Today, Oct. 10th, is World Mental Health Day. It is a day dedicated to raising mental health awareness worldwide. While my heart goes out to anyone struggling, who has struggled, or knows someone who hasn't quite been his or herself lately, I feel for you and I hope this darkness will soon find its light.
However, I was upset at the absence of a particular mental health issue on my Facebook and Twitter feeds today - that is, eating disorders.
I saw many posts on Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia, personality/mood disorders, Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and even Dementia, yet I've failed to see anything revolving around the three major eating disorders: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia and Binge Eating Disorder (BED).
Why is this? Are eating disorders not considered mental illness by the masses? Are they just stereotyped as something teenage girls with low self-esteem struggle with? Because that would be incorrect.
Anorexia has the highest death rate of any mental illness, according to Penn State Hershey Medical Center Eating Disorders Program.
And according to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from an eating disorder in the United States currently. But despite the prevalence of eating disorders in the United States and globally, eating disorder research continues to be underfunded.
That may be due to the idea that eating disorders are a choice and that individuals suffering are purposely doing this to themselves. Which again, is false.
Maybe it starts as a choice. "I'll skip this one meal," or "I'll purge myself just this once," or "I'll eat this whole pizza right now even though I know I'm not hungry." But soon it turns into a lifestyle where one's mind is dominated by thoughts of calories, of guilt after eating, of anxiety in restaurants and constant thoughts of one's unhealthy relationship with food. It's a mental illness where no matter how strong one's self-will is, he or she get beaten out by their own mind.
People don't choose to skip meals after they haven't eaten in days. People don't choose to purge themselves several times a day when they know they need food in them. And people don't choose to go into a binge after their stomach is already uncomfortably full. It happens because they're mentally ill, because they've lost control and because they need help just as anyone else struggling with a mental health issue does.
All mental health issues should be recognized. We all struggle in different ways and areas and today is a day to shed a light on that.
Happy #WorldMentalHealthDay.
