Eating Disorders in the Jewish community

I’d like to bring this topic up in the coffee room, having just seen a story on YW news bulletin about it.

For some reason this topic is not brought up so often, even in the secular communities, when there clearly are problems happening right in front of us. Sadly, this is an issue that most people are unaware of, even when it’s happening in their own homes.

This problem has a couple factors to it; The girls/guys who are starving themselves &/or vomiting, trying to be a size zero to get a shidduch, the girls/guys who are emotional eaters, and the girls/guys who are very overweight or obese. Yes, I said “guys” this is happening to young men as well. The pressure to be perfect in this world takes a toll on everyone, no gender is excluded from these problems.

Now, how do we go about addressing these problems? As parents, we try to give our child a healthy self esteem, but some slip through the cracks, maybe from not getting enough attention, being emotionally abused, the list can go on and on. These problems usually strain from psychological issues or insufficient education on the health matter. These kids/adults need serious self esteem boosts. There are a lot of anorexic/bulimic individuals out there, most of whom go unnoticed by everyone, and the obesity rate in America keeps going up, and the Jewish community is not exempt from this.

There isn’t just one reason why someone has an eating disorder, most cases have to be dealt with differently. We can start by getting the idea of “having to be a size 0” out of these kids heads. We can start informing parents and children the health hazards of eating too little, AND eating too much.

What are your thoughts on the matter?