Nineteen-year-old Cheska thought it was the easiest way to loose those unwanted pounds. It seemed more logical. This way, no one will know her little secret since she seems normal. She was eating right. But when the doors are closed, it is another story.
“I started purging when I was fourteen. I was a sophomore at an all girls’ school. I was happy. I never felt so sexy in my entire life. Then my mom started telling me that I’m fat, I could not believe it at first since I look at my reflection on the mirror everyday and never see what she saw. Until one day, she got me. I felt so ugly and so desperate. I needed to loose those pounds immediately. It was not really for myself. It was for my mom. So she wouldn’t tell me anymore that I’m fat.”
Weight issues have long plagued girls of all ages. Often affected are those with self-image problems who often seek approval from others, especially family and friends. It is easy to put all the blame on media who projects totally unrealistic, edited images of what is suppose to be the norms for beauty. But eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia is beyond what is seen on the surface.
Bulimia Nervosa is the diet-binge-purge disorder. Bulimics will binge, meaning they eat large amounts of food, and then throw it up. They force themselves to vomit with the use of their bare hands, laxatives, and overly exercising.
According to Chalk Magazine’s article on the body language section, Battling Bulimia by Tintin Samson, “‘Bulimia often begins as what seems to be a good idea-a way to manage weight without dieting.’ It continues as a way to establish control (especially during a stage when they feel out of control-having family problems, moving and other major life changes) but eventually, when the behavior becomes routine, it gets out of control.”
Bulimics are often hard to single out from the crowd. Unlike anorexics, who are easy to spot because of the extremely below average weight, bulimics can be of average to above average weight. In contrast to anorexics who starve themselves, people who have bulimia eat, and sometimes, they even eat a lot, but the catch is they throw everything back out in secret.
According to the Medical Book Volume 3, regular forced vomiting can lead to a number of health risks such as gum infections, esophagitis (caused by the backflow of acid-containing fluids from the stomach), inflammation of the stomach lining or gastritis, extremely irregular menstruation, dehydration, malnutrition and heart problems. Worst comes to worst, Bulimia can also lead to death.
Cheska said, “You know it’s bad for you but it doesn’t matter. You’d do anything to be beautiful.” But how far should we really go for beauty? In Cheska’s case, she went as far as being a bulimic that lead to her bleeding throat and hair loss. Should you wait for yourself to go bald for the sake of beauty? How far will you go? Isn’t it better to accept what you have and work from there than put one’s self through these excruciating regimens that may even lead to worse scenarios?
