While browsing MSN.com recently I stumbled upon a story featured on “The Today Show” that I found quite disturbing.
The story was about a girl with an eating disorder – nothing new, right?
The sad part: She was ten years old when she developed anorexia.
Eating disorders are not new to our culture. We’ve grown used to the notion of women, and now some men, taking extreme measures to lose a few pounds. Typically, though, the age at which eating disorders are manifested is the upper teenage years.
The social pressures of our education system are displayed on the bodies of these young people, usually in their later high school or early college years. Our society turns a blind eye and accepts girls who endure eating disorders to obtain model-like bodies.
Why are we, as a culture, so obsessed with skeletal figures? Girls who resemble corpses more than human beings. I don’t understand how a protruding clavicle is considered attractive. Now pre-pubescent girls feel the urge to starve themselves to obtain that “perfect body.” Personally, I am appalled that I live in a culture where children are feeling pressure from society to be “skinny.”
As a society, we are regarded as some of the most beautiful people in the world. Apparently, the “starved look” is in. It’s repulsive that we now have to endure the sight of small children maintaining the look of death, all to impress boys who barely know how to work their own parts.
What business should a 10-year-old ever have with the concept of dieting? Most adults don’t even know how to diet correctly. And now our children feel like they have the whole process figured out.
What could possibly drive a child to feel like they need to be skinny? Look no further than our culture at large. The media have always been at the core, and always will be. It’s futile to even attempt to bring a case against the them. People have been blaming them for years and nothing has happened.
We are living in a culture where it is now acceptable for children to starve themselves to be considered beautiful. Imagine for a minute that you are a parent and your fourth or fifth grader is struggling with an eating disorder. No parent should ever have to endure their child battle an eating disorder, but to have a child who hasn’t even reached puberty yet feel the need to diet through starvation is unfathomable.
Ten years of age should never be an age of body image concern. When a child is 10, they should be thirsty for knowledge. They are at an age of swift development, gaining academic knowledge and learning social skills. The last thing that should be on their minds is their waistline.
I am truly ashamed to be a part of a culture that is so obsessed with physical appearance that children feel they need to diet. A child dieting is the most ludicrous notion I have ever experienced.
Children are in a state of rapid physical growth. To deprive the body of essential victims and nutrients to grow could ream serious outcomes on the child’s health in the future. And how did the skeletal image become so popular and attractive to our generation?
Curvy, healthy women with supple bodies used to be viewed as highly desirable and attractive. Why can’t this image prevail over that of the living dead? Not to mention dieting by starvation is completely unhealthy. By restricting your food intake you are literally slowing your metabolism. You’re teaching your body to conserve any fat left so it can be converted into energy.
In the end, if one is lucky enough to overcome such an experience, all that weight is going to return two-fold since the metabolism has been destroyed.
It appears that our society has reached a low that cannot be outdone. What kind of a childhood is that of someone with anorexia? The psychological consequences of suffering from an eating disorder are disastrous enough. Couple those with the trials of childhood and that’s a nightmare I can’t even imagine. We’ve developed a culture so vain that you’re weird if you actually like the skin you are in. Nobody can ever just be happy with the way they are put together. We’re destroying generations of individuals with jargon about diet pills, miracle weight loss pills and so much plastic surgery options you can become that life-sized Barbie doll you always wanted.
I fear that our situation is not improving either. I shudder to think of the lengths that future generations will go to in order to obtain their “perfect body.”
