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OBSESSED The Debate on Eating Disorders in America Many people in today’s society suffer from a phobia. Some are afraid of heights, of spiders, of the monsters under the bed. Some are afraid of blood, of dying, and some of ... fat. The fear of being overweight is slowly consuming American society, with girls, boys, women and men of all ages resorting to extreme measures to achieve their image of body perfection. Conservative estimates indicate that after puberty, 5-10 million girls and women and one million boys and men in the U.S. struggle with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Those suffering from anorexia willingly starve themselves in an attempt to control their weight, a number already only 85% of what it should be. Bulimics maintain a normal body weight, but go through repeated cycles of binge-eating and purging, consuming large amounts of food and vomiting, using laxatives, or exercise excessively to counteract what they ate. These disorders are not only hazardous to ones health, but can also be fatal: 50,000 sufferers will die as a direct result of their illness. The severity and increasing prevalence of these physical and behavioral deviations has sparked national debates and discussions of psychological, sociological, and biological causal theories of these deadly disorders. While some arguments focus on one factor primarily, most argue that a combination of factors contribute to the existence of eating disorders in America. The main focus of discussion is the role of the images in the media, fueled by a culture obsessed with thinness. Supermodels and actresses set our nation’s ideal for beauty, yet they weigh less than 98% of the females in this country and continue to maintain sickly proportions. [Dr. Patricia] Owen and graduate student Erika Lauren compiled 500 models’ statistics from the Web sites of modeling agencies and collected measurements of Playboy centerfolds from 1985 to 1997. They calculated the BMIs [Body Mass Indexes] of both groups. The result? One-quarter of each group met the American Psychological Association’s weight criteria for anorexia nervosa -- a BMI of 17.5 or below. If these models are exemplars of beauty, then the measure for women is that to be beautiful, starvation-level thinness is required. (Creager, 1998) American society idolizes these individuals which in turn sets the norm for beauty. Those with anorexia and bulimia are essentially viewed as deviant conformists, accepting and embracing the American goal of being thin but achieving it through non-conformist and extreme means.
Approximate Word count = 1537
Approximate Pages = 6.1
(250 words per page double spaced)
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