The Buckingham

When it comes to eating disorders, a rather under-discussed issue, women are the most likely to suffer from them.  Of course, much of the problem stems from the social standard of what a female body should look like.  Images in the media dictate for many young women how they should look and if they don’t look like that, they should feel ashamed of it.

Struggles with body image though come from a force higher than that.  For young girls, their mothers have a huge impact on what they should look like also.  In a poll of 500 teenage girls, two-thirds heard their mothers complain about their weight but of those two-thirds, 68 percent described their mothers shape and weight as ‘perfectly normal.’

A mother’s self-perception of her body image has a huge influence on her daughter.  That’s not to say that it is the sole cause of eating disorders, but it does have a powerful impact on a young woman’s perception of her own body and how to feel about it.

According to statistics, up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from some sort of eating disorder such as anorexia, bulimia, or bingeing and purging, in the United States alone.  Of all mental illnesses, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate.  The sad truth is that eating disorders often come coupled with other mental illnesses.  Those who suffer from an eating disorder can also fall prey to depression, anxiety, self-injury behavior, among other things.

The pressure of a perfect body image has an effect on all women, including celebrities themselves.  Last year Disney starlet Demi Lovato attended rehab to deal with mental issues that stemmed from her problems with eating disorders.  Suffering from bingeing and purging or sometimes just starving herself altogether, Lovato took to cutting herself and had a breakdown.

The pop singer admitted she began “cutting herself in order to deal with pressure to be ‘perfect.’”  After receiving help and overcoming her inner demons she joined the Jed Foundation in their project “Love is Louder Than the Pressure to Be Perfect” that aims to reach out to young girls like her and prevent them from going down the same path she did.

Now the pressure to be perfect, although highly aimed at women, is not completely a women’s issue.  There are men who suffer from eating disorders and feel the same societal pressures.  There are just less of them reported because of the sentiment that eating disorders are a female illness.

Regardless of who is suffering from an eating disorder everyone deserves help.  There are various resources that come in the form of online help, health clinics, and rehabilitation centers.  One available source is the NEDA.  There are many people out there suffering from these illnesses and the goal of places like NEDA is to show them they are not alone.