Teenage Eating Disorders

Teenage Eating Disorders

Teenage eating disorders are common especially among adolescent girls as opposed to boys. At this age girls are vulnerable especially to their peers. Eating disorders are a reflection of adolescent egocentrism. Teens have imaginary audiences that they must meet up with the standards. In this case it is girls staying thin because they think that everyone around them is going to notice the 2 pounds they gained over Thanksgiving weekend, when in reality her peers don’t even notice. Instead they themselves are worried about their own problems. Imaginary audiences are initially what leads to problems such as teen sex, drinking and such, because the teenager is more focused on what everyone else is going to think or say about them that might affect their social status or popularity. I have pictures and quotes on my poster of girls looking in the mirror and seeing someone who they make themselves to be, which they really aren’t, like being skinny and seeing someone fat in the mirror.

Teens, friends and especially parents should be well aware of this problem at an early stage so that they can see the signs of an eating disorder and put a stop to it. No teenage girl needs to feel that she is an outcast and not beautiful just because she is curvy and voluptuous unlike the skinny thin cheerleaders. They feel this way because they see the cheerleader popular girls getting all the attention and feel that they need to make themselves more like the other girls and less like who they really are whether they are short and a little stubby or skinny. The awareness of this issue needs to be raised more because more and more girls every year are beginning the habit of an eating disorder and it is not healthy in so many ways.