Anorexia

[minjkk]

i agree with callipygous. i mean, anorexia is an unstable state of your mind with which anorexics see themselves with excess of fat and imperfection. obsession with weight and fat and size becomes excessive so you stop eating to make your body the 'perfect body' according to your perspective of what a perfect body is.

[polyfrag]

I think you're talking about me, so in my defence...

 

I'm not obsessed with the 'perfect body' (oooh, quotes, must mean it's a crazy idea). People seem to think I'm obsessed. Is that where we disagree? I don't know, I'm not obsessed, so maybe I'm not a *normal* anorexic (not to say being anorexic is normal to begin with). But I think something we CAN agree on is...

 

1. Skinny bodies do LOOK more appealing (up to a point, beyond that it's disturbing)

 

2. Being skinny demonstrates self-discipline (in a country where, what, 1 out of every 3 people are overweight?)

 

3. It can be a sign of culture (person cares what others think of him/her; might mean that he/she is thoughtful and tries to be hygienic and sociable)

 

Hopefully you can agree with at least SOME of that (even though I'm being the devil's advocate here).

[Callipygous]

I think you're talking about me' date=' so in my defence...

 

I'm not obsessed with the 'perfect body' (oooh, quotes, must mean it's a crazy idea). People seem to think I'm obsessed. Is that where we disagree? I don't know, I'm not obsessed, so maybe I'm not a *normal* anorexic (not to say being anorexic is normal to begin with). But I think something we CAN agree on is...

 

1. Skinny bodies do LOOK more appealing (up to a point, beyond that it's disturbing)

 

2. Being skinny demonstrates self-discipline (in a country where, what, 1 out of every 3 people are overweight?)

 

3. It can be a sign of culture (person cares what others think of him/her; might mean that he/she is thoughtful and tries to be hygienic and sociable)

 

Hopefully you can agree with at least SOME of that (even though I'm being the devil's advocate here).[/quote']

 

 

its not about you, its about anorexic people in general. but anyway...

 

1 is a preference.

2 depends on a lot of things. (like metabolism, and differences in goals)

3 .... huh? i dont really see the logic in that one.

 

anyway, skinny and famished are two very different things. starving yourself is not the way to achieve any of those goals. while skinny bodies may be more appealing to some, FAMISHED bodies are a different story. most people arent looking for someone who looks like they havent eaten in a week. you want to demonstrate discipline? stay on a good, healthy diet, low in fat (not WITHOUT fat) low on junk food, and exercise daily. thats a display of discipline. starving yourself is just a display of a serious issue. you want to be cultured? dress well, keep clean, shave, brush your teeth, be sociable.

 

all of those things you mentioned are excuses to explain away why you starved yourself, not valid, logical reasons to start starving yourself.

[gib65]

no. anorexics have a desire to take control of some part of their lives and achieve a form of "perfection" that has been mis-defined by their low selfesteem and/or other social and family life factors. no matter how skinny an anorexic person gets they will still see fat that they "need" to lose. any loose skin' date=' any bulge, any place where they can feel anything but bone and skin is imperfection and it becomes an obsession that they need to remove.

 

it doesnt have to do with apetite, it doesnt even really have to do with food. at its core its not even about weight, it has to do with the image they have of themselves, their self esteem, their self worth. its not about the food.[/quote']

 

Yes, I agree with all this, as well as what minjkk said. But I think there must be some anorexics who can abstain from food more easily than others due to a naturally lower appetite. I mean, appetite, like any other human characteristic, will fall on different points along a spectrum (from no appetite to extremely high appetite) for different people. You will always get outlier on either side of the spectrum. I'm sure your familiar with obesity being traced to biological factors for some people. Why not anorexia as well?

 

I'm not saying low appetite is the only factor. Even if I had a low appetite, I would still eat if only because my common sense knowledge says that if I don't eat, I'll die. It might not be as pleasurable, but I'd do it. So I agree that for someone to actually choose to starve oneself, it would require something like low self-esteme or a desire to achieve some preconceived notion of the "perfect body". I don't think this would be enough though, in most cases. Unless one had an incredibly powerful will that could overcome any pangs of hunger, I'd expected most anorexics to have lower than normal appetites.

[Callipygous]

Yes' date=' I agree with all this, as well as what minjkk said. But I think there must be [i']some[/i] anorexics who can abstain from food more easily than others due to a naturally lower appetite. I mean, appetite, like any other human characteristic, will fall on different points along a spectrum (from no appetite to extremely high appetite) for different people. You will always get outlier on either side of the spectrum. I'm sure your familiar with obesity being traced to biological factors for some people. Why not anorexia as well?

 

I'm not saying low appetite is the only factor. Even if I had a low appetite, I would still eat if only because my common sense knowledge says that if I don't eat, I'll die. It might not be as pleasurable, but I'd do it. So I agree that for someone to actually choose to starve oneself, it would require something like low self-esteme or a desire to achieve some preconceived notion of the "perfect body". I don't think this would be enough though, in most cases. Unless one had an incredibly powerful will that could overcome any pangs of hunger, I'd expected most anorexics to have lower than normal appetites.

 

 

that seems like a pretty reasonable expectation, but i would bet that its incorrect. while some anorexic people probably do have lower, or higher, appetites than the average person i would bet that its about the same, on average, as the rest of the population.

 

i think the circumstances that eventually drive someone to an eating disorder are severe enough that having a greater, or lesser appetite would be inconsequential.

[gib65]

that seems like a pretty reasonable expectation' date=' but i would bet that its incorrect. while some anorexic people probably do have lower, or higher, appetites than the average person i would bet that its about the same, on average, as the rest of the population.

 

i think the circumstances that eventually drive someone to an eating disorder are severe enough that having a greater, or lesser appetite would be inconsequential.[/quote']

 

So in other words, you think my statement that "Unless one had an incredibly powerful will that could overcome any pangs of hunger" is a lot more often true of anorexics than I do.

 

Fair Enough.

[Aubiegirl]

I have been dealing with anorexia for six years now, and it is NOT something you want to even think of toying around with, like has already been discussed, it can be highly addictive. I think some people are more susceptible to it than others, just like some people are more prone to OCD (many eating disorders have OCD components, but there is no cookie cutter eating disorder case, each had different facets/causes). In my family, three people in the last two generations have died from anorexia, none of which were raised in the same households. For me, it started out with wanting a 'perfect body' but after a while even I realized I looked awful, but I just kept going because it simply became 'the way I do things', you come to define yourself by it and it can be such a powerful cycle once you're sucked in. You can know what you're doing is harmful, you can know it's wrong, you can hate yourself even while you're engaging in certain behaviors, and despite all of that it's still terrifying to let go of it.

 

There are much better ways to better yourself than to try to take yourself higher with deprivation. It can make you feel powerful, but it's an illusion, it truly is a disease. I'm 19 years old and I have osteoporosis, heart damage, and slim to none chances of having children. I've been making progress and am truly trying to leave the disorder behind, but it's something that will screw up your health long after you've 'quit'. Also, it can give you a high but it WON'T improve your mental function, there were times at my lowest weights when I literally couldn't read anymore, not because I'd forgotten how but because it was absolutely impossible for me to focus or retain anything, I could read the same paragraph over and over for thirty minutes and still not be able to tell you what it was about.

 

I can't emphasize enough how much this is NOT something you want to experiment with.

[susu]

U have got to be kiddin me. U wanna starve urself bc u think its "cool", cause all the rave guys are doin it????lol. Hav u ever stopped to think that maybe the reason why the rave guys r so thin is because they might be on drugs?? Im not sayin all rave guys r druggies, just that it is a possibility.

 

I find it hilarious that u take ur role models to be anime. U do know that another human actually drew them and theyre not real right? That is their vision of characters they think will appeal to the public and make them rich.

 

Oh, about starvation. Ur body runs mainly on carbs, which it gets from food. If u dnt eat, u dnt supply ur body with the energy it requires to do daily activities like walking. I wonder why ure doin an experiment on something the effects of which can be seen in millions of people worldwide. Ironic isnt it that they would die for a morsel of food, and u would die to accomplish ur desire to be thin.

 

The vitamins ure takin do nothing to supply u with energy. So they r not helpful in metabolic processes. They r merely supplements to some of the bodies' functions.

 

Once ur body has used all its carbohydrate supplies, it will turn to protein and fat. Thus ull lose weight, but ull lose muscle too. So, ur metabolic rate will be slower cz u have nothing to run on, ull be weak coz ur muscle mass has decread, and u wont be able to concentrate properly bc ur brain, as an organ requires energy to run. Energy that u r not supplying.

 

Oh, and the huge breasts u c on the anime must be silicon coz breasts are mainly fat, so theyll eventually go too.

 

Im not sayin this will happen overnight, but there r many longterm irreversible side effects of starvation that i cant go into now.

 

<sure its ur life, and sure u can do what u will to it, its just a shame that u take something so many people r struggling with and suffering from so lightly.

 

There is a reason why we eat- to survive.