Self-Destructive Behaviors of
Girls with Anorexia by Groshan Fabiola
The desire of having a beautiful, slim body
determines girls and young women to take drastic actions.
The society we live in puts a lot of pressure on the shoulders
of young girls by establishing and supporting exaggerated
physical features as ideals of beauty. Teenage
girls struggle to get noticed and sustain assiduous
efforts in their attempt of improving their physical appearance.
Their constant preoccupation with body weight sometimes becomes
an obsession and many young girls develop eating disorders.
Eating disorders are considered
to be serious illnesses and they may even lead to death. These
disorders are basically mental conditions that are characterized
by unhealthy behavior, scarce eating and obsession with being
overweight. Anorexia (Anorexia Nervosa) and bulimia
(Bulimia Nervosa) are the most common and the
most dangerous eating disorders.
Anorexia affects persons of all ages and
regardless of sex. However, young girls are more susceptible
to developing anorexia, due to their ambitions and desires
of being thin. Girls with anorexia eat very little food and
sometimes they even constrain themselves from eating any food
at all. Abstinence from food leads to serious complications
and girls with anorexia often develop other diseases due to
their bad eating habits. The lack of vital nutrients triggers
a lot of changes inside the bodies of anorexics, making them
feel weak, tired, anxious, confused and psychically unstable.
Girls with anorexia also experience a lot
of physical changes. Their growth is dramatically slowed down;
they suffer from stomach aches and internal disturbances,
migraines, heart problems, bad circulation of the blood, hair
loss and dehydration. Inappropriate eating habits cause hormonal
unbalances and girls with anorexia often suffer from amenorrhea.
This condition refers to irregular menstruation and girls
with anorexia even experience stops of their menstrual period
due to small levels of estrogen. Amenorrhea often leads to
weakness of the bones, corrosion of the teeth and fragility
of fingernails.
Girls with anorexia have obsessive thoughts about food and
being fat. They carefully count the calories they consume
and often exhaust themselves by doing long, tiring physical
exercises. Despite the efforts they sustain in order to keep
fit and lose weight, girls with anorexia are never content
with their body weight and physical appearance. They have
a distorted perception of their body image and always consider
themselves to be fat, even if their body weight is considerably
lower than it should be.
Young women and girls that have careers where a slim body
is a necessity (gymnastics, modeling, ballet) are also susceptible
to developing an eating disorder.
It is very important to act quickly when dealing with eating
disorders. Girls with anorexia are often unaware of the
dangers they expose themselves to and most of them deny having
a problem. Some of them, however, are willing to sacrifice
their health and jeopardize their lives only to be admired
for their silhouette. Because girls with anorexia are usually
unable to overcome their illness on their own, they should
be provided with plenty of support and encouragement from
their families and friends.
Anorexics feel lonely and unhappy and have low self-esteem
and self-respect. By proving to people who suffer from anorexia
that low body weight isn't the most important thing in the
world and by showing them that they are unique and beautiful
regardless of their physical appearance, you can help them
make the first steps towards recovery.
Check out our Bulimia page.
Want to know more about the problems that girls with anorexia
have? Click
Here for great information on anorexia
nervosa, signs of anorexia and other anorexia related
content.
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