do you think the person chooses to not eat/throw it up b/c they want to be skinny or for whatever reason or do you feel its a chemical imbalace that causes the disorder?

[Edited on March 6, 2006 at 5:39 PM. Reason : asdf]

3/6/2006 5:25:10 PM

think the causes are more social than biological. and of course driven by low self esteem/self worth. look at magazines, girls toys (i.e. barbie), hollywood, sports (i.e. ballet or gymnastics). women are indoctrined from near birth that beautiful women are exceptionally thin. and that being beautiful is what is expected or required to be valued. women are typically judged far mroe sternly on looks rather than personality/intelligence. you are slowly starting to see some of that with men as well but it isn't nearly so prevalent.

perhaps there is some correlation with anorexia/bulimia and depression or social anxiety. not sure which causes which tho.

3/6/2006 5:32:35 PM

so would you consider eating disorders to be a slow suicide?

...knowing that your body cant survive without food and water yet you starve yourself from those and die b/c of it?

3/6/2006 5:40:49 PM

i doubt i'd go that far. being anorexic or bulimic doesn't mean you want to die nor does it mean you will die necessarily sooner than others. it isn't healthy that is for sure and can cause a host of other problems. it depends on the severity of the disorder. kind of like smoking. it isn't healthy and can cause you to lose a few years but i don't consider smokers as people committing slow suicide.

3/6/2006 5:51:24 PM

i doubt that ppl without some type of mental disorder could have the willpower to starve themselves. id imagine we'd have a lot less fat ppl if that were the case, then again there are plenty of fatties who are aenorexic/bulemic as well.

[Edited on March 6, 2006 at 6:21 PM. Reason : so im saying its an imbalance that is reinforced by social factors.]

3/6/2006 6:20:17 PM

Anorexia/Bulimia that results in major health repurcussions or death falls under the same category as those bodybuilders who juice until they die and porn stars who mutilate themselves with surgery. It starts out as a cosmetic upgrade and morphs into a perverted competition among freaks.

3/6/2006 6:32:26 PM

I think people who develop eating disorders do so because in the beginning they think they can control it. But somewhere along the line amid the not eating or throwing up the brain becomes rewired so that it takes on an addictive like quality as in they have to throw up they can no longer control it anymore, and its no longer that they don't want to eat but they can't eat. It's weird, I have yet to understand it. I love food tooooo much!

3/6/2006 6:48:35 PM

I dont think it's a chemical inbalance, but i dont think these people are purposefully wanting to destroy themselves either.

i would be far more inclined to point to again, social factors as a root cause, or potentially another disorder like depression (which i suppose you couldl say is chemical inbalance as it sometimes is, but then it would be indirectly not directly responsible for the eating disorder).


personally I wish i knew of some statistics on girls who develop those disorders in relation to whether they were abused (verbal/physical/emotional, any of those three). I have absolutely no grounds to think that could be the cause in some cases, but I would think it could be.

[Edited on March 6, 2006 at 6:58 PM. Reason : .]

3/6/2006 6:57:41 PM

Fatty.

3/6/2006 7:04:51 PM

There was a thing on the news today about a new study that said anorexia was 58% genetic.

3/6/2006 7:15:45 PM

so does that mean every male is 16% anorexic

3/6/2006 7:26:37 PM

i just have a hard time understanding why people would do such a thing

to me it seems like a slow suicide..i mean its a fact that without food you will die

i dont know...i guess you have to experience it or know someone who has before you will understand it...i personally could never do it, i love food way too much and think its about the dumbest thing anyone could do

3/6/2006 10:19:40 PM

Personal Story: I was anorexic from the time I turned 16 until I was 18 or so. It started out that I would just not eat. I would go days at a time and just not eat because I thought I was fat. It became an obsession and I would sometimes go up to a week and a half and barely eat. I lost close to 30 pounds within 2 months. Then I started binging. I would eat and eat whatever I wanted and throw up afterwards. When I first began doing the not eating thing, I could control it. By the time I had turned 18, I was obsessed about not eating. I would hide food or scoot portions of my food around on my plate so people would think I had eaten some. The guy I was dating at the time helped me realize that I had a problem. I had to gradually start eating again. It would make me sick to eat more than a couple of bites of food at once. It was a slow process, but I turned it around. I was lucky.
Saying that, I think that eating disorders are strongly effected by standards in society. I would look at my friends who were thinner than me and hear them grumble about putting on a couple of pounds and that would fuel my fire. I would see people on television that were thinner than me or people out on the street that had a smaller waist than me and obsess over it. It's still a struggle every day with me to eat properly because I still have issues with how I look. I didn't want to die, it was just a self esteem problem. I thought I was fat and the only way to fix it was to not eat. Once a person starts not eating, it's only a matter of time before they go farther and farther. I also believe that certain people (due to genetics or those who have the chemical imbalance) are more inclined to have an eating disorder. For example, my mom is battling anorexia as well. As our society strives to be thinner, more girls are going to start seeing themselves as "fat," no matter how thin they are.

3/6/2006 10:38:06 PM

i'm gonna take up bulemia

i'm gonna start going so hard at the gym i throw up

every night

i'm gonna add some power/olympic lifts to my shit

3/6/2006 10:48:36 PM

Of all people to make a thread about eating disorders, someone named SweetTreats had to do it.

3/6/2006 11:19:28 PM

ha no i was having a deep conversation with some people about this earlier

most of them said that it was a chemical imbalance where i dont see it as such

3/6/2006 11:27:45 PM

most people want a quick answer

is it nature or nurture?

is it chemical or bahavioral?

its usually both, with varying degrees of each of the forces acting on the individuals


so yes, if you want a chemical answer to it and its a positive npv project, me and my crew will derive something that will trigger some receptor or antibody to fix what ails you


but have a go at it without the pills first

3/7/2006 12:21:02 AM

knowing one personally. i find that the disease is the only way they can show that they are in control of smthg in their life. in that if they don't have control over anything else at least they have control over their weight and that empowers them. its a bad thing, but its hard to say if it'd ever go away.

3/7/2006 12:28:08 AM

theres just so much im willing to chalk up to society. sure plenty of women on television and in movies are skinny but only a handful are the gross kinda skinny that many aenorexic women want to be. plenty of them are skiny but in a healthy way. perhaps parents/schools/etc should focus on how kids are perceiving these images than worry about them. i dont want a buncha fatties as the heroins in my movies.

3/7/2006 8:44:52 AM

was this thread a result of watching the REAL WORLD

3/7/2006 10:33:17 AM

i dont watch that shitty show

or any reality tv for that matter

[Edited on March 7, 2006 at 7:18 PM. Reason : asdf]

3/7/2006 7:18:37 PM

If someone doesn't eat due to a chemical imbalance, it is probably considered a symptom of something else such as depression or smoking crack.

3/7/2006 8:12:53 PM

there's no such thing as an eating disorder in ethiopia.

3/7/2006 8:24:40 PM

^ omg ...that was wrong.
ok well maybe it's technically right but jeez!

[Edited on March 7, 2006 at 10:14 PM. Reason : .]

3/7/2006 10:13:46 PM

Ras Tafari would be most displeased.

3/7/2006 11:38:25 PM