Wow. What I Learned Today. The Eating Disorder

~~~~ Sympathetic

In English we've been working on projects that fit the "Miami Image" and my group chose eating disorders. It's been recorded that anywhere between 10 - 20% of the girls and 5 - 10% of the boys at Miami have an eating disorder. I decided to do some extra research and found dozens of pro-anorexia sites (known as pro-ana sites on google). It was really quite shocking, but I think I'm a closet-psychiatrist and I went to check them out to see what they were all about. They were all aware that anorexia and bullimia in all their forms are eating disorders but they were just willing to accept that they have a problem and let it control their lives. Now, I am a firecly independent person and I couldn't imagine anything, be it boys, tobacco, alcohol, or eating disorders, controlling my life but me. So I don't really understand what they're going through.

All the sites I visited had one thing in common (other than the obvious). They all had a section called something along the lines of "when you've gone too far." Pro-ana sites have links to the websites offering help to those who have eating diorders and are on the brink of disaster. That really surprised me. I expected all these sites to be "proclaiming the beauty of an eating disorder and encouraging all to come to the light side because that's where salvation and beauty truly lie." Or perhaps there have just been too many Jehovah's Witnesses at my door. Anyways, I definitley didn't expect them to be offering help to get out of the diseases they were promoting. It seemed to me like it was along the lines of Bush telling everyone to vote for John Kerry. It just doesn't happen. Anyways, needless to say, it turned out my pro-ana search ended up at anti-ana sites. And then I found this one.

The actualy site is entitled Something Fishy and it's a site for loved ones to identify eating disorders and help those who need it. But there's a link on the site that really touched me and I wanted to share it. In Loving Memory is a memorial of people lost to an eating disorder. I was stunned as to the magnetutde of people that have died. I've always known that eating disorders were potentiall fatal but you never hear of anyone who has actually died from one. It's just not really talked about.

You May Be Lost, But You Aren't Forgotten.