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In a society that persists to prize themselves upon thinness, it is difficult for one to not blame others for their constant anxiety over weight. Eating disorders have been identified as a problem since 1689, and over the decades, the number of people afflicted with this illness has only increased furthermore. Depriving oneself of food to the point of collapsing or gorging on vast amounts of food only to vomit subsequently seems inconceivable. Yet this is a way of life to increasing numbers of women and men of all backgrounds and nationalities. Experts estimate that “5% of adolescent and adult women and 1% of men have anorexia, bulimia or a binge-eating disorder” . With an obsession with thinness and obtaining the perfect body, our society has cultivated the development of eating disorders. Research revealed that before the age of 14 at least 52% of adolescents have begun dieting. “Among college females, 78% reported bingeing experiences and 8.2% used self-induced vomiting to control weight.” Our society focuses on beauty and as we develop, we come to realize that we have to be thin, beautiful and attractive to be accepted. Society’s communication has often been based on the encouragement that the most significant role for a woman is to have a beautiful appearance in order to reach true contentment. However in the eyes of society, the word “beauty” is only the standard message of a “thin, slender body.” Ms Tomosugi--a counselor at Women’s Counseling Kyoto-- questioned, “Who created such a value, or scale of beauty? Most of them have been created by the mass media or fashion industry in a society dominated by men.” In following such a scale of beauty created by our media from the view of male dominance, the value diffuses into women's consciousness at which they begin to treat the notion as their own. Once a woman presumes that they are not meeting the standard level of beauty defined by society, they begin to feel a sense of low self-esteem and disapprove their own image. All eating disorders are categorized into three groups: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Compulsive Overeating. Specific characteristics differ these groups from one another, but all three lead to the same consequence, a destructiveness of one’s body, physically and emotionally. People with anorexia nervosa have a distorted body image in which the victims see themselves as overweight, when in fact many of them are dangerously thin.
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