Did you know?

Did you know that there are support websites for girls with anorexia. I learned about this in my annoying paper class, another girl is writing about it. She pointed out although other such evils of the Internet world are publicized this one is not so known. I happen to agree, s ince I only learned about it yesterday. On these sites girls share tips and compete to see who can lose the most weight. A once isolating disorder has turned into a competion and elite group. She pointed out that they idolize thin actresses and models, no not the actresses who wear a size six mind you. No the ones that are themselves anorexic. I believe (and I said this in class) that if the media can tell us what is beautiful, they have a responsibility to tell us the affects of such beauty. Anorexia kills more people then any other mental disorder, yet it is glorified in popular culture. The one guy in the class (it is a group of four, two girls and two boys-but one was absent) said that he personally does not find anorexic girls attractive (or really thin ones for that matter) but that he has lots of friends who do. I personally don't see the beauty in someone who is half starved but I also don't think that it is just some guys idea of beauty that is driving this disease. Some times it starts with a "You know you could lose some weight". Other times it begins with feelings of rejection, a need for control or a need to punish your body. A Rabbi once spoke about this in camp, well at least anorexia in the frum world. His take was that it was not always the boys but sometimes their mothers who wanted their son's to marry the best, prettiest thinnest girls. Yet he still linked the frum dating world and anorexia, and you know what as much as I think it has some part in the problem, I doubt it is the main issue. I really don' t know what compelled me to write this, I think I just had to muddle through my thoughts by putting them in to words. Anorexia is always one of those things that haunted me because it popped up so many different times in my life. A friend in high school, a friend in seminary, a mother of a friend, a friend of the family. It surrounds us and still it is often dismissed and filed away as an unimportant issue.