Anorexia is Not a Disease
Posted: Monday, March 12, 2007
by John Sammon
Sammonsays
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Anorexia Not Disease |
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Anorexia is not a disease.
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Anorexia is not a disease.
All you skinny teenage girls out there. Write it on the blackboard three hundred times. Anorexia is not a disease.
Some of you may know I did some articles on anorexia, starving yourself to achieve thinness, that raised a fire storm of angry responses on my talk line, most from young women. When they weren’t calling me a sonofabitch or an asshole or some other choice names like “lard-ass."
I happen to love my ass. I have a beautiful ass. It’s my best part (you should see me in a jock strap).
When they weren’t name calling, they were always citing the same three protests, that I needed to study anorexia, that I couldn’t understand anorexia, that it was their disease and not mine, and that I didn’t have a right to talk about something that was their thing…not mine.
I fought back, saying I can comment on anything I want, and that I don’t have to study anorexia to know that starving yourself to look like a fashion model on TV is wrong. I also said that the film, TV and magazine industries had made false physical perfection a desirable goal so that young women starve themselves, denying their bodies of the nutrients they need.
The angry comments have gone on for years.
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They’re still saying (check my talk line) it’s a disease. Anorexia is not a disease. Let’s refer to the American Heritage Dictionary. “Disease" is defined as a “condition of an organism that impairs physiological functioning, resulting from causes such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress."
With anorexia, I don’t see any organism. Do you? Where’s the organism? I don’t see any infection. Where’s the infection? I don’t see any genetic defect either. Environmental stress?
I see a teenage girl who looks in Seventeen Magazine, and wants to look like the skinny model in the picture. So, she refuses to eat, and lies to her family that she’s eating, and endangers her health. That must be the “environmental stress."
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If you choose to do it. If it’s choice, it’s not a disease. It’s not like cancer, where a cell goes wrong, or AIDS, where the body’s immune system breaks down. Starving yourself of the food you need is not a disease, but a compulsion.
Don’t shake your bony finger at me and call me a “butt-head."
You need to get real. You also need to eat. The reason you call it a disease is a psychological tactic, to absolve yourself of personal responsibility for your own actions. It makes it a lot easier explaining it away that way rather than say, I’m just a dumb person who is into impairing my health because I have insecurities about the way I look caused by air-brushed magazine pictures of famous models.
I have never once sought to minimize the suffering of these people or the danger to their health posed by their lifestyle choices. Choice is the word. If you choose it (starving), it’s your choice.
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With cancer, a real disease, I can’t make the simple choice not to have it. I have it, and I’ve got it. Get it? Good!
© Copyright 2007 by SammonSays.com
This Article has been viewed 2,635 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
More commentsThe 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.
Anorexia is largely genetic, you might want to do some research
"They’re still saying (check my talk line) it’s a disease. Anorexia is not a disease. Let’s refer to the American Heritage Dictionary. “Disease" is defined as a “condition of an organism that impairs physiological functioning, resulting from causes such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress."
With anorexia, I don’t see any organism. Do you? Where’s the organism? I don’t see any infection. Where’s the infection? I don’t see any genetic defect either. Environmental stress?"
You really must be an idiot. The organism is a person, anorexia can be inherited genetically and is definitely influence by environmental stress. I could keep ripping this appart, but I have neither thetime nor the patience to deal with crap like this. You have the right to express your opinion, but educate yourself or you'll just look stupid.
So you are assuming all people with eating disorders want to look like the girls in the magazines...... you really are a butthead, asshole, whatever @#$%&*ing name you can think of, personally I choose ignorant and uneducated!
PS people in 3rd world countries do develop eating disorders! And in some cultures some people starve themselves to be able to give enough food to their daughters to make them obese so they will marry well, maybe you should do some @#$%&*ing research %&@@*
My opinion is that its the indivual's choice to do an action not someone else's. i did not chose to be mildly autistic. people with this anorexic "disease" need to grasp a sense of reality, also too get their head out of their @ss.HI, maybe it's your autism speaking, but you sound like a real jackass now. What, you think because you're mildly autistic that that is more a disease than anorexia? The reason why you have autism and I have anorexia is of some imbalance or problem in our brain. I didn't ask for my problem any more than you asked for yours. Get off your high horse and educate yourself. You'd think someone else with a mental illness would have some empathy, but of course, there is always one prick in the mix.....
I didn't choose to be anorexic. I don't do it to "look like the fashion models". My disease, yes disease, has stripped my life of everything meaningful. @#$%&* you all. Honestly, your ignorance is disgusting
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