Are 'super thin' models invading your brain?
I've mentioned the research before, but this article from the Times Online gets more to the heart of the dispute about cause.
It's a brain thing.
My daughter told me long ago that it wouldn't matter if she had lived in a cave in the Arctic circle without access to the media - her anorexic mind would use anything to justify itself before she was re-fed. She could walk by 10,000 people of average BMI but it would be the one underweight person she would see.
I think it is insulting to people with eating disorders to even compare the severely distorted cognition and the suffering of fighting it with what those without eating disorders think or feel.
My daughter's brain was built differently. With a lot of help and work it healed, and she had to become stronger than the illness to keep it from coming back. She fought a demon that most of us never, thank goodness, have to see.
It's a brain thing.
My daughter told me long ago that it wouldn't matter if she had lived in a cave in the Arctic circle without access to the media - her anorexic mind would use anything to justify itself before she was re-fed. She could walk by 10,000 people of average BMI but it would be the one underweight person she would see.
I think it is insulting to people with eating disorders to even compare the severely distorted cognition and the suffering of fighting it with what those without eating disorders think or feel.
My daughter's brain was built differently. With a lot of help and work it healed, and she had to become stronger than the illness to keep it from coming back. She fought a demon that most of us never, thank goodness, have to see.
I agree with you that it is insulting to people with eating disorders to suggest that their condition is merely a socially-driven Madison Avenue- induced desire to be thin. I think those of us who are parents have seen our kids under the influence of a wide range of social pressures of all kinds. We can tell the difference between behavior that is the product of social pressure and a condition like ED that results from a brain disorder.
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