Adolescent girls have always “fallen through the cracks.” As a middle school teacher I see the damage that a look-obsessed, media -saturated, “ female poisoning” culture has on my students. They feel valued only for their appearance. Girls place more importance on popularity, sexual experience, and “fitting in “ than on academics, sports, or personal health.

For the exam I choose to successfully complete reading two books. I read the book Wasted: a memoir of anorexia and bulimia by Marya Hornbacher. I also read the book Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher.

It seems that everywhere I look, every time I turn on the TV, food is a constant. I have traveled all over the world, and I think that the US is the worst country in terms of diet pills, thinness and liposuction- our wealth makes us eager to pay someone to perform surgery to suck fat away because we ate too much and are too lazy to go to the gym. American’s want a quick fix, eternal thinness but only if we can still super size our meals and overindulge 24/7. I was shocked to see the latest statistic reported by People Mag

My best friend also lost a lot of weight. Her 16-year-old sister had recently died of cancer and this was the trigger in her mind. She lost a lot of weight in order to be able to wear her sister’s clothes. She was so proud of this, and it broke my heart to see her so thin. It was creepy. She again, didn’t think there was a problem and everyone said she looked so skinny and great, and a whole new wardrobe as well.

Marya sought control in binging. I can’t believe that her parents didn’t notice the mass amount of food being consumed. The pipes would burst at her house. My cousin was also a bulimic and her father told her to throw up outside so that the pipes wouldn’t get clogged. He didn’t understand the disorder at all- why would any parent think throwing up was normal?

Combine poor school lunches with 2 parent-working households that frequent fast food places, and use processed foods and kids are fat for a reason. In addition, mom and dad are so busy working and involved in their divorce or affair they aren’t asking what Julie, had to eat for the day, or even noticed that she hasn’t eaten dinner in a month.

I thought of my own college experience and I can remember girls that would go to the bathroom and throw up together after meals, other girls binged on junk food, some exercised excessively. I can remember helping a friend throw up because she felt too full. I didn’t think it was that big a deal, that that was the start of bigger problems for some of the girls. I was an athlete in high school and was always tall and thin. I think I felt invincible that I would never gain weight. I was successful in avoiding the group pull to lose weight because I had a strong self-worth, parental involvement, and a healthy background in food, and nutritional knowledge all things that Marya and many others lacked in their background.

Some topics in this essay:
Wasted Marya, According Bell, Parents Parents, Control Prevention, TV Jennifer, Disorders Adolescent, Friends Friends, America Meanwhile, Pipher TV, Cosmopolitan Magazine, eating disorders, size 8, eating disorder, food control, food obsessions, size 0, parental involvement healthy, don’t eat, nutritional knowledge, food nutritional, reason eating, parents schools media, food nutritional knowledge,