Treating Eating Disorder - Essay Example

English March 29, Topic: My own personal opinion essay on eating disorder Introduction I wantto begin this essay with two popular wise sayings. The first is: “Right things needs to be done at the right time”. The second, as Bernard Shaw said, “Your food is your grave”. I am 23 years old and I have realized that sickness sells at premium and health is at discount. I have seen some of my friends suffer from eating disorders and bouts of depression. They neglect their studies, physically and mentally abuse themselves. I am convinced by observing the real-life examples of my friends that modern education system is one of the important agents to cause eating disorders amongst the combustible younger generation. Eat junk food and other types of fast foods at the wrong time. Eat without time consideration, whether you are hungry or not. On the other extreme, do not eat at all and starve with the sole idea to turn slim. Treat this as an invitation to the eating disorder. The youngsters and adolescent girls have lost the sense of discipline in food intake and have no diet-discipline. The influence of materialistic civilization on the youth is tremendous. The eating disorder impacts their personality and once into it, they will have a tough time to recoup the original health and become normal selves again. Newspaper, television and glamorous advertisements convey the wrong message to the adolescent girls that their bodies are imperfect and perfection can be attained with the help of fasting, diet and cosmetics. They render immense disservice to the culture of America with interference in the normal life of girls. Surgery and diet control measures are offered at fabulous prices with promise of reducing weight in short periods. Girls are lured into it, accept it without being aware of the side effects and suffer in the long run. These are some of the important causes for eating disorder, according to me. Eating disorder can be challenged and overcome. If you are a student, listen to the real life experience of the seniors, read literature that gives positive direction to conquer eating disorder and give your body the food it needs, neither less or more. Make a timetable, calorie-wise schedule of the food items that you are going to take and stick to it. My female cousin who stays in the same community at a distance of about a mile from my house has gone through this ordeal of eating disorder. Both families have close interaction, and we all meet quite often in social/family functions. The problem with the combustible younger generation, especially the adolescent girls, is that they are not willing to listen to the first-hand experiences of others. When she began to lose weight, I enquired of her what the issue was. Slimming was her only goal then and she was not inclined to adopt some golden rules of healthy lifestyle. I counseled for hours against her voluntary efforts to destroy her health, but she said that she enjoyed suffering but wished to get slimmer. This is the story of my stubborn cousin. She is an ardent devotee of the cult of thinness that has influenced the turbulent mindset of the young girls. I say turbulent, because even a marginal increase in the body weight increases their tension. She is younger of the two daughters and they are a happy family. Somebody in the party told her, “You have put on weight,” and that is the beginning of her journey of worry… I went on a posting to another city, and though I remained in contact with her over the phone, for a personal interaction with her I had to wait for about two years. When I returned back to the city, she expressed her eagerness to meet me urgently and she had a wealth of information to share with me about her sufferings for the last two years. “I am feeling much better now,” she said with a sigh. Here is her part of the story: “On listening to that one pound increase remark in the party two years ago, I really panicked. I came home and checked my weight, and the increase was two pounds. That night I forfeited my dinner. Till late night, I was on the Net, going through the options before me to check the onslaught of my body on my personality. At the college, my friends had begun to taunt me. On the basis of information available on the Net I had already begun to diet and exercise and checked my weight daily. Under no circumstances I would be fat, but the body would not submit to my request. I began to suppress all my emotions and feelings in other areas, and skipping food was my sole concern, much to the chagrin of my mom. I lost weight, the body was not getting the bare minimum that was needed for its functioning, and I suffered bouts of depression and weakness. I had no stamina to take part in the sports activities of the college, and my mom fixed up an appointment with the doctor without informing me in advance. My bones began to show where abundant flesh existed about a couple of months ago and the doctor failed to find the cause of my plummeting weight. He prescribed many tests, the results of which were negative. I was losing weight on purpose and suffered from Anorexia Nervosa. In between I had an attack of viral fever and had to be hospitalized for 4 days and in the process of recovery I lost another 6 pounds. I was boundlessly happy but showed lots of anxiety to my visiting friends and relatives. I had no will to study and lost the power of my concentration and felt very week, but I was determined to curtail my food intake. I must remain slim and trim. By the time I returned from the college in the evening I was not only tired, but exhausted. My starving schedule continued for about one year and apart from my bony structure that disgusted me, I could not cheat myself on eating habit anymore and I began eating like any adolescent girl. But once I began, the taste buds took revenge on me for the punishment that I inflicted on them, and I began to eat like a glutton. Soon I was in the grip of Bulimia Nervosa. During the annual vacations, our college authorities had arranged a study cum pleasure excursion for forty-five days, and in that period my eating disorder went out of control. Being away from the watchful and caring eyes of my parents for the first time for such a long period, and due to the pressure of my friends, I began to drink alcohol and experienced my first bouts of depression. My conscience bothered me for my family members did not like these sorts of developments with me. I left the University and active interactions with the fellow students ceased. I joined music class and there I got acquainted with one of the finest gentlemen I had never met. He was an authority on the subject of health. Without hiding any information, I shared with him everything about me and he literally brought me back from the precipice. His positive example and advice provided me with new directions. He gave me the diet-chart, doses of spirituality and kindled my inner world. I faced the fact that the truth was scary, but he made it look so simple for me by relentless encouragement. The layers of eating disorder began to peel off one by one. He often made me cry with his positive talks and told me that at my state of health crying is a good weapon that will attack my suppressed feelings. It is a balm that will heal negativities, he told me”. I listen to this story with rapt attention. My cousin is normal now. Describing the behaviour of a girl in similar plight, Rachel Brant Waugh writes, “I ate alone, making myself small portions of food in the kitchen….When anyone mentioned my unusual eating patterns, I retaliated with hostility. As time went on, my weight fell rapidly and the situation became out of control” (Brant-Waugh 1999). My cousin must have gone through all these phases during the period of her suffering. Conclusion My sincere advice to those suffering from eating disorder is, this is more of a psychological problem that will pave way for physical ailments in due course. Therefore, choose to recover and decide to cope up with temporary hurdles on the way to recovery. Accept imperfections and work hard on them and you will develop inner strength to fight the eating disorder. Works Cited Brant-Waugh, Rachel. Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence. Routledge, 2nd edition, 1 Nov. 1999. Print. Read More