Contents
An eating disorder (EDD) is the most common cause of death in girls aged 14-25. Teenagers hate their own body and make a cult out of anorexia. How to accept yourself and keep a figure without harm to health? Eating disorders psychologist and consultant.
«Hello. Weight 46, height 160. I want 40 kg. I can’t go on a hunger strike, they force me to eat at least once a day. What do you advise?»
The usual message on the wall of the thematic public VKontakte, which causes subscribers not anxiety, but respect and a desire to share their experience. These groups number tens of thousands of girls. The titles romanticize the disorder that claims one life every hour in the world.
Anorexia is in third place among chronic diseases in adolescents. Of all psychiatric disorders, eating disorders are the most commonly fatal. At the same time, the statistics of eating disorders are rapidly getting younger. Cases of onset of RPP at the age of six have been reported.
The symptoms of an eating disorder are supported by personality traits such as:
anxiety,
shyness
tendency to doubt
dependence on external evaluations.
What does the voice of sickness sound like?
Dependence on grades makes young people look for approval on social networks, but they also meet a lot of criticism there. Someone himself becomes a commentator-hater.
If the appearance of other people causes rejection, then with a high probability this is the voice of frustration, which you may not even be aware of. People with eating disorders forbid being in any body in the first place to themselves. A distorted view of one’s figure gives rise to rejection of the appearance of other people.
It is common for a person with an eating disorder to look haughtily at overweight people.
The desire to establish oneself at the expense of others is a defensive reaction, behind which is low self-esteem. It turns out that the distorted perception of the body in the social space is brought by unhealthy people.
The problem is aggravated by the fact that excessive harmony by default has become socially approved. It is broadcast in the media and social networks: to be successful, to become a star, to get married, you need to be thin. Girls begin to consider the body even with a small percentage of adipose tissue disgusting.
An axiom is born: no one will accept me and love me like this. When you deny the possibility of loving yourself in a full body, you are killing the freedom to be yourself. You develop tunnel vision: I am healthy and happy only when I am thin.
The female body through the eyes of men
The paradox is that men are much less prone to eating disorders and the voice of the disease does not replace the concepts in their head. They see the body as it is — healthy, feminine and beautiful. When men say that they like feminine curves, they are not lying.
Guys subconsciously choose a partner in the image from childhood. It can be someone like a mother, sister, aunt. When girls pump up their lips, lose weight, transform into identical dolls, they become very far from male ideals. Among the many similar faces and bodies, there is nothing left that can resonate with real images from childhood.
Women, striving to win more attention and love, do everything paradoxically in reverse. They leave no chance for men to fall in love, only the desire to use the body.
The enemy in the mirror or in the smartphone?
A person with an eating disorder often creates idols for himself, and «smart» social networking algorithms are happy to try. Once you get interested in the fitness model page, your feed will be filled with hundreds of posts with perfect bodies. There are so many of them that over time there is a feeling: everyone around is like that. And you are not the only one.
Meanwhile, real life is not built on the principles of targeting, and you can meet completely different people in it. But the focus of teenagers remains on their idols, and this obvious thing often eludes them.
Slimming beauty standards lead to restrictive eating disorders. This is:
anorexia nervosa,
bulimia nervosa,
psychogenic overeating.
Many do not realize that they are already suffering from the disorder. Social networks broadcast that eating with the restriction of important food groups and calories, exercising too hard is good. Information is distorted, and the symptoms of the disorder are presented as a normal way of life.
Dietary restrictions, food demonization, exhausting sports, perfectionism, obsession with ideals and standards of beauty, striving to meet someone’s expectations, and even genetic predisposition can all lead to an eating disorder. But the most dangerous now can be safely called the social factor — the imposition of false standards and beliefs through social networks.
How to find a balance between the features of your body and taking care of it?
Understand your feelings
Often, behind the desire to change something in their appearance, there are not physiological shortcomings at all, but emotional problems.
Negotiate with your inner perfectionist
Set yourself the bar not for 100% percent, but for 80%. When we set ourselves the maximum bar, we are “wound” either to zero or to a hundred. Either we eat perfectly and play sports, or in a breakdown we eat everything that is not nailed down. A bar of 80% leaves the right to make mistakes, laziness, small harms and allows you to avoid such “swings”.
Change your vision of life
To do this, you need to destroy tunnel vision, allow yourself to see another world. Follow people on social media. Although this can cause discomfort, rejection and even denial. Look for individuality, allow it to yourself and make it a chip.
Build relationships with food and exercise
Food and sport should bring pleasure, not pain, remorse, anxiety and guilt. Any food system that provokes breakdowns is dangerous. Do not forbid yourself «sweets», divide food into good and bad.
Love yourself
So, to get all the dark sides out of your shadow part: to be able to be lazy, to be imperfect, awkward. Allow yourself to be yourself at any weight.
Find support in yourself
Don’t depend on what society says. Just ask yourself: “If I had to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, would I torture myself with diets?” And you will get an answer to the question, for whom or what are you doing this. Realize that you are more than what you eat. And you will begin to look for values in yourself besides appearance.
It is important to understand that the real world is behind the intrusive algorithms of social networks and the perfect picture on a smartphone. And the people there are different: alive, beautiful, worthy of love and acceptance, just like you.
The main thing to remember is that physiological weight gain is possible during adolescence. And if nothing is done about it, the body itself regulates the processes. The cycle «diet-failure» only provokes the disorder. You should not rush into a diet with every weight gain, because the secret of that very «witch» who does not get fat is precisely that she eats everything and does not know restrictions and breakdowns. Just forget about diets and let your body do everything for you.