- Some people who struggle with disordered eating at an early
- age seemingly manage to recover fully and
- lead normal eating lives from that point forward.
- Not only do such people frequently
- suffer from poor mental health as a
- result of low self-esteem and anxiety,
- but also the risk of a full re-emergence
- of their eating disorder is a real concern.
Airbrushing Lies
The lack of media representation for diverse body types and the continued glorification of weight loss and thinness often encourage the unhealthy ideas that eating disorders thrive on. But while seeing airbrushed and edited actors and models make many of us sigh regretfully at our own lack of “perfection,” it is even more harmful to someone struggling with disordered eating. These people see such images as proof that they are not good enough and never will be. Advertising that encourages weight loss can be even more insidious. We’ve all seen ads that tout diets, pills or exercise programs for incredibly rapid weight loss, and most of us don’t give them a second thought. But for someone with an eating disorder, such ads can seem to promote and even normalize the attitude that dropping weight at a super-fast rate is desirable.Furthermore, the only way that many of these claims can be realized is through behaviors that amount to disordered eating—essentially starving yourself through grossly insufficient calories, exercising (i.e., “healthy” purging) at an extreme rate or using a magical diet pill that facilitates either purging or starvation by serving as a laxative or eliminating your appetite.
