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thinhomeimageJennifer De Jesus is a student in the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter and an avid movie watcher. She is also an employee of the Health Professions Education Center, which has one of the largest collection of health films in the New York City area.

Brought to us by NOVA, this film, Dying to Be Thin,  explores the gravity of two eating disorders, bulimia and anorexia, which have reached epidemic levels in America. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, twenty-four million people suffer with an eating disorder. Through multiple personal accounts, this film emphasizes that anorexia and bulimia afflict both women and men; as well as the dire health consequences on the human body.

The first story the viewer encounters is about a sixteen year old named Randy Meyers, an athlete who died of anorexia. Randy’s story is just one out of many boys, athletes in particular, pressured to fit into certain weight classes or body types. Then there is the story of twins, Kate and Andy, which would ritualize vomiting during their college years. Lastly, there is the story of Rene, a flight attendant, who became anorexic because of the derision of her coworkers and passengers. Fortunately for Rene, she researched potential health hazards—damage to the heart, erosion of teeth and gums, kidney problems, intestinal ulcers, insomnia, memory loss—and got help.

One of the important points of this film is that anorexia or bulimia is not always related to food or body image. Some anorexics and bulimics acquire eating disorders because of a traumatic childhood: sexual and physical abuse, living with an alcoholic parent, or an excessively controlling parent. Because of this upbringing, anorexics/bulimics gain control of their lives, by starving, binging or vomiting. Then there are other bulimics/anorexics which have Body Dysmorphic Disorder, a psychological disorder in which the affected person is excessively concerned about a perceived defect in his or her physical features.

Body Dsymorphic Disorder is constantly being reinforced by the $59.7 billion diet industry. It is this very same industry that profits every time an anorexic, like Andy, consumes 25 diet pills a day, drinks 3 to 4 hunger suppressant drinks a day, or constantly buys the latest exercise equipment. But the diet industry is not the only one to blame, after all it exists because of a high demand, the media also plays a tremendous role in shaping ideas of beauty. This can be seen throughout history, as different traits fell in and out of fashion: excessively pale skin of the Elizabethan era to the slender flapper of the 1920s to the voluptuous, (size 12) Marilyn Monroe. This “beauty pressure” not only applies to women, whom currently strive for a thin waist and a large bust, but also to men, who strive to be tall and muscular. Even worse is the fact that this pressure is spreading outside the US, and through the Western media influences other countries. Brazil, for example, was a country proud of curvier women, but recently this pride has disappeared and Brazil now consumes the most diet pills in the world.

Thankfully there is now a backlash to standard ideas of beauty in the mainstream media. In 2006, after the death of four models, underweight models were banned from the Madrid’s Fashion Week; an attempt to portray healthy images in fashion. Another popular campaign is Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. Through videos and commercials, Dove is attempting to change what people view as beautiful. Their first commercial, “Evolution”, focuses on the way Photoshop is used to create advertisement, distorting the image of real achievable beauty. Their other video “Onslaught” portrays a young girl bombarded with images of women in the media, and ends with the message “talk to your daughter, before the media does”. With a changing perception of the range beauty can be, one can only hope that a more accepting culture of beauty will decrease the pressure to be thin, leading many into bulimia and anorexia.

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Jennifer De Jesus is a student in

HealthCetera

ralph_lauren_model_i_was_fired_for_being_too_fatFebruary 20th-26th is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.  Eating disorders are a sensitive topic, making it too easily and too often skipped in conversations about health and wellness.  Overlooked are discussions with young about body image, among whom this crisis runs rampant.  The media still swoons, after many years, over the “perfect” size 0 body.  So I’d like to ask: Where are the role models for young women?  Why is this destructive media attention to unattainable thinness allowed to continue when there are 10 million females and 1 million males suffering from disordered eating in the United States—an illness related to the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder?

As a nurse and a nurse practitioner student, it has become my role as a provider to intervene when I see a child nearing the clinical label of “overweight”.  I must speak to the family about healthy food choices and exercise, but is a fine line I walk when approaching my patients and their families.  I think, “Could I create an eating disorder in this young person?  How can I best be sensitive to their needs?”  Similarly, when I see a young girl, painfully underweight with little self-confidence, how can I also approach her with the same sensitivity?  How can I effectively battle the images young people are assaulted with daily in movies, TV, and magazines in the exam room?

From my own experience as a Division I collegiate cross country and track and field athlete, I know the physical and emotional toll body image issues took on my teammates and myself.  The secrecy of this unspoken “thing” was apparent in our nightly rituals, as we distance runners sat in the dining hall together, after two or more hours of grueling practice, eating little and comparing meal choices, silently, to those of our teammates.  We had severely low BMIs and most of us no longer got our period–both indications of malnutrition and unhealthy bodyweight.

I know we weren’t the only ones coping.  I watched female gymnasts, field hockey and basketball players, as well as my friends in the dorm struggle, too.  But where were our coaches, health care providers and teachers?  Where were our positive role models?  No one talked about it.  Through our misery, we continually received reinforcement that our emaciated bodies were “beautiful” and “healthy” via images of the professional athletes we aspired to be like, and through media portrayal of the “ideal” woman.  So, the bones we were seeing in the mirror were beautiful?

Women in college are not the only ones at risk.   In 2009, Ralph Lauren made national news for firing a size 4 model for being “too fat” after they had severely altered her image in their campaign (see above).  This is where the National Organization for Women and the National Eating Disorders Association come in with their “Let’s Talk about it Campaign”.  Visitors to the site are encouraged to speak out against media representation of unrealistic bodies bombarding the eyes and minds of us all.  On the website, you can share your story and feelings or be inspired by videos of others who have struggled with their own self-image and come out stronger on the other side.

Do you have your own story of a struggle with body image?

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February 20th-26th is National Eating Disorders Awareness