I'm reading a book on eating disorders at the moment. It's very interesting. It's not something I personally have much of a concept of. Food isn't that important to me. I like it and I don't like being hungry or being stuffed till I feel like I'm going to be sick.
Anyways, I supose unsurprisingly it's not really about food, or that's not the root of the problem. Similarly to someone with an alcohol problem (for example), rather than the alcohol being "the problem" there is an underlying psychological problem. One victim of an eating disorder in this book describes how she didn't fit in at school, she felt like an outcast. She was searching for a solution and ended up fixating on dieting and loosing weight and that became a serious eating disorder.
A lot of social problems I would think can be attributed at least in part to low self esteem and confidence issues. Eating disorders, domestic violence (which I'm also reading about), substance abuse the list goes on.
Another thing reading about eating disorders has got me thinking about is the pressure we put on individuals in society to look and act in certain ways. Despite the feminist movement and admittedly the great advances equal treatment of the sexes has gone through in the last 50 years, women are still glorified for being beautiful, sexy, skinny, etc. There's surely a bit of a double standard. We say "we need to respect women" but in reality a lot of advertising doesn't demonstrate this. The female figure is used to sell stuff. Surely that's not respecting women for the right reasons?
Are advertising/hollywood/media hype fuelling many people to have unrealistic expectations they can never meet? Does this contribute to low self esteem which enables things like eating disorders?
And if this is the case how does society counter this? Surely socially we should be looking at the bigger problem and promoting self esteem, communication, etc. But how do you do that? I personally think there should be more basic psychology taught at schools. i.e. "this is how boy and girl brains work". Teach kids about eating disorders, substance abuse, etc.
It might work. It's a tough problem though.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I just read this again. Society seems to put pressure on females to look pretty, slim, etc. Eating disorders effect more females than males.
There is also pressure on males to be tough, emotionless, strong, etc. To not communicate their problems, because that's what girls do, not men. This does seem to be slowly changing though. Promoting poor communication is pretty dangerous in my opinion. It's surely a large problem in many domestic violence cases.?
i am living with domestic violence physical and mental. he often hits me but not every attack he does does mean he hits me every time but if he don't i will be threaten called all the names under the sun like s****g im fat ungly probs is i am 32 and in jeans size 13years old around the waist. it does bother me him telling me i fat worthless unfit mother and i drink energy drinks and to rolls a day but then some days i don't eat for about 2 days would you explain to the docotor as he aware that i am in domestic violence but i am to ashammed to speak in death, and have a problem in bottling it
i also think they should make domestic violence in teaching children as they not silly as my 10 year old daughter told the headteacher of her school what was going on so yes i have a sworker and i don't blame her or the headteacher it is my husbands fault noone elses and i know i am not to blame.i wish i wait to police stranght away but they do know now.
Post a Comment