Old or young, male or female; idealistic body images flood the minds of people everywhere. We are constantly drilled with what society believes to be the perfect look and over time it starts to seep in. Society consumes ego's and diminishes self confidence. Granted there are a plethora of positive body image campaigns out there, they just have not been able to compete with the even more overbearing ideas of what the "perfect" body looks like. Is it skinny, thin, muscular, thick? It's as if she is supposed to be built like dolls: flat stomach, thigh gap, big butt, not too short, but not too tall either, and her nose can't be too big, but her boobs can't be too small. Society has people believing that if they don't fit this ideal image, they need to change themselves to look that particular way. And, newsflash, it's not just girls. Guys can't be too short because you can't date a guy that's shorter than you. Plus he has to have abs, big hands, a nice hair cut, and the perfect jawline. Does he need to shave or can he grow a beard? The idea is that "beards are sexy," but what if he can't grow a beard? Now he has to bulk up for football, but then he has to stop eating for three days to make it into their weight class for wrestling. Not only do we need to stop the stigma about the perfect body image, we also need to stop the idea that it's just girls who struggle with it.
The impact society makes on pressuring people to be perfect has so many detrimental effects. Psychological ramifications are the most broadcast consequences of these severe insecurities. People today struggle with mental illness more than ever before. Anxiety and depression are the most common, but not the only ones. Add the pressure to look a certain way to someone who doesn't particularly look like such and these illnesses get worse. We want them to get better. It's these illnesses that play a massive role in contributing to the physical consequences. Eating disorders and disordered eating are some of the most prevalent ways of coping with not fitting into the ideal body image portrayed by the media. Whether it be anorexia or bulimia, neither are the right way to handle the situation. But, I get it. Nothing else seems to work! You eat right, you work out, and yet you don't see the change you want to see and if you do see change, it's not fast enough.
The truth is, when you starve yourself, you're not helping your physical health and your certainly not helping your mental health. Eating becomes physically painful, the idea itself makes you nauseous. You're constantly starving, but you've tricked your brain into thinking that food is the enemy. You become malnourished, dehydrated, cranky, your hair falls out in clumps, and everyday tasks become nearly impossible to complete due to your severe lack of energy. You become obsessed with counting calories and working out beyond your body's capacity. When you struggle with bulimia eating isn't the scary part, it's keeping it down that is the struggle. You eat until you're full, and then you eat more. Then you feel so guilty about eating as much as you did or what you did, that you make yourself sick in order to get it out of your system. You convince yourself that you don't need or deserve the food you ate. But, with the food you throw up comes the nutrients that keep your body going. Eating disorders force you to put so much focus on weight loss that you have a difficult time focusing on anything else. They consume your daily life.
To someone not struggling, it's so hard to see how this could happen to anyone. How could they not know this is horrible for their health? But, once you start it's the demon of all demons. Fighting it takes time and eventually you just don't see anything wrong with what you're doing. It becomes second nature and you start doing it without thought. Pretending they don't exist only makes the situation worse and if you don't know anything about them, do yourself a favor and educate yourself. You don't know how scary it is and how helpless people feel. If you see something, say something. You can make more of an impact than you know.
And to you, reading this, whether this article applies to you or not, you are beautiful, inside and out.
