# Body Image
## October 21st, 2020
- This presentation comes courtesy of GT Health Initiatives!
- We're going to...
- Define "body image"
- Assess personal views of this
- Identify media messages about body image
- Explain big 4 types of eating disorders
- Identify on-campus resources to help with this
- BODY IMAGE is "how you feel about what your body does for you, not just how you look"
- What does the media say about this? What do they say about what "beautiful" people look like for both genders? How do YOU personally think of what "beautiful" is?
- From a young age, we have toys of beautiful "delicate" Disney princesses with certain hair/body shape/etc, and strong-looking superheroes
- In general, the media emphasizes extreme thinness in women and extreme muscularity in men
- *them talking about how men vs women should look and if this excludes transgender people*
- In young women, eating disorders are at a record-high, and it's been slowly growing for men as well
- Today's college-age men have higher levels of body dissatisfaction than in the past, but this is rarely talked about since thinking about their body is considered "female"
- There's a body image problem of MUSCLE DYSMORPHIA (excessive focus on getting overly muscled) and "bigorexia" for men
- Photoshop helps shape this image
- For men, there's less research into this despite evidence that men and women have strong views about what an "ideal male body" should look like (cue video of male model being photoshopped to have more pronounced abs/muscles, wider chin/shoulders, etc.)
- For women, this has been studied even more clearly, and photoshopping is used by virtually every magazine and add (full lips, sparkling eyes, long lashes, whitened teeth, slimmer body, etc.)
- Social media, too, has exacerbated this image of ideal lean bodies and clean-eating that's seen literally through a filtered window, as well as shaming on "unhealthy eating"
- SM also makes it seem like people only do these healthy things and only have smiling, happy times (recommend just following accounts that make you feel inferior or "triggered"?)
- "Remember that SM is highly curated, and only shows you the absolute highlights of people's lives, not what's behind the scene"
- "If you develop an eating disorder when you're thin, you go to the hospital; if you develop an eating disorder when you're fat, you're a success story"
- The National Eating Disorders Association estimated ~20 million women and 10 million men (likely ~1000 GT students) will likely have an eating disorder at some point
- This is the 2nd leading cause of death among mental health disorders (after drug addiction)
- Eating disorders might be caused by stress, going through puberty, dieting with a poor body image/body dysmorphia, genetics/family history, low self-esteem, etc.
- The 4 big eating disorders:
- ANOREXIA NERVOSA, which is excessive weight loss that results from inadequate food intake
- This is characterized by an intense fear of gaining weight, and is often accompanied by socially withdrawing and obsessing over numbers or statistics
- People with anorexia are not NECESSARILY underweight (but often are); because of a lack of nutrients, anorexic people can have low blood pressure, their body slows down, etc.
- ~0.5-1% of U.S. women have anorexia, along with a small percentage of men (especially athletes)
- This is one of the deadliest eating disorder
- BULIMIA is a pattern of "binging" (eating excessive food in a single sitting) followed by "purging" (guilt over this eating followed by vomiting, loading up on laxatives, over-exercising, not eating the next day, etc.)
- Bulemic people tend to see themselves as overweight, and can withdrawal socially due to the guilt of the condition
- This is often diagnosed by dentists (vomiting can leave marks on the throat and erode the teeth, as well as causing electrolyte imbalance and affecting their ability to go to the bathroom)
- This is VERY taxing on the vital organs, and can cause permanent damage in severe cases
- BINGE EATING is the most common eating disorder, and often the most stigmatized
- This is where large quantities of food are consumed, but without the purging efforts of bulimia; oftentimes people eat out-of-control even when they're not hungry, and is usually followed by
- Often people with this try to eat food secretly, have intense feelings of guilt and shame, and patterns of dieting/overeating
- Weight gain is common, but not necessary
- This can be linked to higher obesity/diabetes/cholesterol levels
- ~3% of the population does this, most commonly young adults and middle-aged people people (~60% female)
- OTHER SPECIFIED FEEDING AND EATING DISORDERS (OSFED) is a catch-all for other kinds of eating disorders, but can be ust as serious
- Atypical anorexia (only for a short time, anorexia w/ a normal weight, etc.)
- Bulimia for very low frequency
- Binge eating at low frequency
- ORTHOREXIA, which is a subset of anorexia that's driven not by body image, but an attempt to be healthy that results in cutting out too much of their diet
- If you know a friend who has such a disorder, Georgia Tech has an "Eating Disorder Treatment Team" that can help people at nutrition@gatech.edu; talking to your RA, hall director, your advisor, the Dean, etc. will also point you to helpful resources