One thing must kill a man they say. No mortal man can ever live forever. These and more are some of the reasons people hide under to live a reckless life. Also, social media is doing more harm than good to the life of young adults. The pressure to look perfect, to look like that celebrity or model is causing people to neglect their health. The long term effect of excessive dieting and exercising is anorexia.
See Also: Overuse of antibiotics is helping create superbug of superbugs
Luisel Ramos is an Uruguayan model, who was born on the 12th of April 1984. She died of anorexia induced heart failure at an ongoing fashion show of the Fashion Week in Montevideo, Uruguay on the 2nd of August 2006 at 9:15 pm, just after a performance. Her father told the Police that she replaced real food with lettuce and diet coke three months before her death.
Isabelle Carowas a French model who featured in the infamous No Anorexia – an anorexia awareness campaign also suffered from anorexia. She died of complications from living with anorexia for years in 2010, and she was just 28years at the time of her death.
See Also: Medical tourism and medical brain drain
Moderation in life is always key; too much of everything is bad.
We are in a generation where everyone wants to be a size 10. Where being a size 16 seems like a taboo, and there are all sorts of slim tea, concoctions, waist trainers, diet plans, etc to shed off body fat and improve the body shape.
I’m not saying you should not have a healthy diet plan, I’m only saying all things should be done in moderation. You want to lose weight, or you want to add weight, do it moderately, and in the right way.
See Also: How to avoid kidney disease and take care of your health
World Statistics Of Anorexia.
According to Wikipedia, an estimate of 2.9 million people were affected by the disease in 2015. It has been estimated to occur in 0.9% to 4.3% of women, and 0.2% to 0.3% of men in Western countries.
About 0.4% of young women are affected yearly with women being more predominately susceptible to the disease. It mostly begins during the teen years or young adulthood. In 2013 anorexia resulted in 600 deaths globally.
See Also: 100 Profitable business ideas for aspiring entrepreneurs and investors.
What Is Anorexia?
Anorexia is an eating disorder characterized by abnormally low body weight, intense fear of weight gain, and a warped perception of weight. People with this condition severely restrict the amount of food they eat so they can continually lose weight.
Also, they try to control their calorie intake by inducing vomition after food intake. So, they misuse laxatives by taking them excessively and unnecessarily. They always take diet pills and substances that increase urinary flow. Furthermore, they exercise more than is necessary, and always fear weight gain regardless of how much weight they have lost.
See Also: Health implications of accumulating air miles for the traveling entrepreneur
Causes
The exact cause of anorexia is not known but the condition can be developed from eating disorder. Succumbing to the media pressure where slim body types are projected as the ideal body type. So, people come to believe that their self worth and life will become better if they are thinner. Therefore they begin to engage in excessive dieting and excercise.
Also, there is physiological and environmental elements to the disease where child abuse, severe family trauma cause a person to avoid food.
Symptoms Of Anorexia
People who are anorexic starve themselves and have an extreme strong fear of weight gain. The worst is that they never accept they are ill until the situation worsens.
Before the symptoms become evident, there are warning signs you should watch out for:
- Complaining about being fat
- Sticking to difficult routine exercise
- Pretending not to be hungry
- Not wanting to eat in public
- Constantly checking yourself in the mirror
- Tendency of withdrawing from people
A full blown anorexia is manifests the following symptoms:
- Starvation
- Underweight and terrified about gaining weight
- Difficulty sleeping at night
- Fainting or dizziness
- Dehydration
- Swollen arms and legs
- Really low body temperature which causes cold hands and feet
- Infertility and missing menstrual periods
- Osteoporosis
- Unstable heart rate
- Bad breath and toothache resulting from excess vomiting.
See Also: The effect of caffeine on the entrepreneur
Is There A Solution For This Ailment?
The good news is that there is a solution to this treatment.
Once a patient admits he/she needs help, the individual would receive a team treatment approach. This approach includes doctors, mental health professionals and dietitians experienced in eating disorders.
Also, continuous therapy and nutritional education are highly important for continued recovery.
See Also: Mohammed Ali: The world may have gone out of greatness
We are all beautiful in and out. This is something we have to affirm to ourselves everyday and we should take a break from social media. All we see on social media is not what they seem.
Never body shame people rather embrace love. Everyone is unique in their own way – fat, slim, tall, short, we are all beautiful in our own way.
Embrace who you are, eat right, eat healthy and exercise right too. One little secret, the celebrities you adore and want to be like, their life ain’t perfect. Be you because every other person is taken!
Entrepreneurship is a lonely journey, let us help you get through it with our services
Image Credit: thedailybeast.com, abcnews.go.com
