How We Help Anorexia Grow Stronger
This is a great article from J over at Imagine Today.
Not only is throwing the word anorexic around damaging to healthy skinny girls who are accused of this disorder, but it’s also damaging to people who are actually suffering from anorexia, and non-skinny women who are suffering from it. Newsflash: Thin women aren’t the only ones who can suffer from anorexia!
While we hurl accusations of anorexia left and right at waif-like women, Anorexia (the disease, not the judgment) grows stronger, and claims more victims every day. We enable anorexia with our ignorance and, seriously, this has to stop now.
Pasting an “anorexic” label on every thin woman we come across perpetuates the misconception that all people with anorexia look the same way.
And did you know that heavy women with anorexia aren’t even classified by psychiatrists as having anorexia because their body fat might be too high? This is terrible!
Make haste and read this article!
It’s a sad fact that many fat people face having any real health problems overlooked, because their doctors are too busy telling them that they are over weight or obese. As for anorexia, I think it needs to be accepted that body shaming women out of an eating disorder just doesn’t work. It’s a valid mental illness, and using the word as an insult, or writing off all thin women as ugly and unhealthy won’t help.
Anyway, I was bullied incessantly by my roommates for being thin, constantly accused of having an eating disorder. However, none of them ever reached out to the larger girl in our living quarters, who could be heard throwing up in the bathroom each day. Although, I think they were just content to bandy around the idea of me having an eating disorder, they weren’t actually concerned for my health or anyone else’s for that matter.
That’s terrible! They sound like awful people.
You’re right… making anorexia a body type, rather than a psychological condition, could have an encouraging effect. If Keira Knightley is dismissed as anorexic, when she’s not, and her body type is glorified in Hollywood, then that puts anorexia on a pedestal, while simultaneously shaming her for “being” anorexic.
Also, do you have any more info on being fat with anorexia? I hadn’t heard that before, although it makes perfect sense.
Peace,
Shannon
I actually don’t; I think you’re better off asking J from the blog I posted this from.