How do I look today?

Analyzing the issue of eating disorders is a very complicated work; and it might not always have the deserved attention when it involves the adolescent population.

Fortunately, current inquiries around the origins of abnormal eating habits and their consequences generally involve a good number of factors—in lay talks we hear about the plague of the fast food industry and its influences upon young minds; at the social level we see the suffocating power of the pressure for appealing physical appearances; at the family and cultural levels we abide to specific rules; and at the individual level, we invariable follow genetics, and biological laws. Virtually anything can affect our outlook.

Many generations have gone and many fructiferous research have materialized so societies could begin to see the link between atypical eating habits and mental disorders (Marsh and Wolf, 2014).  But we are yet to have the full capability to isolate causal aspects of the human construct that can possibly give us all the answers we crave for. Without a dynamic analysis, we risk to continue to live in a limbo of feeble philosophies.  

The fact that society plays a key role in our self-appraisals seems like a plain thing; it’s a historical fact (and it has furnished plenty material for the nurture/nature debate). But it appears that the effect of social pressure—not only on individuals but also on societies as a whole—has reached almost calamitous levels.

After reading about the subject so many times, I am often mulling over how these behaviors reverberate across the familial setting, and how they create an even more precarious environment for its members. One thing to dream for is the use of social media to educate people of the importance of good health, as opposed to the triviality of good looking, like current societies demand these days.

References:

M. J. Eric & W. A. Wolfe (2014). Abnormal Child Psychology (6th ed.). Boston:                  Cengage