association 2) With bulimia a person will binge food and then force themselves to vomit.

They also use laxatives to get the food out of their systems. Between eighty and ninety-five percent of bulimics are women. (Cauwels 3) Bulimic can grow to a point where it takes complete control of life. Bulimia is frequently associated with a typical depression. (CQ Researcher 869) In example, a typical depression can be concluded from the environments a person lives, works, or attends school at. Bulimic behavior ranges from occasional overeating at parties to consuming fifty thousand calories and vomiting twenty times a day.

(Cauwels 3) Warning signs for bulimia include the following: evidence of binge eating, evidence of purging behaviors, excessive exercise, unusual swelling of the cheeks and jaw area, stained teeth, and withdrawal of friends or activities. (National Eating Disorders Association 2) Two to three percent develop patterns of excessive over eating followed by vomiting or other "purging" behaviors to control weight. In addition, as a result of bulimia, a person's salivary glands will become swollen. This is caused by gorging and vomiting. Warning signs fro binge eating include the following: frequent episodes of eating large quantities of food in short period of time, felling out of control over eating behavior, feeling ashamed or disgusted by the behavioral indicators of "BED" included eating when not hungry and eating in secret.

(National Eating Disorders Association 2) when purging the metabolic rate may decrease to the point where the "purger" is chronically lethargic. (Baskino 137) Chronically lethargic is a state of mind where in time will foster pessimism and inactivity. Common precursors to a major problem. (Baskino 137) An eating disorder is a lonely and confusing experience. Also, those who have an eating disorder can feel isolated, rejected, and defeated.

(Baskino 31) Often teenage girls go through a stage to lose weight fast. This is brought on by lack of attention or a need of acceptance. (National Eating Disorders Info Centre 1) These girls do not understand the dangers that follow. Without acknowledgement of those dangers. Teens often think losing weight is great. They comprehend it being a quick fix to all of their problems.

However, exploring the development of eating disorders in adolescent girls show that the disorders are closely connected to the biological and psychological changes that occur during the adolescent period. (National Eating Disorders Info Centre 3) Often, when a female's dieting habits change, her menstruating cycle stops. Sometimes the emotional and hormonal factors contribute to this. (Eranger 30) Primarily, among this comes more consequences and depressions.

For example, severe stomach pains, headaches, and dizziness. Some women will turn to antidepressants. There were few to admit that they took higher doses than needed. This can cause arrhythmia's along with consecutive heart failure. (Baskino 7) Arrhythmia is irregular of the heart beat.

(World Book Dictionary 114) If you do not have a medical diagnosis of anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, or purging it does not mean you are not disrupted in some way with food or body image. If the problem causes you stress, then you are entitled the support. Healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes. But, somehow the population is fixed on a notion that personal worth is linked to physical appearance. Individuals tend to assume that if their bodies are not thin, they should and can alter their body's shape and size. The body has a metabolic set-point.

The set-point is a reference point at which the body tries to keep weight stable. If you do not try to control your body size, weight stays remarkably stable over time. (National Eating Disorders Info Centre 12) However, if extreme weight loss occurs it will make a slower heart rate. Also, increased sensitivity to the cold, weakness, skin, etc. (Eranger 30) People do not realize that fat synthesis and accumulation is necessary for survival. Stored energy is mainly fat.

Once fat is levels are depleted the depends on sugar. Sugar is stored in the muscles. (Baskino 137) So you will be losing muscle not fat when doing so. It is said that thinness gives women an advantage to the male world because it allows them to mimic the male. Therefore, women become embroiled in the media and body image. In an issue of People, Mary-Kate Olsen gets swallowed by body image.

It all began on her eighteenth birthday. (Tauber 55) The pervasive dissatisfaction with body and self image is directly supported by a beauty and diet industry whose profits in North America reaches forty-five billion annually. (National Eating Disorders Association 16) When you feel good about your self, you carry a sense of confidence, self-acceptance, and openness that makes you beautiful regardless of your physical look. Body image is how you see your self when you look in the mirror or picture yourself in your mind. (National Eating Disorders Association 6) if all people had positive self images and did not listen to the media, then the world would be a happier place to live.

Consequently individuals do not. Hence, the media controls how one thinks of body image. Body Image Do you look in the mirror and pick yourself apart? Do you constantly worry about what you look like? You might be thinking, "Sure, no big deal".

But, the way you look at yourself and how you talk to yourself on a daily basis can have a huge impact on your life. One of the largest influence on teenage girls is the media. The media pushes body image, clothes, and fast food. At the same time they push weight lose with unrealistic results.

The combination of all the above leads teenage girls down the road to eating disorders and a confusing self-image When you are not happy with who you are it is hard to be a good friend and a good student. If your mind is on what you don't like about yourself and your body, then you are ignoring the good things that make you experience life positively, leaving you with a negative view of the world. This outlook affects how you treat other people, how you do in classes, and how you deal with problems on a day to day basis. Just imagine what you are missing when you are spending all of your time thinking about how you look!

There is a common problem among teenage girls eating disorders. Eating disorders refers to seeing your body and food in a negative way. For instance, if you were to eat a piece of chocolate cake, then go to the mirror and tell yourself that you ate more than you should have, you are looking at food in a negative way. Food keeps you alive. Without the right amounts of vitamins and minerals, your body won't work well. Yet many women, especially teenagers, see food as the enemy.

In the process of saying that food is the enemy, the media is saying that fast food is the quick and easy way to eat. Their target audience are teenagers. In essence, teenagers are getting a mixed message. Eating fatty food on the run, look good, and the only way see how to do this is by unrealistic means.

Girls are taught from a young age that the key to success is beauty. The commercial media, for example, pays no attention to girls' minds and life goals. Instead, they show us Naomi Campbell, Nikki Taylor, and other popular models, telling us that this is what you should go for. As the well-known Body Shop slogan says, There are three billion women who don't look like supermodels and only eight who do. Yet millions of women skip meals, skip dessert, and treat food as their enemy just to look like the impossibly thin women on the covers of today's magazine.

Even those who love and support you might be accidentally leading you into hurtful behaviors. When you see a parent or loved one going on strict diets or exercising a lot, you might feel that what they are doing is normal. You might even be encouraged then to diet and exercise as much as they do. While they think they are trying to teach you good habits, they might actually be teaching you to do things that hurt your body. If you look in any nutrition book, you will find something about Recommended Daily Allowances of vitamins and minerals. Now, look at the labels on the food you eat.

Often, when you go on diets, you eat foods that are low in the nutrients you need like calcium and iron. These things keep you energetic and strong. Your body does not work as well without them. While calories might seem bad to a dieter, when you have less calories in your diet, and less nutritious food, you are really taking out one of the things your body needs to store energy.

So what do you do? While it is hard to change your body, it is easier to change your body image. Counseling, for one, is very important. To change the way you see your body, you need to understand why you feel the way you do. Are you just a self-critical person, or does someone you know make you feel bad about yourself? It takes work to look at a model in a magazine and realize that she is p.