As Barnhill and Taylor (1998) report, "I"d rather be dead than fat!" said by Jenny, a sixteen year old anorexic, represents that eating disorders are a serious and major problem among individuals. This problem seems often deadly and can seriously harm and individual physically as well as mentally. Eating disorders strike many different types of people. It affects both men and women, especially teenagers. An individual can consider themself a victim of an eating disorder when the victim's eating habits hurt his or her body in any way. Many hurt their body by eating foods high in fat or cholesterol or starve the body, which is diagnosed as an eating disorder.
Eating disorders fall as a mental disorder over a physical disorder. Even though this disorder represents itself mentally, the physical state of a person seems influenced by the condition. Today two cases fall as an eating disorder: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.
Eating disorders contributed to people wanting to say thin. Thinness became idolized in the 1960's with Marilyn Monroe and Twiggy. Many people would not think of Marilyn Monroe as chubby, but she seemed thin to others that long ago. The great beauty that she possessed made her so idolized. According to Barnhill and Taylor (1998), Twiggy was a five foot, six inch, ninety pound teenager, and this brought up the concept of thin, as "in." Many thin models started appearing in the media and also became idolized. Everyone wanted to achieve that beautiful sexy, fit , look. Unfortunately, eating disorders developed to achieve this look everyone loved.
Many people wonder if dieting contributes to the start of an eating disorder and experts have decided that it does. Unhealthy dieting is a major component to an eating disorder. Researchers have studied cases of dieting where individuals began to starve themselves. After a short time, starvation became unbearable, so an eating disorder developed.