Mental Health Week
Last week’s LINC lesson was about mental health awareness. This year was focused on eating disorders and body image.
Everyday, men and women all over the world and most definitely in our school have to deal with eating disorders, and they affect every part of their lives. We are constantly told by media that we have to be thin, or athletic or whatever else; so much so, that it takes over our lives and hurts our view of ourselves.
It is impossible to count how many times I’ve heard the words “I’m so fat” coming from girls my age. Most of the time they come from girls who, by modern standards, aren’t even curvy. Girls who do this are not cruel, and they are not vain; they are scared. People of any and all genders seek validation from the people around them. I happen to think my friends are some of the most beautiful people alive, yet I know that all of them at some point in their lives have felt self conscious about the way they look. We judge ourselves so much more harshly than other people do. We don’t see ourselves from an outsider’s point of view everyday so we guess and we fill in what don’t know about how people see us.
This isn’t a girls’ issue either. It manifests itself differently in different people and it may not be as easy to see, but boys deal with this deflated self esteem too. Just like some girls do, some boys feel like they’re too fat or not muscular enough. The way we’ve made it seem like only a girls’ problem makes it harder for boys to talk about what’s wrong and find help. Acceptance is incredibly hard to find in yourself, especially if society tells you you don’t even have trouble with it. The reality is that people are simply made differently. Some people can naturally gain muscle with ease and others can easily gain fat. People have wide shoulders and thin shoulders, they’re tall and they’re short. Who decided that a certain look was the best anyway?
Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are a lot more than simply feeling self-conscious. Your mind is telling you you’re not good enough and no matter what other people may say you still believe your instincts. According to the National Eating Disorders Association about 20 million women and 10 million men in the United States suffer from eating disorders. One of the most dangerous things is pretending that they don’t exist, and that they can’t affect you or the people you are closest to