Name

: Risma Ary Primaadi

Student Number

: 121311233116

ACADEMIC WRITING

Topic

: Eating Disorders

The background on why choosing this topic :

So many people worldwide are suffering from eating disorder nowadays. In fact,
eating disorders have become common things for some people, especially amoung females,
but it does not mean that it is unlikely for males to suffer from these mental illnesses too.
Everyone can suffer from these eating disorders. Millions people worldwide suffer from these
conditions. Some of them may think that what they do is a choice of lifestyle to keep their
body image rather than psychological illnesses that often come with serious consequences or
effects and even something that can endanger their life. What makes eating disorders more
dangerous is that the individuals or the people who have them are sometimes so reluctant to
admit that they suffer from these mental illnesses, and they tend to think of them as another
way or strategy of dieting. This then what makes the diagnosis become too late, and
eventually lead to further dangerous effects for the surfferer that can also potentially lead to
death. People with eating disorder do not have to be overweight or obese. In fact, people
with normal body weight can be diagnosed with eating disorder. These disorders tend to fall
into three main categories: anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorders. People really need
to understand about these eating disorders, their dangers, and also that they are considered as
disorders of the mind and usually are related to social and cultural environment in which the
people suffer from these disorders live or how medias images of ideal bodies are pictured.
By knowing more about these eating disorder, people then are expected to stop doing the
unhealthy ways of getting the ideal body image that they want, and instead look for another
way that is healthy and safe, and also that they are willing to understand the need to
acknowledge their illnesses and to seek for help when the eating disorders that they suffer
from have gone too far, as they are aware of the dangers or the bad effects of these eating
disorders.
The things that will be discussed :
In this review Id like to talk about the causes and the symptoms of eating disorders
such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating which are likely to be psychological, and how
our living environment, gene, culture and society like for example media contribute to these,

to first help us understand more about them. Those then eventually lead us to the second
point of this review on the awareness of how eating disorders negatively affect the lives of
the people who suffer from them, such as how they physically affect them or how they
mentally affect them, and finally how all those negative consequences or effects are the
reasons why people, especially women and adolescents should avoid them at all cost and stop
thinking that they are lifestyle choices to get an ideal body that is desired. Rather, to think
of them as something that are serious and should not be taken lightly. (Grilo and Mitchell)
(Lask and Bryant-Waugh)

Bibliography
Grilo, M Charlos and James E Mitchell. The Treatment of Eating Disorders (A
Clinical Handbook). New York: The Guilford Press, 2010.
Harvey, Simon MD and David Zieve. University of Maryland Medical Center. 8
March 2013. 29 April 2015
<http://umm.edu/health/medical/reports/articles/eating-disorders>.
Lask, Bryan and Rachel Bryant-Waugh. Eating Disorders in Childhood and
Adolescence. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Pearson, Catherine. Huffpost Healthy Living. 13 September 2011. 29 April 2015
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/13/fashion-eating-disorders-industryresponsibility_n_955497.html>.
Schulherr, Susan. Eating Disorders For Dummies. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing,
Inc., 2008.