Eating Disorders and Causes

Eating Disorders

Have you ever been on a diet or tried different dietary supplements to help you burn fat or build muscle?  Have you ever worried about your weight and said things like, “I feel so fat!”?  Have you ever overeaten because you were feeling anxious, lonely, or depressed, and then felt really guilty and disgusted about yourself afterwards?  Have you ever seen these types of concerns take over someone’s life and progress into a full-blown eating disorder?

  

As many as 10% of high school and college students have some form of serious eating disorder (including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder).  A great many more young women, and a significant minority of men, find their lives restricted on a daily basis by a negative body image, food or weight preoccupation, exercise addiction, and unhealthy dieting practices. 

  

Clearly, food, weight, and body shape concerns are common among teens and young adults, including college students. 

Read on to learn more about... 

What causes eating disorders
Common types of eating disorders 

Why Disordered Eating? Why Now?

Eating disorders and disordered eating behaviors are complex problems, stemming from a variety of cultural, social, familial, psychological, and biological influences. Contrary to what many people think, these disorders are NOT just about food and weight issues. Rather, food and weight issues are symptoms of a much more complicated, underlying problem.

To gain a greater understanding about eating disorders and the people who suffer from them, consider the many factors that contribute to their development.

Size Prejudice

In American culture (and particularly in southern California), there is a lot of emphasis placed on body weight, size, and appearance. We are conditioned from a very young age to believe that self-worth is derived from these external characteristics. For example, being thin and/or muscular is associated with being “hard-working, successful, popular, beautiful, strong, and disciplined.” On the other hand, being “fat” is associated with being “lazy, ignorant, hated, ugly, weak, and lacking will-power.” These stereotypes are prevalent in our society; and they are reinforced by the media, our family and friends, and even well-respected health professionals. As a result, we often unfairly judge others and ourselves based on weight and size alone. We feel great anxiety and pressure to achieve and/or maintain a very lean physique. We erroneously believe that if we can just be thinner or more muscular, we can be happier, more successful, and more accepted by society.

The Media

The media sets unrealistic standards for what body weight and appearance is considered “normal.” Girls are indoctrinated at a very young age that Barbie is how a woman is supposed to look (i.e. no fat anywhere on your body, but huge breasts!). NOTE: If Barbie were life-size, she would stand 5’9” and weigh 110 lb. (only 76% of what is considered a healthy weight for her height!). Her measurements would be 39-18-33, and she would not menstruate due to inadequate levels of fat on her body! Similarly, boys are given the impression that men naturally have muscles bulging all over their bodies. Take a look at their plastic action-figures (like GI Joe Extreme) in toy stores. If GI Joe Extreme were life-size, he would have a 55-inch chest and a 27-inch bicep. In other words, his bicep would be almost as big as his waist and bigger than most competitive body builders! These body ideals are reinforced every day on TV shows, movies, magazine covers, and even video games.

The media’s portrayal of what is “normal” keeps getting thinner and thinner for women and more muscular and ripped for men. Twenty-five years ago, the average female model weighed 8% less than the average American woman. Currently, the average female modelweighs 23% below her average weight. Similar trends are seen with men. The average Playgirl centerfold man has shed about 12 lbs. of fat, while putting on approximately 27 lb. of muscle over the past 25 years.

With these media images and body ideals, it’s little wonder that women and men feel inadequate, ashamed, and dissatisfied with how they look. Only about 5% of women have the genetic make up to ever achieve the ultra-long and thin model body type so pervasive in the media. Yet that is the only body type that women see and can compare themselves to. Similarly, all boys see is a body ideal that for most men is impossible to achieve without illegal anabolic steroids. There is a physiologically limit to how much muscle a man’s body can attain naturally, given his height, frame, and body fat percentage. In other words, it’s physiologically impossible to gain unlimited pounds of pure bulging muscle mass while maintaining an ultra lean, ripped body (with only 3-7% body fat)--even when following“perfect” training and diet program. Once you reach your maximal muscle mass, any further gains will come from both muscle AND fat. So, men who have greater muscle mass/size tend to have higher body fat percentages as well (e.g. 10-15%). The action figure heroes on toy store shelves and male fitness models on magazine covers and ads suggest otherwise.

Social & Family Pressures

In college, you may feel great pressure to be thin or super muscular in order to be accepted by your peers and attractive to potential romantic partners (especially in Los Angeles, one of the most weight, diet, and fitness-crazed cities in the world!). If you’re living with a lot of other students (especially women) in a sorority/fraternity house or residence hall, the pressure may be even more intense. In these group living situations, you may be surrounded by negative “body talk” all the time…in the bathroom, in the dining halls, in your dorm room…there’s no escaping the comments (“Yuck! Look at my thighs…I’m so fat! I really need to go on a diet!”). All these comments can make you crazy! They can make you start worrying about your own weight and make you feel self-conscious about your own body, even though you never worried about it before.

Your mother, or other family member, may have done the same thing while your were growing up by making constant comments about her own weight (or yours) and enforcing lots of food restrictions on herself (or you). Early on, you may have gotten the message that you need to be thin in order to be accepted and loved by your parents.

If you’re an athlete, you may feel tremendous pressure to lose weight or body fat so you can make a specific weight class (i.e. wrestling, crew, boxing), race faster (i.e. running, cycling), or look more attractive to the judges or audience (i.e. gymnastics, dance, cheerleading, figure skating). The pressure may come from you, your teammates, your coach, and/or your parents.