There’s a problem when an issue is considered normal. Sim and Zeman’s “Contribution of Emotion Regulation to Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating” (2006) discusses how girls engage a relationship between a constricted mind and an unhealthy body. Eating disorders will always be relevant because when pain is associated with food it means a better eating plan should be arranged, not a population of girls working to reduce their waistlines. The only result has been nonconstructive dissociation and a host a negative energy that allows this widespread agreement to deteriorate the female-bodied person’s quality of life.
An adolescent’s extremities between her body and the food she requires to live should not be reduced to a label called “normative discontent” (Sim and Zeman 2006, p. 219). Girls deliberately starving themselves should not be judged as normal; it should be considered a flag. This behavior not only denotes how affectively the world affects children but also how children are willing to proceed toward unrealistic and cheap perceptions. When a girl accepts an eating disorder, she does not admit herself as the ideal but the problem. She envisions herself as the malfunction in the system and that is an excessive method for a preteen mind. And if it is excessive for a preteen then it will be obsessive for a teenage girl who has better means to forfeit her wellbeing in order to please an audience of strangers, peers, friends, and family—their learned expectations of what an attractive body consist of.
The key to an eating disorder is “dissatisfaction” (Sim and Zeman p. 219). It develops within range of puberty (Sim and Zeman p. 225), when weight gain occurs and a girl is sensitive about associating herself with womanly features. When dissatisfaction matures for the worse, it becomes Depression. Depression is the cyclical engine to disordered eating. It the same matter that ignites the dissatisfaction, permeates it, and then locks out other emotions to resume the negative progress. Unfortunately, self-awareness is the disorder’s strongpoint, not “emotional awareness” (Sim and Zeman p. 226). Focusing on genuine feelings instead of the exterior would deconstruct the eating disorder. In fact, it highlights the disorder as a poor defense mechanism, a “coping measure” (Sim and Zeman p. 226), for her own hostility toward her body, how others treat it, and what is expected of her. The extremity of not eating is a means of self-disrespect, and more importantly, a self-administered punishment that is so “normative” (Sim and Zeman p. 219) it is an unspoiled standard of girlhood.
Eating disorders discombobulate. This is a clear cut speculation: if a female is worried about her outside (appearance), she will put nothing inside (food); because she doesn’t look within (feeling), there is less to show for it (confidence). In theory, a woman who is apprehensive about her appearance has less confidence. Her eating less is her escape from her Self. Sim and Zeman explain this as a dysfunction regulation of emotions and it is a common trait among the participants of eating disorders (Sim and Zeman p. 220). The tendency appears to be that the deeper in the disorder she is, the further a girl is out of touch with her emotions. This excludes a sensible reaction called anger: she won’t eat because she is angry with herself but is angry because she can’t eat (Sim and Zeman p. 226). The matter is deeper than perceived because when compared to child who is only clinically depressed, a girl with an eating disorder is actually more disconnected with herself (Sim and Zeman p. 226). The tool she is abusing to make herself attractive is obliterating her own logic, sensibility, and health.
An implicit emphasis is that eating disorders are colorblind and prejudiced. Despite the widespread popularity of an eating disorder, the studies given in the article are without ethnic diversity (Sim and Zeman p. 222, 227). It is safe to acknowledge that body dissatisfaction and an eating disorder does not occur but is inherited from cultural perception. “[T]he farther girls are from the culturally prescribed ideal the more body dissatisfaction they will experience” (Sim and Zeman p. 225) is not blaming media alone but includes the support of friends and family. Seeing published images is much different than being in an environment committed to that published idea. Harm is not only coming from strangers but encrypted in the people we trust.
A school is a house of education and there should be a class or two combating these too-real conditions. When it comes to preparing for the world, having the intellectual basics is fundamental but there has to be more than a Psych/Social/Sexuality course to prepare for the unfair images we drink up. Girls and woman alike are victims of unsolicited judgment and pre-ordained standards. To attempt snuffing out eating disorders there has to be more than a few professional studies, helpless remarks from a loved-one, or a campaign spotlighted for being unique. Having an education active in engaging discussions with girls about their wellbeing is the down to business way this typical disorder can be cut down and out of the normality of our lives.
Citations
Sim, L., and J. Zemanlson. (2006). The Contribution of Emotion Regulation to Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating in Early Adolescent Girls. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35 (2), 219–228.
