Do you know the symptoms and treatment to help young women overcome anorexia and bulimia? Anorexia and bulimia can affect women physically, mentally and emotionally. An eating disorder is a mental disorder where people starve themselves and harm their body or they have the need to stop eating or eat a large amount of food so they do not have to eat for a long time. The media has convinced teens and middle aged women that they should have a perfect body to be a model or actress. This false image of women is the cause of many teens having an eating disorder. According to Muuse, “95% of anorectics and 90% of bulimics are women.” (Killian par 7). Sandoz says that "the body is evaluated as "thin" or "beautiful". and those evaluations are extended to the self as worthy and good”. (37) Anorexia and bulimia are two different types of eating disorders. Anorexia is a complex and emotional disorder that is characterized mostly by obsession with food and the gaining weight. In other words, people that restrict their diet. Bulimia, developed from the Greek word of ox-hunger. Those people have to overeat or binge eat so that they could consume 3 to 27 times the recommended daily food allowance and then they feel they must vomit the food in order to lose the weight.
Anorexia and bulimia start when a person thinks or their family tells them that she or he is fat. Those with the disorder start to hallucinate and start to believe that they have more weight than what they actually have. In their minds they see themselves as physically fat and it affects them emotionally. The symptoms of anorexia and bulimia are similar: for example low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, mood swings and isolation from family and friends. Anorexic, women tend to lose their period, and become thin, as well as having dry scalp and have the fear of food and weight gain. On the contrary bulimic women have eating habits that get out of control, for example they consume more than they have too and then vomit everything they ate, which the acid from their stomach causes injuries in their throats.
Anorexia and bulimia affect a person’s way of thinking because in their mind they believe that they are overweight. Most people diagnosed with these disorders are in denial because no matter how much weight they lose they will always feel or think that they are overweight. Often when diagnosed with anorexia and bulimia some people are also diagnosed with other psychological problems such as “obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, borderline personality disorder, and sleeping disorder.”

Anorexia and Bulimia have a big effect mostly in women and some men. There is mostly more news on obesity than anorexia and bulimia combined. One person who is aware and has started a company for anorexia and bulimia is the supermodel, Tyra Banks. There are, symptoms, and treatments. Society should be aware of these dangerous disorders because not only does it affect those that have the disorders, it also