A disorder is an upset of normal functions. This being the case, an eating disorder is when normal eating habits or functions become abnormal and unhealthy. We will be discussing two of the three major eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa. Both are extremely unhealthy to a person's body and mind. Eating disorders among adolescents are a growing problem in America. There has been a steady increase in the number of cases in the last fifty years (AAP). All too often, when a person develops an eating disorder, no one notices (Bell). Many people, because of an eating disorder, see the inside of a hospital. They wake up in intensive care almost too weak to stay alive. A person with an eating disorder feels that by controlling their eating they are in control, but it is actually the eating controlling them (Way 83). Treatment is always necessary for a person with an eating disorder.
             Reasons for these disorders are unknown on all levels of science. Many researchers think they are the consequence of societal and psychological pressures acting on people with a biological predisposition and a vulnerability of personality. There is proof of altered brain chemistry in several bulimics, and studies have shone that people with eating disorders often have low self-esteem and come from firm and heavy-handed families. According to this, "body weight is one thing teenagers in such families can control, and they learn to with a vengeance." In the case of societal pressures "we live in a cult of thinness" (Shepard). It starts with our society's outlook, "thin is in" (Bell). The role of women in our society is to be stunningly beautiful and very thin; a man's trophy (Way 26). There is a study that shows that American women have gained more than five pounds in the last thirty years while beautiful Playboy centerfolds have lost weight over the same period (Shepard).
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