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It drives me nuts when people simplify it so much: eating disorders are about (insert, control, body image, self esteem) whichever.
Its not that simple. It is not. It is like saying a cold is about a runny nose. Great that may be a part of it, a superficial part of it, but at most a part of it- a symptom of the issue.
As someone who has spend countless hours in therapy dealing with an eating disorder- it is not about that. It goes much deeper than that- in most cases.
My eating disorder was a way of protecting myself a way of guarding myself from being hurt, from being vulnerable, from needing anyone, from trusting anyone lest I get hurt. It was about me being perfect. It became about feeling fat and overweight- but it did not start that way (in several studies men were given limited amounts of calories and they began to start obsessing about their weight and food, which suggests the response to starvation of that sort is more biological and not necessarily related to the eating disorder itself).
It irritates me to to end when people go on and on about the horrors of advertisements on girls self image or how awful Barbies are. I played with Barbies, I never wanted to look like one, it is a doll. Ads, certainly do not help, but it is kind of ridiculous to blame eating disorders and poor self esteem on ads. Poor self esteem comes from much more than advertisement exposure.
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2 comments:
I followed this from SITS.
I've never been diagnosed with an eating disorder, but I've suffered from disordered eating over the years. And it's never about: "Oh I just want to look like that model." It's always about control for me. I start wanting to control something I eat and then that morphs into other faucets of my life. It's not a simple spectrum of illnesses at all.
Hugs to you, I am sorry that you have to deal with that.
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