Taylor+S’s+Final+AmEx+Speech+2016

//What's Eating You?//

Everyone wants control over his or her life. In this long, exhausting journey through the years of high school, it seems as though everything revolves around school. As things get more and more hectic as you age and mature into a young adult, there are certain things that feel like they can be controlled, such as food. So, sadly, yet unsurprisingly, over 50% of females and 30% of males who are in high school, suffer from some type of eating disorder.

From personal experience, I know that an eating disorder tends to stem from psychological, biochemical, and environmental sources, as well as social media. Nowadays, the beauty industry is not fixated so much on being stick thin and looking malnourished, as it is on being healthy. That sounds great, doesn’t it! Yet the truth is, the supposedly “inspirational pictures” that are plastered across hundreds of different social media sites are //just// as bad as the ones that used to depict impossibly tiny girls. These images that are known as “fitspiration” are supposedly designed to encourage people to maintain good health and daily exercise, yet instead are idealizing weight loss and creating the idea that all people need to have flat stomachs, washboard abs, and perfect legs. And yet instead of motivating people to live a healthy lifestyle and promoting the idea that everybody has their own beautifully unique body shape, these images and inspirational quotes are shame inducing, and basically creating the idealism of thinking that one’s body is //not good enough for society//. People should not feel like they have to fulfill a “cookie cutter body standard” just to fit in, feel attractive, or be happy and healthy. Because of social media’s and other source’s effects on peoples’ (especially women’s) self esteem, body image, and self-confidence, it seems simple to understand the concept and origin of an eating disorder, yet it is so much more difficult to deal with one. As someone who has an eating disorder, I know just how difficult it is to talk about it to other people… and that is exactly the reason why I decided to write my speech about a such a dismal topic… //because// even though it is upsetting and can make people feel uncomfortable, it needs to be acknowledged differently than it has been in the past.

In the past, people felt so uncomfortable when they heard about or associated with somebody who had an eating disorder, that they chose to pretend that the disorder did not exist… that the person who was suffering was just looking for compliments, attention, or pity. These people did not understand that there was more to an eating disorder than achieving a goal of looking skinny or having a nice body, because as I said earlier, there are a multitude of reasons that contribute to and/or cause a disorder.

When I feel like I trust somebody enough to tell them about my personal problems, I don’t need pity. People with eating disorders do not need your sympathy. We need your empathy. There is a difference. It is also extremely unhelpful and frankly really irritating when someone tells you to just stop trying to get attention and to just gain some self-confidence. Eating disorders can be related to body image and self-confidence issues, but that is not all there is to it. We need someone to listen to us as we try to put our feelings into words, because often we ourselves don’t even know how to express our own emotions. We don’t need judgment, or our disorder to be “normalized.” It can be difficult to refrain from judging somebody because if you aren’t suffering through your daily life with an eating disorder, it may seem as though we are shallow people who care only for looks and small waistlines. These disorders tend to be coping mechanisms for other issues as well, and as hard as it may be, support and help is appreciated, even if it doesn’t seem so at the moment when you give it.

Eating disorders can be extremely distressing to deal with, whether it is for the people who are afflicted with it, or those around them, but luckily there are ways to help as well as specific things one should not do. For example, if someone is struggling with eating, do not constantly have conversations or discussions about food or food-related topics. Do not pressure them to eat or draw attention to tics or peculiarities they may have around food. Instead, talk about other things… it is not that hard considering there are hundreds and hundreds of conversation topics that do not involve food. Offer your support to them. I know that when I am feeling stressed or anxious about food it is always nice to talk to somebody without feeling like I am being annoying or judged.

In my own personal experience, when I am having a particularly bad month or week, my mom would try to step in and force me to eat, and instead of helping, it caused me to feel unbelievably stressed, scared, and hopeless. Please don’t ever make threatening statements towards people with eating disorders. The same goes with normalizing these types of disorders. Hearing someone casually say “you don’t look like somebody who has an eating disorder” can be //extremely// triggering, and can cause shame, self-doubt, and anxiety and can greatly exacerbate the eating disorder. An eating disorder feels like a third wheel imposing on all of your relationships and friendships… it dominates your entire life, all of your thoughts, and actions.

A final point I want to make is that people with eating disorders do not all look same. There are many different disorders as well as many hundreds of ways they are dealt with, all depending on the individual. A common myth that needs to be cleared up is that people do not always have to look skinny or underweight to have an eating disorder. Eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes, and many individuals suffering from a disorder can very well be at an average weight or //even// overweight. As somebody with a disorder progresses along the road to recovery, the regaining of weight or other indicators of “progress” do not mean that the person is fully recovered or “cured.” Eating disorders are more than food issues. They are complex and long-standing psychiatric and medical illnesses that have the capability of overwhelming victims and their families. However, this doesn’t have to happen. With the right approach and treatment such as therapy or even just non-judgmental conversations, an eating disorder is a battle that can be fought //and won//.

[] [|http://www] [|.] [|news.com.au/lifestyle/fitness/inspiration/fitspo-contributing-to-negative-body-image-among-women-researchers-find/news-story/9605fc7c0740af6d542a720e6f2dd90b] [] []