There are some very definite efforts being made by the minority to help people avoid or recover from various eating disorders. It would be nice to say they are winning the battle but all evidence suggests this has now reached the point where eating disorders have become the norm.
This is the point where I am undoubtedly supposed to come over shocked and say it's a modern phenomenon, but both would be a lie. This has been happening for hundreds, possibly thousands of years in various cultures around the world. Today there is more awareness of this being an issue but if anything it has being embraced and encouraged ever more to combat the awareness and enforce ignorance and reliance on the more costly fake lest people become happy with nature and stop spending on imitation.
Before I start in earnest I will openly admit to having been as much victim to wanting to look perfect as anyone else and spent years training to achieve this. There was a sizeable chunk of this time when the shortcut offered by intramuscular hormone supplements was very tempting and in truth it was more financial than moral constraints that stopped me on a number of occasions. I still like looking fit but now I am more interested in being capable and only out to please my wife in terms of looks. So this is not a dig at people wanting to look a certain way or who are unhappy with their body, it is a dig at the unrealistic images portrayed for us to aspire to.
Eating disorders have been around as long as records have shown. There have been periods when being overweight was a sign of prestige and wealth, the poor could barely afford to eat so it was fashionable to be fat. The pressure on women to be thin was severe enough for them to by tapeworm eggs to help them lose weight. So people thinking this is new seriously underestimate how stupid our history has been.
Most of us know about photoshop adjusted photos, and even video editing becoming more common. But no matter how many things pop up saying enhanced in post production etc. people see an image on screen or billboard and want to be like them, even though we know the person shown isn't like the picture.
This isn't new either. Early photographers were as guilty as any modern photshopper, the tricks were less subtle but equally as effective at making people feel ashamed of how they were. These included clipping triangular or rhomboid sections out of the photos and taping them together to make the waist appear smaller then taking a photo of the amended photo.
Before the age of film this was even worse, how many think they have seen what Queen Elizabeth I of England really looked like? Truth is she rarely sat for any of her portraits, she would choose a gown and demand a picture of her in it, a painter showing her in an unflattering light would regret it. The most accurate picture is supposed to be one painted after her death.
There are various tricks that can be used without even going this far, holding a perfect pose for a photo in a position that makes it look as if you are moving, easy way of making you look more perfect than you are.
This is before we add in the joys of surgery, corsetry etc. to give people an artificially enhanced appearance. If you this is aimed at women alone one of the DJs from an old metal club I frequented never went out in public without his girdle and men are the main growth area in aesthetic make up, clothing and surgery today, being seen as relatively untapped.
I made a bold claim at the start that the evidence is showing that eating disorders are becoming the norm. The obvious question to challenge this is 'What evidence?'
Exhibit 1 has to be clothes sizing. A sure fire sign of the shape of the world at large can be measured on what they are wearing. The best selling shapes of clothing drive the market to release more of this shape in different styles.
So when I see the smaller sizes being designed for people without any form to their legs and arms and larger sizes having the most room in the midsection, I draw conclusions that smaller people are getting smaller by under eating causing their limbs to waste away and the larger people are carrying most weight in the midsection due to overeating and inactivity. Even medium sizes are now allowing more room in the middle and less in the limbs in their cut.
The average shape is more centred around more middle and less peripheral bodyweight, and this goes for active or sports wear too in most cases.
Exhibit 2 is the increasing number of people paying for surgery to remove body fat or insert silicone in various areas of the body, from breasts and butts to under calf muscles. People wanting fat removed are generally eating more than they need regularly, I even remember reading of a court case where a woman had liposuction and was trying to sue because the fat came back, she lost but is an example of why this becomes a form of repeat business. Those wanting implanted body mass substitutes are generally underweight, personal experience has shown me that the majority of women I have seen in real life who have had implants have been built like twigs elsewhere, it's not a good look, think soccer balls strapped to a skeleton and you are getting the idea.
Exhibit 3 is the increasing number of people being admitted to hospitals worldwide for issues relating to eating disorders. This volume is increasing far more than the population so seen as a percentage the trend clearly shows that eating disorders are becoming increasingly common. Consider that most suffering from eating disorders will not end up in hospital for it and you start to see this is becoming the norm.
The good news is there are some people trying to help. Spain now has minimum body fat % on models to counter the insane human clothes hangers shown in magazines and catalogues. There is a lot more awareness and of course songs films etc. about avoiding these issues. There is also some really good news in that if you are genuinely happy about how you are there will be others who see you as attractive purely for this reason.
Now the bad news. There is an increasing trend to adjustment on photos, even on already enhanced figures. So a person who is known to have had surgical enhancements or taken substances to have achieved their physique will still have the photoshop touch applied, giving ever more unrealistic impressions of what physical perfection is. This will not stop, in fact it will get worse, as we become used to seeing adjusted images the adjustments will become more extreme to make that image stand out more.
The why is obvious but unpleasant. There is a lot of money to be made making people feel inadequate and this has always been the case. There is money to be made on diets, pharmaceuticals, make up, support clothing, surgery, anything that will make you look closer to the unattainable image in the magazine. Of course for those who don't have the money, are unwilling to pay it or aren't old enough to be able to buy the medication or surgery there is the alternative of developing an eating disorder.
The latest trend is post anorexic obesity, the most dangerous state of health dietary issues can create. Anorexia is never a good idea, but when done for a short bout as some do there is less long term damage. Of course for those who feel a very low self worth and answer this with anorexic starvation or in rarer cases bulimia for a longer time it becomes less a fad and more a lifestyle. Most of us have seen the extreme pictures or people close to death from anorexia, but in truth this is still the minority, most are less extreme, just constantly keeping themselves at a steadily dropping weight by eating rarely and usually badly. Most anorexics will eat sugary foods when they do eat because their bodies are crying out in starvation mode, they will then starve for as long as they can feeling guilt over the last 'binge' I use this as their term. During this time the body will have catabolised any muscle it can afford to lose, mental capacity will have dropped due to the lack of energy to feed our most hungry organ, the brain, any tissue that can be absorbed will be, this includes many of the vital organs, bone health deteriorates due to malnutrition and this is just the highlights. Safe to say long term under eating comes at a high price.
Fast forward a number of years and many get to a point where they stop being anorexic, though most of the time this isn't from a new sense of self worth but more accepting they will never be what they want and giving up. After so many years in starvation mode the body will store anything it can and cry out for increasing volumes of food, which is why those coming away from anorexia in professional care are monitored carefully for so long after stabilising at a healthy weight. So the body will be consuming far more than it needs and putting as much of it to fat stores as it can. The dangers of long term obesity are well known, putting additional strain on the heart and various other organs, the increased weight puts more pressure on the bones and joints which when not exercised are unable to keep up with the increased demand. Now add this to someone who's body has deteriorated and minimised itself from long term anorexia and you have an even more serious problem. The muscles, bones and connective tissues are unable to maintain mobility with the increased load, metabolism will still be low from years of under eating, so there will be a feeling of lethargy coming from low metabolism and lesser ability to move, often adding to various other factors to worsen already present depression. Vital organs will struggle to adapt to the new demands and some can fail especially if the depression is treated with the most common of over the counter remedies, alcohol.
The truth is there are some happy endings for people suffering eating disorders, but they take a long time coming and the journey is never easy. If you are there now please do seek help and persevere, if you truly want to get out of it, because if you don't I virtually guarantee you will fail. This like anything else linked to depression or low self esteem will take a lot of work and time so you have to want it badly.
If you aren't and are wondering if this makes you a bit weird. Maybe it does, but if so that's a good thing, I say with some authority that most of the greatest people in history are far from ordinary and were likely considered weird in their time.
Truth is there will be immense pressure on you to conform to a form that only exists on a computer and if you manage to resist this I and many others will admire you for it. You don't have to be fitness mad, or look like a magazine image, if you feel self assured enough to be happy in yourself this will give you an edge over others. You will be able to achieve more because you will know you can do it and this it turn will improve your confidence even more, something most people cannot help being drawn to.
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