Page 2 of comments on Anorexia is Not a Disease
by John Sammon
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This kind of article is dangerous, given that some stupid little girls could read it, and think that "going on an anorexic diet" is a good idea. At the very least they could cause themselves vitamin deficiencies or whatnot, and, maybe, even develop "real" anorexia, which has the highest mortality rate among mental illnesses.Individuals with anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorders, abuse and trauma induced stress are far more likely to develop an eating disorder.Be careful when comparing girls who crash diet to lose weight, to people with body dimorphia and serious eating disorders. Anyone with an eating disorder can tell you that the food restriction is only a symptom, and eating disorders have deeper roots than "dieting".
Well I have been through anorexia and am still struggling with it. I did not make the choice to have it but it is a hereditary disorder. It kills me to see people who believe the only reason people develop this illness is to achieve the thinness portrayed by the media as "correct" or "beautiful". As a college student I am currently writing a research paper on Anorexia and came across this article, and I would like to say as an informed researcher and surviver of the disease, that this article could not be more wrong. Sure, some women may starve themselves to death to try to look like a model, that is not Anorexia, that is selfishness. Anorexia however is similar to cutting or other self mutilation, the sufferer usually has death as their final goal. If not death then they are punishing themselves, whether they feel extreme guilt from eating or are dealing with past trauma. I don't want to get to emotional, or spill out all my research, but I would like to comment on this misinformed article. I agree that women who starve themselves to look like models are not in the right, but actual Anorexia sufferers cannot help their ways.
The term "disease" can also be defined as "An abnormal condition of the body or mind that causes discomfort or dysfunction". To also contradict what you say, scientists feel they have found a correlation between those suffering eating disorders and their levels of antibodies, which would make it a disease in the definition you used. Though nobody can say the media doesn't make the eating disorder issue any worse, there are also other psychological and hereditary factors to the disease. On another note, there is a difference between a pubescent teenager who crash diets in hopes to look like a typical runway model and someone who truly has an eating disorder. Shocking, I know.
Anorexia is a mental disease so it is a disease because most don't do it to look like their favourite model they do it to make themselves happy, to get control in their life (because eating is their only way of control) and to make themselves apart from the trauma of their life.
I kind of agree, but I haven't done enough research on anorexia to completely agree with you. However, I can agree that you have the right to write these articles and some people need to take a chill-pill and get over it!If you don't like the stuff he writes than you don't have to read it!p.s. sorry to hear about the cancer... I'm not religious so I can't pray for you, but I wish you the best of luck!
The people who write on pro anorexia websites are not representative of everyone who has suffered with anorexia. I was anorexic myself, but I did not want to 'look like a fashion model', I hated my body partly as a result of previous trauma and wanted to purify it, free it from fat, which was representative of any badness. Not surprising given the way the diet industry and my family were about weight and eating 'bad stuff'. My family supported my 'diet' at first, which is all it started out as, and I lost far too much weight by rigidly following certain rules. I was horrified to find out how thin I was, but I still couldn't stop, the food and any pinchable flesh represented badness, and in that sense it is a psychological disorder, because I did not want to be as thin as a i was, but I daren't eat normally, because of what certain food had come to symbolise- evil. I was partly suffering a mental illness and partly suffering from an excess of gross misinformation about the human body, what it is and what it needs to be healthy, many women believe that the body does not need any food at all, and are ignorant of the hundres of things it needs it for. I was one of them, but thank god I am not any more.I did not make the choice to have anorexia. I did not know I had it, or what I weighed until the doctor told me. There are some anorexics who think they are beautiful as anorexics, but most of them don't. It's rarely about looks, but the media would have people like you believe it is. And other than in the media, or for some celebrities anorexics rarely get any sympathy or pity, in fact they often get much worse vitriol aimed at them than expressed here. Sometimes they are even physically abused as a result of the frustration felt by those around them who think it is a simple problem of someone being bratty and refusing to eat beacuse they think they are not pretty enough, and don't realise that if they eat an anoreixc person thinks they have commited the ultimate sin, even if they don't think that of other people eating.It is difficult to understand something so completely illogical- like a shizophrenic delusion, so people make up simple theories that have scapegoats, because that is easier and less disturbing to deal with.Hi I hope you read this, I thank god you aren't anymore, WELL DONE!!! Sorry if that seems patronising but I know how flaming hard ED's are to shift
I agree with the premise of this article. I know somebody who wouldn't have a life if it weren't for her eating disorder. It gives her a social group and something to talk about. It is really, really boring. I completely agree that a disease is something you have no control over. Everybody has the control over whether they open their mouths and eat. I also doubt that there are any eating disorders in concentration camps. Not only do I see eating disorders as a problem of the self-centered, but also a problem of the rich. These people need to get over themselves.
so no mental disorder is a disease? and the doctors are all wrong and you are right? is bi-polar a disease? is having s borderline personality a disease? i happen to have all three of these things (an eating disorder, bi-polar, and borderline) and more then one doctor has told me its a disease... and i certainly did NOT choose any of them... i dont live like this because i like it, or because i WANT to
Let me explain to you what anorexia is like (because I have it). Imagine you have a mean girl that follows you EVERYWHERE and calls you a fatty, and a weakling (or atleast that's what I hear) ALL THE TIME. 24/7 you are called fat and worthless and told that noone will ever love you unless you're thin. Don't you think eventually you would be desperate to lose weight and have self confidence and not be suicidal? That's how we feel. Yes, it's our choice to starve. But if we don't starve, we'll probably get fed up with all the mental destruction and commit suicide. Do you think that's better? Honestly? I read this article and felt extremly hurt. Do you think I want some bitch in my head telling me all this crap? Anorexia is a mental disease. The organ it affects in the brain. Hope you have fun making girls who already want to die feel worse. Quick question. How do you sleep at night?
Maybe not a physical disease, but it's been proven to be a mental one.
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