EDs

Eating disorders
short speech (fragments }:->)

Today, I'm going to talk about something that isn't usually percieved as mental illness, despite being classified as such. Also, it is one of the rare cases where you're not born with it but may develop the illness. Once you do, it gets so deeply ingrained in your brain and sense of self that you will probably fight (?) all the attempts of help.

When you think of eating disorders, you probably picture a person, usually a girl, that looks just like skin and bones and hides or throws away their food. You're right but not entirety - whereas anorexia is the most known eating disorder, there is also its complete opposite, obesity, as well as bulimia.

Let's start with overeating. It is a known fact that food can be addicting, for many reasons, not just physically addictive ingredients. Candies are tasty, but the sugar they contain boosts our mood. Have you ever wondered why exactly we like ice cream and jelly beans? It's not just the taste we enjoy, but also the sugar itself. There's no wonder why the phrase 'eat your sadness away' exists.
You can see the lethality and addictiveness of drugs compared to sugar.
In 2013 heroin and cocaine together cause twelve thousand deaths, while 19 thousand deaths were related to sugar.

Of course, it's not just sweet things that lead to gaining weight. Meals with fat and carbons can be delicious too, and when something is delicious, you want more of that, and that's fine. Unless you're not hungry anymore, in fact, you're already full, but still keep opening your fridge. You might not notice you’re addicted in time. When an obese person realizes they have a problem they might think there's nothing they can do about it, because the urge to eat is too strong.

It is also very important, but difficult, to simply accept the fact that it might be necessary to start fighting unhealthy habits. The denial is one of the biggest obstacles in overcoming eating disorders. There’s no point in wasting your energy on blaming someone or something, yet it is easier than admitting to having a problem.

Another reason the obese don't consider treatment are various fat acceptance movements. You should never accept something that's a threat to health because even if you feel good in your body, there's nothing beautiful about your internal organs especially heart and liver being damaged. But still, as long as a person wants help, there's hope for them.

But what if they don't? That seems to be the case with anorexia and bulimia. They are somewhat similiar, and both will probably lead you to an early grave, but 'work' a little different. It is hard to say which one is more damaging to health, but I would say bulimia, as binge eating and then forcing the food out of your body is still less natural than simply not eating at all.t in the mind, yet damage the body.

But how is it possible to surpress such natural instinct as hunger? Because it's no different than a schizophrenic hearing voices - the thinking process has been distorted, as losing weight becomes more important than health. that's why both anorexia and bulimia have been classified as mental illnesses.

Sadly, just like with fat acceptance there are groups, luckily not praised by society, called pro-ana and pro-mia that promote so called 'safe' anorexia and bulimia. There's nothing healthy in starving yourself or forcing your stomach acid up your throat, but an affected person doesn't care anymore. I would compare such groups to a someone giving you an advice on how to take drugs without anyone noticing, it's that irrational. You can even but merchandise related to pro-ana, like bracelets with 'keep calm and don't eat' written on them and then wear it on your malnourished wirst.

And what about men? While it is easy to imagine an obese man, those struggling with anorexia and bulimia tend to seem invisible to society, even though they make one third of the cases.
One of male celebrities that wasn’t afraid of speaking about his battle with bulimia was Elton John. He revealed that "rushing to the bathroom after every meal helped him not feel guilty about overeating", which is characteristic for bulimic people. He also stated that his friend, princess Diana, who also suffered from eating disorder, helped him recover.

We should also take the risk of addiction into consideration - when an unhlealthly skinny person seems aloof, and their respones are inconherent or even awkward it might be caused by their abuse of opiate painkillers as they stop food cravings.

There are many factors that lead to eating disorders, but I believe we shouldn't judge the affected, especially those that don't want to eat. Yes, they might have been gullible thinking everyone can look like a model on a magazine cover, or maybe they were influenced by famous people like Eugenia Cooney or Beth Ditto and yes, there are obese people that aren't helpless, but simply lazy, like the man who sued McDonalds.

What's the conclusion? The first step, that is usually the hardest, is to make the victim of an eating disorder consider advice or help. The obese think they can't be helped, but the underweight simply don't want to - help means gaining weight and, while they usually realise they're hurting themselves, the desire to stay skinny is stronger, even if it means death. What I would love to see is one of the biggest lies being finally debunked - that you can be healthly at every size.