Girls gain weight in seminary. Period. Everybody gains, anywhere from 5-30 pounds. To a certain extent, it is under a girl’s control if she is going to gain weight or not and if she doesn’t overeat then it won’t happen. But it’s almost impossible, with the irregular hours, fattening food, lack of access to healthy foods,no gym, etc. I don’t think anybody who hasn’t experienced this can really understand how stressful and frustrating it is to suddenly be gaining a ton of weight when you’ve never in your life struggled with your weight, and not being able to fit into your clothes and not even being able to BUY new clothes. It’s more than just annoying, it’s actually scary. And girls are facing so much pressure – even from their own mothers (which is a whole separate issue) – to lose weight for shidduchim. But forget about the pressure – if even for herself and her own self-esteem and body image, a girl will resort to desperate measures to get skinny. Especially a girl who was skinny when she left to seminary and is facing the embarrassment of coming home with a totally different body. So yes, anorexia/bulimia is a big problem. But the alternative is pretty bad too.
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