It’s the hushed whispers in the floor bathroom after a girl walks out. It’s skipping meals and doubling up on gym time. It’s body-bashing other people’s and your own body with your friends. It’s losing friends and alienating people. It’s taking a risk with your health. It’s keeping quiet. It’s keeping you from living your life to the fullest. It’s time to talk about it!
But about what exactly? Eating disorders. Yep, it’s time to talk about them, girls. That’s the slogan for the National Eating Disorders Association’s (NEDA’s)
The goal of NEDAW is “to ultimately prevent eating disorders and body image issues while reducing the stigma surrounding eating disorders and improving access to treatment. Eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses — not choices — and it’s important to recognize the pressures, attitudes and behaviors that shape the disorder.”
And that’s what we will be doing in February 2012! We’ll be covering the basics: what eating disorders look like, how to help a friend in need, disordered eating and losing weight the healthy way. We want to bring this difficult and serious issue to the forefront and help our friends in need.
So what do eating disorders look like? Well, just like people, they come in all shapes and sizes. Signs of eating disorders are far more varied than most people think. Sure, looking emaciated might be a tip-off that something is wrong, but there are so many more things to be aware of.
Each eating disorder, has it’s own set of signs and symptoms. Of course, many of these overlap.
If you find you or a friend exhibiting any of the behaviors below, please seek help from someone you trust. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, and “a study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover.” Scary stuff.
