Be(YOU)tiful

BeYou(tiful) 

by Yumi Kao

Recently, I was reading a report about the statistics of eating disorders. I was shocked that people can develop eating disorders in very young age. The data shows that kids as young as five are being treated in hospital for eating disorders. It seems like that the patients with eating disorders are getting younger, and older patients are being diagnosed with greater frequency as well. The emphasis on thinness in our culture has only gotten stronger in the past decade. Children are exposed to greater amounts of media and role models, including children’s role models, are themselves feeling a greater pressure toward thinness. Parents also feel that pressure to a greater degree and perhaps unwittingly transfer their own body image concerns to their kids through their actions and words. A recent study found that more than 40% of girls who were undertaking a diet were doing so because their mothers told them to. If a parent tells their child to diet or lose weight, they are planting the seeds of negative body image. When a mother or father treats a child in such a way as to make them feel inferior, there’s a significantly greater chance of that child developing an eating disorder. For instance, a mother’s unhealthy body image and obsessed with calorie counting is easily transferred to her teenage daughter. From some of the researches I have done, there are some top causes of eating disorders:

First is the Stress around us. As humans, we are not always taught how to communicate well, how to express feelings, and how to resolve inner and outer conflicts. Usually, eating disorders are the body’s symbolic way of coping with a world that is overwhelming us.

Second is Family of origin. Like the top report I discussed earlier, the attitudes of parental figures are incredibly important in the development of a child’s psyche. When a parent has an unhealthy relationship with food, they reflect that way of thinking of their child.

Third is History of Abuse. Eating disorders can often be a coping mechanism that young people develop as a way to symbolically address difficulties at home, and challenges in their relationships. Between one- and two-thirds of girls and women who seek treatment for eating disorders have been the victims of sexual or physical abuse in their lives. When someone is abused at an early age, they may use eating as a way to take control over their own body, or feel the need to punish themselves and their bodies because of lingering guilt or shame.

Forth is the Culture. We are constantly hit over our heads by the media idea of “physical perfection”. We are told that how we should look. Seeing such unattainable “perfection” nearly everywhere we look has a profound effect on our self-esteem. Our goals become unrealistic and unhealthy. Medias also give us a falsified image, and this misguided focus on unreachable beauty and self-control is a major contributing factor of eating disorders in both women and men today.

In a call for growth and transformation, the wisdom of our body, and the wisdom of the universe speaking to us in a hidden language. Our challenges around food and health are here asking us to grow. They are actually messengers of insight and wisdom that ask us to take a deeper look at our inner and outer worlds. In essence, our task is to remove the viral beliefs that infect our minds around perfection and its attainment when it comes to food and weight. Most people understand this concept, but cannot truly feel and experience the powerful way that our minds are programmed to lead us down a road of self-attack around body image.

There is only one person’s opinion you should be concerned with when it comes to your body and that is you. No one person determines what the “correct” body type is. If you are comfortable in your own skin, and you are healthy, then that should be the only thing that matters. Do not let others tell you that you are not beautiful because if you believe you are, then you are.