blog #7

There are a few different kinds of eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating. These are all classified as eating disorders but their real problem is a mental illness in which someone has a problem with something else and uses food to feel in control of another aspect of their life. Anorexia is an illness were the person has a horrible fear of gaining weight and restricts food intake or purges almost all food intake so that they do not gain weight. An anorexic person also has a distorted body image or fixates on their appearance excessively (body dysmorphic disorder) and this can cause horrible anxiety. Bulimia is an illness were a person will binge eat and then purge using one or several means, such as vomiting, using diuretics, or using laxatives. A bulimic person usually classifies foods as bad or good food. People with bulimia usually have a healthier body weight than that of anorexic people, but people with bulimia have consequences such as erosion of the esophagus and tooth enamel. Binge eating is a disorder in which a person will eat unusually large amounts of food at an unusually fast pace and will not follow the binge with any kind of purge. A binge eater can gain a large amount of weight in a short period of time.
I think that the fashion, film, media, and diet industry have contributed to our notions of beauty and to the rise in eating disorders by making young people (especially girls) feel inadequate by showing images of the "perfect body" (which has been altered to be this way on a computer) and telling them they should like this, and if not then they can't get any were in life. This would make any one feel like they are not good enough and if they would just change their looks then everything would be just fine. I think for some people a look at the clinical aspect of what eating disorders are could help aid in the prevention and treatment of an eating disorder. I do not think it would work for every person though. I have never thought about the fact that food, appearance preoccupation, and dieting could now be our society's new sacred rituals, but i guess it could be for some people. Everybody has their own little sacred ritual whether it is healthy or not and I do not think we could really rule these out since they have become a huge part of Americans' lives. The capitalist and abundant economic climate has contributed to eating disorders by promoting an unrealistic body image that we all feel we have to live up to just so they can profit on the sale of diet pills and cosmetics. It has also contributed to obesity by putting food advertisements every where and selling highly processed food that is loaded with calories but so convenient for us to get our hands on. Our society has become so centered on appearance that I do not think it could change. First of all the media would have to change completely and stop showing these unrealistic body types (which would mean less profit because sex sells), we would have to stop advertising food (food industries would suffer and we are capitalists so that would not go over well for them), and food industries would need to make healthier food (which would be substantially more expensive). There is a possibility that our society could become reintegrated but I do not see it happening.