Anorexia: A Concealed Calamity

         Anorexia Awareness is worth fighting for because the more awareness we raise, the less girls will feel about being ugly, fat, or worthless. Anorexia is an eating disorder, which many teenagers and young adults suffer from, they keep this hidden, and deny themselves that it is egregious what they are doing to their bodies. The image above shows a young girl who is so convinced she looks the way she see's herself in the mirror, but that is far from reality. Anorexia Nervosa is the official term for this eating disorder, how could this happen in the first place? According to 'Causes of Eating Disorders', "Recent studies have indicated that as many as 10% of the girls and women in the U.S have eating disorders. Of those, an estimated 50,000 will die as a result of their disease. Most of us, whether we realize it or not, know a girl, or several teenage girls, who stuggles with an eating disorder." 


        Not so long ago, there was a French model who had this disease. Many models have anorexia, to keep in the business. Her name was Isabel Caro, who died at the age of 28. According to the website, "she once said, she ate only two small squares of chocolate and four to five cornflakes per day." Isabel Caro was a model, who had a very sever case of anorexia, which led to her death. Isabel Caro once said that a fashion designer told her to lose 10kg if she wanted to be in the top of the fashion world. This news wouldn't have taken too well with Caro, because when she was a child, her mother had a phobia of her growing. Her whole life, Isabel was concerned with her weight. In this video, it shows Caro getting interviewed, and she answers many questions about how she is an anorexic. Caro states that she is 5'6, and weighs 86 pounds (39kg.) What makes Caro so different from other anorexic models is that she did anorexia awareness. Here is an example of what I am talking about:

          As you can see, this is the very anorexic Caro who's tailbone is even coming out of her skin. Caro did this to show young girls that is ISN'T a good thing to look like this, many other successful models still become number 1 without having to do this, for example, Tyra Banks. Tyra Banks become a very famous model despite what her agents told her to do (lose weight). Adding onto Caro's story, she would feint very often, and always had bruises and cuts which took longer than normal to heal. Towards the end of her life, Caro really did try to fix this disease, but it was too late. She was in hospitals for years, before she died. "I wanted to have a body of a child forever, to make my mother happy." Caro's teeth, hair and skin would peel/fall off, due to her neglect towards her hunger. This is another major issue of anorexia that people don't realize before they start this tragic matter.

     Effects of eating disorders can be hair loss, loss of teeth, slow heart rate, flaky skin and weak fingernails. I know firsthand what is it like to see an anorexic, and I know how extreme the cases are. Unfortunately by the time myself and a few others discovered this, it was too late. She had been into it for about 6-7 months and if we tried to talk to her, she would get angry and cry, teachers talked to her too, but nothing helped. And now nobody knows if she is still continuing with this disease since she moved away, and it's extremely difficult to contact her. Anyway, I lived with her for about a week, and that's when I noticed. I mean everyone noticed her weight loss, she would easily have lost about 7 kg in the past 3 months, but she insisted it was due to exercise. Which I suppose it was, because that's what she did. Exercise. ALL the time. Without eating. And the effects of that? Well, her period stopped, her hair fell out, she brushed her teeth about 7 times a day because of her slight bulimia, and all her clothes become loose for her, (swimsuits, underwear, etc.) I think that once an anorexic really gets into the disease, his/her mind become so wrapped around the idea that what she is doing, is fine, and there is nothing wrong with it. Talking to them just makes them angry, and nothing you can really help. I remember I was horrified when she told me "If you drink a lot of water, the hunger stops." The point is, anorexia is a serious disease caused by low self esteem, and there are many terrible effects of this, which ultimately will lead to death.

      There are many types of eating disorders, in case you didn't know what bulimia is, it's when you usually overeat and then throw up everything you eat. Dentists notice this first, because vomit is acid which stains your teeth, so bulimics would brush their teeth very often everyday. "In Bulimia Nervosa, teens consumer large quantities of food in binges, and they try to compensate by inducing vomiting..."The main reason anorexics die is that their body loses so much nutrients and everything they need to survive that every organ starts to shut down, or bleed, or just become unsuitable.

        Anorexia is a deadly disease, which I feel people do not take as seriously as they should. I think almost every teen girl has issues with their weight, or body, (including myself, and many friends I know), but anorexia is taking it to the extreme. I feel that people need to be educated of the risks, if people really knew what they were getting into, the question is, would they still do this to themselves? No, of course they wouldn't. If we had more awareness campaigns, like Caro did, people would become more aware of how devastatingly tragic this is. Anorexia most likely will not be stopped, but we can all do a lot more than we are now to lessen the number effected by this.