Food: An Enemy?

Can it be that food, the thing most of us love beyond much else, is an enemy to some? How could this be? The answer to that is, my friend, the cause of an eating disorder. Some, causing drastic weight gain, are the result of a large love of food. Though, to be an enemy, there are other types of eating disorders. They don't come around on their own, though. It could be said that they can be encouraged. How? Depression, a lot of stress, or negative attitudes, as well as outside factors like fashion magazines displaying images of unrealistically skinny models on their front covers. Why? It looks good. All around us, advertisements make men and women long for bodies they don't have. The result, while many people will honestly eat "right" and go to the gym every day, is in part, eating disorders.

Anorexia and Bulimia are among the most commonly known. Women as well as some men indulge themselves in these types of eating habits to attempt to gain that body they saw on television. Anorexia, eating as little as possible to nothing at all, is a very fast - and very unhealthy way - to gain the "perfect body," which in reality is nowhere near to perfect. People diagnosed with anorexia have had their muscles turned to the exact thing they've been trying to avoid - fat, as well as having their body's overall growth severely reduced (mentality included), and in some cases, intelligence cut severely.

Bulimia is harder to notice, as people with the disease tend to have average body weights. Bulimia usually consists of people who skip meals - just to binge on food, which in turn exits the body before being fully digested via laxatives, self-induced vomiting, or diuretics. People with bulimia tend to not eat in public, disappear after meals, or skip them all together.