Not A Myth

When confronted with the topic of eating disorders, people who have not had experiences with the disorder tend to wonder why promoting awareness is so important. The simple answer is that eating disorders kill people of all backgrounds and ages on a daily basis.

Some responses to this may be:

• Kill? You're exaggerating. 
• Just rich, white girls have that.
• Does it really affect that many people? Is it really that big of an issue?

Despite the fact that it is likely that every person knows someone or is someone with an eating disorder, eating disorders are commonly misunderstood. Part of the reason for this deals with the mental health stigma: people are afraid of being judged for speaking about their illnesses. As for those who do speak, it is still difficult to communicate the tumult of emotions the disorder presents.

Luckily, new research is being conducted and eating disorder awareness is becoming less of a rarity and more of a necessity. At this moment, we'll focus on debunking the three responses previously presented.

1) Myth: Eating disorders don't kill. 

Fact: Eating disorders kill, and they kill indiscriminately. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses, and anorexia has a higher mortality rate than that of cancer. In fact, eating disorders have a mortality rate of up to twelve times any other cause of death for women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. Eating disorders are a slow form of suicide.

2) Myth: Eating disorders only affect affluent, young women.

Fact: Eating disorders affect ten million Americans: nine million patients are women and one million patients are men. The key reason why this disorder is widespread deals with the origin of the eating disorder. Eating disorders are not about attention or food. People with eating disorders feel a great sense of unworthiness, self-hatred, and lack of control. These feelings can accumulate in the minds of anyone.

3) Myth: Eating disorders only affect a few people.

Fact: Up to thirty million people in the world have an eating disorder. Of those thirty million, only one in ten receive treatment. In anorexia patients, research shows that one-third recover, one-third of patients continually relapse, and the final third die.

All in all, we need to promote awareness. Eating disorders are not a choice and can happen to anyone. There is still a large percentage of people not getting the help they need to recover and we need to change the situation through education.