Obesity Series: Could Obesity Be Fuelling Eating Disorder Increases?
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
I was a fat kid. Until I learned all there was to know about anorexia, that is. And to be honest, about 80% of my initial motivation to become anorexic was to not be the chubby kid. No longer picked on in school so that I spent lunch hours reading alone in the classroom. No longer spoken about at the doctor’s office in hushed tones while I stood outside and overheard the word ‘clinically obese.’ I didn’t want to have any more reason to be labelled, I suppose, and being fat, it was the one I could control most.
Sure, later anorexia became much more than being thin or liked. But that’s not what this series is about.
This theory I have is that the media does have quite an affect on eating disorder increases. Not strictly in the usual sense, that surrounding us with images of thin, successful people is plaguing our minds and diets; that there is so much literature out there, documenting increasing in obesity in parallel with increases in other health problems.
Obesity can in part be blamed for a whole host of problems:
- Heart disease;
- Diabetes, type two;
- Some cancers;
- Sleep problems;
- Skeletal alignment issues;
- Distortion of cancer test results;
- Sadness;
- Increased sick days, morbidity and the associated costs;
- Potentially lowering dopamine absorption or manufacturing;
- Fertility issues.
And on and on. It seems that obesity can and is being blamed for every physical and emotional health issue at large. So, that being displayed, wouldn’t you be more likely to skip a few meals, avoid fatty foods, become obsessive about maintaining an appropriate body mass index if you are continually being bombarded with news about being fat equalling being unhealthy and, well, dead?
Obesity, Childhood obesity, Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Sleep, Sadness, Depression, Teasing, Bullying, Sickness, Morbidity, Dopamine, Fertility, Media and obesity, Media and fear
