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Yasmin Martinez WRI 1 4-5:50 p.m. Mr. Matt Moberly November 25, 2013 Eating disorders are a big problem in the U.S! People suicide themselves and cant control how they eat each day. We tend not to talk about eating disorder or inform about it to schools or society. Is this the right thing to do though? There are three main types of eating disorder: anorexia, bulimia, and binging. Both men and women get eating disorder. However, we tend to say women are the only ones who get eating disorder due to majority of the cases coming from women. Some eating disorders are based on, religion, background, or influence to gain or lose weight. While the overall public generation tends to think eating disorder arent a big problem to face, more and more people suffer from this disorder. If we have eating disorder classes in schools, childrens will start to learn how effective eating disorder are. Eating disorder awareness needs to be implemented toward our youth classes to prevent, help, and stop children from getting anorexia, bulimia, and binging- now. Eating Disorders are physiological disorders that make a person want to eat more or less. The main types of eating disorder are: anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binged eating. Anorexia nervosa occurs when people do not eat enough or at all, thinking theyre overweight, which in reality theyre thinner than what they think they are. Bulimia occurs when people start vomiting to get the food out of their system or eating too much. Binge eating is when they start eating too much (fasting) or people eating too little but exercising too much. With this, Eating, food, and weight control become obsessions (Eating Disorders). Each and every one of these disorder

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are not being introduce to children in schools. Especially youth schools like elementary or middle schools. Which in reality elementary and middle school is stage where one learns what society is about when it comes to drugs, sex education and going to college. So this is also the stage where childrens dont know how to eat proper, or what type of foods to eat, or slimily how to control their weight or the portion of food they should eat. Does it help if one gets help as soon as possible? Early intervention is crucial. The sooner one gets help, the greater the likelihood that they will get better. Without early intervention eating disorders may become chronic, or even fatal (Mulheim). There are a lot of ways to get treatment for these disorders: therapy, medication and family support. The first step is to admit you have an eating disorder. This is important because without one has an eating disorder it wouldnt be helpful to the doctors, psychologist, or parents figuring out what is wrong with you. Going through cognitive therapy helps because its focused on problem solving, which is what eating disorders are all about. So one trys to figure out why they thing there fat or look different from the rest. Another way is with medication that helps control hunger, but there isnt any further medication that helps much because of the lack of research. Although research is still ongoing, no medication yet has shown to be effective in helping someone gain weight to reach a normal level (Eating Disorder). However, getting treated for an eating disorder is expensive. Not everyone has money floating around to waist on a child who has problem with any type of eating disorder. The cost is around thirty thousand dollars to 100 thousand dollars, and insurance doesnt cover for any expenses that has to do with eating disorder (Prah). This is why we need to prevent it earlier in youth classes to teach children how to eat healthy and not lead them to an eating disorder.

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Leading a kid toward an eating disorder will change that child forever. The damage is awful. When growing up and going to elementary and middle school, I never knew about eating disorder or that it even exited. However, the damage is done and I wasnt able to gain knowledge on eating disorder, but I want to make a change and help future children to get a good education about their eating health. This will save lives and our society will overcome the amount of people who have these disorders. Also the death that we already have with people who cant overcome eating disorder. One cannot deny that anorexia has a significant impact in U.S. In fact It starts as early as 5th grade all the way to 12th grade (School Obesity). By not teaching young childrens about the bad causes of eating disorder, will keep increasing suffrage of innocent childrens who never understood what eating healthy is all about. Kids look up to us and see every step, or move we make. If they see us eat junk or say, Im fat then there going to start to eat unhealthy because they feel their fat too, knowing thats the right thing to do. By putting classes into school where it implements what eating disorder can do to a person will benefit both parents and youth. They will learn what not to do or how to prevent eating unhealthy. Now childrens will be more aware of the three most important things that could happen or affect them: drugs, sex education, and eating disorders. Admittedly, not having the idea to put classes in elementary has had doubtful consequences. We now know that families do not cause eating disorders (Mulheim). With this parents are wasting money for medication and treatment which doesnt work for all cases of eating disorder. Life of innocent kids (youth) are vanishing away because they cant live a normal healthy childhood anymore. Everything I am pointing out can be prevented by adding a minatory class that can teach youth to start eating healthy. The number of people diagnose with

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anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating will eventually decrease. If we already have program teaching us about drugs or how to stay protected from any sexual activity then why not add another system where it teaches us about eating disorder? Its better to know more than know nothing at the end of the day. Although my opinion is that youth ( elementary, middle ) schools should start having classes that teach about eating disorders, many people have opposing views and believe they shouldnt be imputed toward our schools. Why? Some believe its too early to start teaching them about eating disorders because they are not mature enough to understand. However, what they fell to understand is that Theres already cases that deal with six years old and 10 year old teens going through a type of eating disorder ( Davis ). Eating disorder is not a problem one faces when theyre in college or adults. This is something that starts at a young age. If we dont step a foot down and make this stop then we will continue to have more cases dealing with youth, teens, and adults having these eating disorders. Despite my reasoning of why eating disorder classes are good resources for our future generation children , In addition, 7% of parents say that their children have been made to feel bad at school about what or how much they were eating ( Davis). Yeah it might be offensive or at a point make a child feel bad about themselves, yet without this class children will be affected in the future. What I mean about this is that if one is not treated now, the result of them having an eating disorder could get worse. Parents again would have to pay for treatments and live with the fact that they couldnt do anything to help out their child. Also it is better to feel embarrassed and uncomfortable about learning what eating disorder is about then suffering from it or dying form it in the future.

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Furthermore, with all the systems schools have already on helping kids to stay healthy, whether it is physical activity or extra curriculum, parents say, my kids are having too much physically active (Davis). What exactly is too much? Is running a mile in P.E consider too much or playing a sport for an hour also consider too much. It is true that everything a school does for a child isnt too much. If that was the case then we would already have complains being made public on television or boycotts being made in front of schools. So there isnt really too much physical activity being made in schools. Being physical actually helps a kid, whether its playing basketball or running around (tag, duck duck goose, etc.) because these are the ways kids get active and out stay out of trouble. However if the parent is trying to say, My child has a breathing problem and cant have too much physical activity, then at the same time talking to the P.E teacher or school nurse could be fix to where that child could only do half a mile or only play games that doesnt involve breathing too hard. Childrens, kids, teens, need our help in making decisions for them. If we and parents choose wrong choices for them then problem like eating disorders will never conclude to anything and the cycle will keep on containing years for years. So lets get these classes in youth classes and make a change now and not tomorrow. They are our future to come! In conclusion, childrens in youth classes are not getting enough education on eating disorder. Putting an awareness program into schools will decrease anorexia, bulimia, and other types of eating disorders. This is important because children will no longer suffer from these disorders and parents wouldnt have to go through any expensive cost of medication, and therapy cost. Lets make one more change and make a difference like we have done with drugs and sex education awareness program in schools.

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Work Cited
Eating Disorders. Becker AE, Grinspoon SK, Klibanski A, Herzog DB. Eating Disorders. New England Journal of Medicine, 1999;340(14):1092-1098. Mulheim Lauren."Eating Disorders in Middle and High Schools, by Lauren Mulheim." Eating Disorders in Middle and High Schools, by Lauren Mulheim. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.

Prah. Eating Disorder. By CQ Press, a division of congressional Quarterly Inc. www.thecqresercher.com (Feb.10, 2006): Page(s) 121-144. Volume 16, Number 6.

School Obesity Programs May Promote Worrisome Eating Behaviors and Physical Activity in kids. Davis, Mathew M., MD, MAPP. Volume 12 .Issue 2 (January 24, 2012): Page (1 &2).