I was watching the OZ show today. No clue how it got turned on but I think it was a sign I need to blog because today's show was about Pro Anorexia movement. . .
You read that right! PRO anorexia movement. I can honestly admit that I cried the whole time watching the show. I couldn't turn the channel. Seeing these older and young women thinking that anorexia is the only way to be beautiful! Dr. Oz even had a man who ran a pro-ana site to "help the women who suffer from anorexia talk about their issues" but yet the site is full of pictures of these 70lb grown women saying "this is beauty."
I had to go look up some of these pro-ana sites to fully understand the concept and was hoping that I could find something good from this "support" system. Turns out, I didn't! Instead, I was given this...
Thin Commandments
1) If you aren't thin, you aren't attractive
2) Being thin is more important than being healthy
3) You must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, anything to make yourself look thinner
4) Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty
5) Thou shall not eat fattening food withoud punishing afterwards
6) Thou shall count calories and restrict intake accordingly
7) What the scale says is the most important thing
8) Losing weight is good, gaining weight is bad
9) You can never be to thin
10) Being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and success.
2) Being thin is more important than being healthy
3) You must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, anything to make yourself look thinner
4) Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty
5) Thou shall not eat fattening food withoud punishing afterwards
6) Thou shall count calories and restrict intake accordingly
7) What the scale says is the most important thing
8) Losing weight is good, gaining weight is bad
9) You can never be to thin
10) Being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and success.
This is what these women are living by! I want to try to ween through these "commandments" and see if I could better understand them.
1. If you aren't think, you aren't attractive. Well, I am far from thin, but who can say this isn't beautiful?
I don't need anorexia to be beautiful! I won't lie though. I have been through every diet in the book. I wasn't always happy in the skin God gave me. I went through that part of life where I was never happy with myself. I was fat and ugly and I used to think the only way I would be happy with myself is if I was thin and beautiful. It wasn't until I realized that losing weight wasn't going to make me happy with myself, it was going to make others happy with me. I realized that I can love me just the way I am! Just because people are rude doesn't mean I am not a beautiful woman! I am healthy, I have no diseases, I don't hurt, I don't worry about my weight, and honestly, I don't worry about anything but being happy! If I am excited and confident in the way I look and feel, others will see that and change their rude minds! I promise you that! People can tell when you are confident in yourself. Yes I get called fat but guess what, those who call me fat are awfully distraught when it doesn't affect me, and when their boyfriends want to talk to me after!
2. Being thin is more important than being healthy. Really? I don't even know if I can morally discuss this one. On the Oz show, there was a 30 year old woman who weighs 73lbs and eats about 300 calories a day from a feeding tube. . . THIS is more important than being healthy? So what, now you are bone thin, your body aches, you can't enjoy food, and you can't possibly ever leave your house because of how SICK you are. THIS is what women are looking forward to? Call me crazy, but I enjoy being able to go out and have dinner and enjoy the company of friends and meet new people. I'm not sure someone like this would be approachable!
This is a link to the video from Dr. Oz show. Please do watch this. Hopefully this could change someone's mind about not eating!
3. You must buy clothes, cut your hair, take laxatives, anything to make yourself look thinner. Is it so bad that women can be happy in the body they were given? Do you think I just woke up one day fat? No! I have been big my whole life. I can't remember a time when I could have been considered "thin". I think these anorexic women think so much about what others think about beauty, they forget it doesn't matter what others think, or what society says is beautiful. Quite frankly, if society keeps this view of "beauty" we are all fucked, for lack of better word!
4. Thou shall not eat without feeling guilty. Sickening! Why should you feel guilty for doing what you need to do as a human being to survive? I can't even being to fathom this. We were given the teeth to chew food, the system to digest it, and the tools to release the waste..... So what gives? Why should you feel guilty for doing what you NEED to do? There's a difference between calorie counting and starving. Are these women aware they are killing more than their fat, they are losing their brain! No, really! They are killing their brain from not giving their bodies enough food to work!
5. Thou shall not eat fattening foods without punishing afterwards. So now, you enjoy a burger, then have to go cut yourself? So not only will you have anorexia, you will have self mutilation problems too? GREAT! Everyone will really love you now! Even when I diet, I don't get hard on myself when I eat something out of my calorie count. This would be setting myself up for failure. Of course you aren't going to be spot on dieting EVERY day. Lunch dates happen! You simply pick back up where you left off the day before. I don't even want to discuss this one any further.
6. Thou shall count calories and restrict calories accordingly. Okay, counting calories and restricting calories is a touchy subject. In most diets, like the one I am on now, yes, we restrict calories. But there is a fine line between starving ones self and eating healthy. I eat 1100 calories a day. This is enough calories to keep my body moving and I am not constantly hungry. These anorexic dieters are restricting to less than 300 calories a day. This would be the equivalent to 6 pieces of melba toast and half an apple. All day! This is what they would eat in one day, if they are eating at all. Then again, these foods probably have too many sugars so they most likely wouldn't eat them. But regardless, this is not enough food for one to survive on each day.
7. What the scale says is the most important thing. This is the downfall in most diets. The excessive weighing! You shouldn't weigh yourself multiple times a day. And definitely don't weigh yourself right after you eat! This is common knowledge! Of course the weight is going to be a little higher when you are full of food! By weighing yourself constantly, you feel like you aren't making any progress. The scale can be a great tool when it is used correctly.
8. Losing weight is good, gaining weight is bad. Now this may be the only "rule" I sort of agree with to a point. Like I have said, I have done every diet in the book and then some and yes it is better to lose weight when you have enough to lose. But gaining weight isn't always bad. Sometimes if you are losing weight while working out you begin to gain a lb or two here and there from muscle weight. Now in the case of anorexia, the more you lose, the worse off you are getting. They make a healthy weight chart for a reason. When you start getting 30, 40, even 100 lbs under your weight spectrum, is not acceptable at all!
9. You can never be too thin. I completely disagree! When you can't function because you are so thin and frail, I would call that TOO thin. Being a full grown adult and weighing under 80lbs would be TOO thin.
10. Being thin and not eating are signs of true will power and success. Again, really?! I call that opposite of will power and success! Not eating is more like giving into the disease. Will power and success would be getting over anorexia! They are telling people that THIS is a good success. And they are believing because they are weak! These women and men suffering from anorexia are reading these things and thinking they are doing the right thing!
Now that I have disgusted myself even talking about this pro anorexia movement. . . I want to ask everyone. . .
When does feeling good for and about yourself outweigh killing yourself to be "beautiful"?
