Message To The Young Girls

Hi gang, I really need to say something after seeing too many messages from young girls with eating disorders or who are fixated on being thin.  No one ever sat me down and told me what's what when I was your age so I'm going to type just a few things I wish I would have understood at your age.  I hope it will be helpful, and I certainly don't mean for it to be hurtful.

1. Skinny is not attractive

2. No one actually cares what you look like because they are so concerned about what they themselves look like.

3. You are wasting time, money, and energy on destroying your health and natural good looks.

4. I'm not going to say "these are the best years of your life" because I remember it sucks to be that age, but you could be enjoying yourself a lot more if you weren't obsessed with your body.

5. Get professional help, do not delay.  Online communities can only help so much, you need one-on-one personal support from someone who will shake some sense into you.  Okay, that's not what they do, but that's what I'm trying to do with this message.

6. You all are the next generation and with all the major problems in the world today we need you to be as healthy as is physically possible, not starving with rickets and covered with downy hair, in order to keep the world from exploding or imploding or just melting away from global warming.  Okay, that's getting carried away but what I'm saying is that WE NEED YOU!  Take care of yourselves!!!

Nancy

Props to Nancy <3

It's the truth weather you want to believe it or not

Well said :]
I must say, its taken me years to realise all of this. For a while I thought purging was the only way to get visable results, but I realise now that it was just the 'easy' way out. Now I'm 20 and I feel so sad when I think back to when I was like that, I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.

Well said and completely accurate.  I applaud you.

such a good post

Signed

Agreed.  Our youth today have so many problems to deal with.  Adding eating problems on top of it is just that much harder.  Granted, some of these poor girls/guys fall into Eating Disorders without even realizing what they are doing....however, there are a growing number of them who DO know what they are doing is detrimental and they just don't care.  They do it anyway because being thin is more important to them than being healthy.  it's scary to see.

Hmm... not to cause trouble... but those things arent really true..

1) Skinny is attractive! To many many men! (me included)

2) Guys care what you look like... healthy is good, shows you know how to take care of yourself and are responsible. Also shows your active and again, healthy.

3) Dont destroy anything, i agree... go about getting in shape in healthy ways and dont damage yourself.

4) Dont obsess... but dont ignore it either! Healthy body is important ... for both yourself, and whoever you are with...

5) If you have an ED...stop it! Get more active and healthy instead of just focusing on one aspect of diet (calories).

6) I agree with this one too, bald and diseased girls arent attractive (even if you are really thin )

But basically, there is nothing wrong with wanting a nice toned body. LOTS of men find it attractive...simply losing weight (muscle / fat / other) can make you look sickly instead of fit. The goal is to look good... and feel good... and the only way to get that is to be active and eat balanced diets.

This has been bothering  me lately as well Nancy. Thanks for posting and you quite literally took the words right out of my mouth.

I think the OP has the right idea but is too polarizing. I would agree more with loriklorik if it weren't for his kinda-inappropriate emphasis on what men find sexually attractive... improving one's sexual desirability is a bonus side effect of being healthy and vigorous, but making dudes want to have sex with one is a lousy reason to do anything. Look at Paris Hilton, for heaven's sake.

Also, saying "skinny is not attractive" is disingenuous in the extreme. There are plenty of attracive skinny people out there, just like there are attractive average-weight and heavy people. Anyone with eyes knows this. Also, other people <i>do</i> care about how we look. There's a thread going on right now, all about how the participants here tend to pass judgement on fat people. Kids know this; they're not stupid. You could say that other people don't care <i>as much as the girls might think</i>, but they do care.

Anyway, if I were in the position to say something to young girls and make it stick, it would be this: good health pays off in spades, and words cannot convey how much happier, (yes) more attractive and more productive you'll be if you simply take care of your body. Learn to eat well and move, and the rest will take care of itself. And please, don't pay too much attention to what the guys think; they tend to put way too much stock in what they, personally, find attractive. Be OK with you, and it'll all work out.

While I agree with your points Nancy, in response to Loriklorik I'd like to emphasize healthy sized bodies are attractive. Not ED-skinny ones. 

Most of my guy friends are repulsed by really skinny girls. Now, I don't mean girls that are naturally skinny, but like, runway model skinny. Since they treat me like "one of the guys" and indeed call me Ralph (becuase of a bad haircut a few years back) they feel that its their duty to point out every pretty girl that walks by, and its always the curvy girls, the athletic girls, the heathy-looking girls.

I wish someone had shaken me out of that state of mind when I was 14...

i agree 110%!  to the girls out there like me (teens) - do not get an ED!!! if you are obsessed w/losing or are underweight PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get help!! im not saying you are crazy b/c i had one.  im getting over it but it was hell.  its so not worth it, and you won't be thin enuf. i am now at a healthy weight, but not fat, trust me. and im allowed to do sports, have fun, and i allow myself to eat and enjoy it.  and im not gaining. 

basically, ENJOY LIFE!!! :D

I agree with Sarah. My guys friends who don't like the very healthy (read: bbw) girls, only find healthy (read: not Kate Moss-skinny) girls attractive.

However, as a younger woman who struggled with eating disorders as a teenager, I understand that it's not necessarily something thatis easily controlled. I still struggle with thinking that I'm larger than I am. I didn't truly realize how average I was as a teenager until I started gaining the weight three or four years ago.

I was truly distressed by the sheer number of girls with EDs here, though. I didn't realize it had gotten so bad. I feel for all of these girls and I hope they can get the help they need.

I just recommended the HBO documentary, Thin, on another thread. I'll add a plug here. I saw the filmmaker/photographer speak last night. Here is a link to her web site and a slide show from her related book:

www.laurengreenfield.com/index.php?p=VQTME4W6

Take a look at Aiva, the two pics of her upon entering and leaving treatment, quite chilling....

If you poke around further in that web site, check out the video clips and also look at Greenfield's other work, Girl Culture, which gives you an idea about our culture and why this is happening.

Thank you! Even though young and inexperienced in the ways of the world myself, I often find myself frustrated with people with constant eating disorders. I know it's hard, and I know how large of a role peer pressure plays on life, but it's simply not healthy. I'm not saying I look down upon anybody with an ED (definitely not, in fact), but I agree with you on all counts except the first one. Skinny is fine, but underweight and skeletal no longer counts as "skinny." XP

'healthy' is MUCH more attractive than skinny. 

<i> 'healthy' is MUCH more attractive than skinny. </i>

And OF COURSE those two conditions are mutually exclusive...

  Okay... I read your post about an hour ago and It took me all this time to come up with a response that would cature my feelings, It still isn't quite right but well whatever....

    Nancy, please understand I agree with you. That 85lb waifs are not attractive, I agree that those with eating disorders should get help, and even those who are obsssed but still haven't reach the critera for eating disorders. But your address was somewhat misguided, maybe you should have adressed your tyrade only to those skinny girls who diet too much but, and obsess about thinness, because ANOREXIA is much more than that.  

     a) most anaorexics could care less if guys think they are attractive.

    b)  anaorexia is a psychological disorder, that is associated with anxiety, and obsessive compulsiveness.  It's symptomology results in an obsession with weight loss, by extream dieting and exercise.  It is the obessive persuit of perfection in life wich becomes, embodied by thinness.

     c) You need us!  Well thanks as if there are not enough demands swimming in our minds... one more thing to feel guilty about... how about all those starving orpahns?  If I consume less and convince other OVER consumers in the western world to do the same maybe there would be something left for them!  MOST OF US KNOW GUILT,  WE KNOW SHAME, WE KNOW HEALTHY AND UNHEALTHY, WE KNOW NO ONE CARES WHAT WE LOOK LIKE...WE ARE PAINFULLY AWARE!

 I'm here on CC because Ive decided to help myself and there are a lot of people who can give me advice about nutrition, and ideas on how to INCREASE my calorie intake.   I am here because I get support and anonimity at the same time, and it helps.    I am too shy and not assertive enough to talk to anyone face to face yet, (except my boyfriend who has been loving and supportive through this whole thing...  He Prefurres me on the larger side).  But I am slowly getting to a point where I might. And building better habits along the way.

   I am sorry for being so negitive, and writing so harshly.  I know not everyone has had the same experiences that I have had and that all people with anaorexia are not just like me.  I don't speak for all of us.  No I speak for me and thats enough I just had to get it out, your post made me that angry.   Thank you.

vicstudentoria, thanks for that. Too often, here and elsewhere, people post as if "anorexic" and "skinny person who diets too much" are the same thing, and they're not. Anorexia and bulimia are mental illnesses. They're in the DSMIV and everything. Telling an anorexic that "skinny people aren't attractive" is about as effective in treating anorexia as telling a schizophrenic that his TV isn't capable of sending him secret messages, and taking it apart to show him, is at curing schizophrenia.

There is some good stuff in the OP and some of the responses for people who are just neurotic about being thin, but again, that is not th same as having an ED.

vicstudentoria you said exactly what I wanted to say.... I could care less if others think Im attractive or not.  I don't want the attention. 

I wish somebody could wave a magic wand and this ED'd life would just stop.   Its so much more complicated... part of it for me is that I know being underweight and sick isn't attrative, its a way to hide, and protect myself. 

Thanks, folks, for taking the time to reply to my message which I was sure would get lost in the quickfire action of the message boards.  I am not a healthcare professional, nor a mental care specialist as has been pointed out.  I simply had to speak my mind after seeing what is so heartbreakingly obvious in so many of the posts on this website.  There is something very wrong when young girls are slowly, agonizingly killing themselves (call it whatever you want, see above for exacting terminology) and I don't know if I am more angry or sad about it.  What men find attractive was far from my point, my mistake if my message was somehow misleading. 

To be healthy and strong and smart is the right thing to be, this is indisputable, and this is what I probably should have stated rather than my points which have turned polemic.  If I am oversimplifying matters, maybe it's about time.