“Ha, look how fat your legs are *Danielle!” her best friend scoffed as she glared at her thighs in volleyball practice. “Fat **s !” her dad would say.
“It’s one thing when you hear some jerk make fun of your body, but its completely different when someone you really care about makes you feel like you’re not good enough,” Danielle said.
“Society puts a lot of pressure on girls,” Rider counselor Mrs. Risner said. “Everybody is trying to be perfect.”
There are many reasons why someone will develop an eating problem, however, common triggers are an over focus on physical appearance as a means of gaining self-esteem, difficulty talking about feelings, peer pressure, and a desire to fit in says UMD Health Services.
“It started in 7th grade,” Danielle said. “I started hearing comments from my best friend Amber and my father about how fat they thought I was, and soon I started to believe them and developed anorexia.”
Anorexia is the third most common chronic illness among adolescents and is characterized by emaciation, a relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy weight, a distortion of body image and intense fear of gaining weight, and extremely disturbed eating behavior along with control issues appear to be central to the eating disorders according to AN AD(Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders) which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention alleviation of eating disorders since 1976.
“When you start to feel that your life’s out of control people usually look for that one thing that they can control such as how much they exercise or eat,” Mrs. Risner said.
“I would go days without eating, I lost about 20 lbs in two months. Soon my mom started noticing the weight loss and started making me eat, then I learned about bulimia and how I could feel full without gaining weight. It was like the best thing. I didn’t want to eat in front of people. The thought of eating disgusted me,” Danielle said.
Bulimia is an illness in which a person binges on food or has regular episodes of overeating and feels a loss of control. The affected person then uses various methods – such as vomiting or laxative abuse – to prevent weight gain according to pubmedhealth.com.
About 50 percent of people who have had anorexia develop bulimia or bulimic patterns says the National Eating Disorders Association. Usually, bulimic behavior is done secretly, because it is often accompanied by feelings of disgust or shame. The binging and purging cycle usually repeats several times a week.
“Soon I didn’t even have to make myself throw up, my body started getting use to the bulimia,” Danielle said. “I was throwing up three to four times a day.”
Similar to anorexia, people with bulimia often have coexisting psychological illnesses, such as depression, anxiety or substance abuse problems,
Danielle was diagnosed with depression when she was 15 and also started to look toward drugs in the second year of her eating disorder to keep from gaining weight.
“People started to notice me when I started getting really skinny; when someone commented that I was to thin it was like they just told me that I was beautiful,” Danielle said. “When I heard people make fun of my body when I was heavier, it made me feel like I wasn’t normal, like something was wrong with me, when really what was wrong was how skinny I had gotten because of those hurtful things that drove me to that point.”
Many physical conditions result from the purging aspect of the illness, including electrolyte imbalances, gastrointestinal problems, and oral and tooth-related problems according to AN AD.
“I started getting really sick,” Danielle said. “My immune system was so weak, and I started realizing that I needed to change or this could really kill me, but I just didn’t know where to start; I started to break down and feel very suicidal.”
20 percent of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems according to AN AD (anorexia nervosa and associated disorders).
“People don’t think of the severe consequences these eating disorders cause,” Mrs. Risner said. “It’s hard to see someone that is so desperate to be perfect and work to have that ‘perfect body’ when it’s not all about what other people think.”
69 percent of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape according to ANAD.
“But I started to gradually get better with some help from friends and family who truly love me and think I am beautiful and perfect the way I am, and I left all the negative people and what they had to say behind me,” Danielle said. “I know that the people that said they loved me then made me feel bad about myself really didn’t love me very much.”
In the United States, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males are fighting a life and death battle with an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia according to the National Eating Disorders Association.
“To get help go to a counselor, tell someone that will help find you treatment. Learning how to be healthy and how to exercise is good, but the main goal is to be healthy, not thin,” Mrs. Risner said. “Be positive about who you are from the inside out and surround yourself with people who let you know you don’t need to change for them or anybody.”
Only 1 in 10 people with eating disorders receive treatment according to Mirasol Eating Disorder Information.
“I think the hardest part now is now that I’m starting to eat and gaining weight, people are starting to make fun of me and say hurtful things and it’s really hard to hear,” Danielle said. “But I’m trying to stay strong and love myself the way I am. My hope is that people start to realize that what they say can have a huge impact on another person’s life.”
*indicates name change