Eating Disorders Going Younger and Younger
In shocking developments over the past ten years or so, patients being seen for eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia are getting younger and younger, sometimes as young as between the ages of 7 and 12 years of age. Sheesh, I can tell you this about myself.
At that age, all I was concerned about were things like when we were going to the next amusement park, when my next trip to the corner store would be to get penny candy, and when my favorite TV show would come on – oh and Saturday morning cartoons, of course!
It’s no wonder with the increasingly younger shift toward “growing up” society and media seems to have on young girls. I mean, have you seen those Bratz dolls that little girls love so much?
Barbie dolls don’t have much on the hoochie gear and heavy makeup and jewlery on those dolls! These are the types of messages we are sending to our young girls. They are learning that sexiness and being thin with big boobs is the ultimate goal in life, and to snag a man with that hot bod, when they should be learning to develop their minds, that is what is truly sexy in women.
The treatment of eating disorders as an eating disorder is also suffering because you almost have to be so severely malnourished that you are more far gone in your battl with anorexia or bulimia.
There are actually definitions that healthcare providers and insurance companies adhere to when they consider whether to cover something that falls under “eating disorder”, and that often times leaves out those that are still of a “healthy” weight, but engage in high risk activities like bingeing and purging all the time (bulimia), taking extreme drugs to suppress hunger, or taking laxatives or water retention pills, both of which can be extremely dangerous and alter your body’s natural abilities to do these things themselves.
Jessica Simpson actually talked to a French model that is so severely anorexic your heart goes out to her when you see how emaciated she is. She is the new poster child for battling anorexia, and she has spoken out about her disease and the pressures she succumbed to to be uber thin and fit in a size zero in the modeling industry.
I can honestly say that aging has liberated me in some ways when it comes to my body image and the constant worry about my weight that used to plague me when I was younger. However, I still battle demons from the past, I just have to remind myself to be grateful to be happy and physically fit. If you are trying to be a body type that’s just not in your genetic makeup, then you’ll just make yourself miserable indefinitely.
