Eating Disorders

My best friend lay on the couch next to me, wilted and defeated looking, sobbing quietly into her hands.

                “I’ve been dealing with it for so long, it’s like a drug, it’s an addiction…”

Lost for words and clueless how to comfort her, I held and reassured her, promising that I would always be there, promising my shoulder to cry on and my unconditional love.

                “I just don’t understand,” I stammered, “you’re so beautiful, why? Why would you do this to yourself?”

My best friend that I’d had since I was 12 and the strongest, most resilient person I had ever known had just confessed to me that she was struggling with bulimia nervosa, a life-threatening disease that affects millions of young girls throughout the country. Bulimia is a diagnosable medical disorder which causes the sufferer to eat large quantities of food in a short period of time (known as “bingeing”) and then force herself to vomit (known as “purging”). Anorexia nervosa (commonly known as anorexia), another potentially life-threatening disorder, causes the sufferer to eat unhealthily small quantities of food and become obsessive and secretive about eating food. It has been estimated that more than 10 million young women struggle with eating disorders. Despite this information, research on eating disorders remains underfunded, insurance covering treatment remains sparse, and unhealthy body images among girls remain rampant.  Although the number of people with eating disorders is more than twice the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease, Alzheimer’s research receives almost 54 times the amount of funding as does research on eating disorders. Anorexia is the most deadly psychiatric disorder, claiming nearly 15% of its victims within 12 years. For girls affected by this disease, their eating disorder becomes an addiction, and the road to recovery can be as long and painful as the reform process for drug addicts.