It's perfectly safe to say that in today's egotistic culture, a heavy amount of the population takes great pride in their physical appearance. A combination of healthy exercise and a nutritional diet provides a stable basis for weight-loss and attaining the appealing look desired among many. However, there are individuals who resort to detrimental measures to lose excess body weight by putting themselves in grave danger. Eating disorders, with the main focus of this entry being on Bulimia Nervosa, are an extremely unsafe and unhealthy way to lose weight.
Bulimia Nervosa, known more commonly as simply Bulimia, is used by people who try to lose a lot of weight over a short period of time. It is an eating disorder associated with a pattern of bingeing - eating large amounts of food high in calories in brief periods, followed by purging - self- induced vomiting or frantic exercise to drastically reduce weight. A person bingeing can sometimes eat as much as 10,000 calories in a two-hour period!
So what effect does bulimia have emotionally on an individual? Those with bulimia report high levels of dissatisfaction with their body image, even when they're of normal weight. They tend to have low levels of self-esteem and vie for peer approval. Although bulimia has been experimentally shown to be influenced by genetic factors, it is undoubtedly influenced greatly by today's cultural expectations on the "ideal body" image. And who can blame anybody for wanting that perfect body when it's all anyone ever sees? Movies, television, advertisements; "beautiful" people are shown only with the ideal body. What many do not understand, however, is that an alteration of eating habits will not result in a healthy new image of your body. The damage can be devastating. So please, keep to a healthy diet and exercise regime, and keep that food down!
I never would have guessed that Bulimia can be linked to genetic factors. I would love to hear more about that. One thing that came to mind while reading above was that it's interesting that so many girls today know the risks associated with such an eating disorder and are still bulimic anyways. I wonder if certain behaviors or personalities can be more often linked to eating disorders than others? It is also interesting to me that majority of people who have eating disorders are females, I wonder if there is any genetic component to this fact. Why is it that so few men are self-conscious about how they look when a large majority of girls are? And finally, is there a specific age in which girls are especially vulnerable to these eating disorders and is that due to brain development?