Girls Rock Camp & the issues of eating disorders

I thought the movie Girls Rock Camp that we watched in class was very interesting and gave some really interesting facts.  It was also kind of neat to see all the different personalities of the girls and to hear their stories.  One fact that alarming stood out that that girls are starting to diet at the age 8.  The fact that girls start dieting at age I find totally alarming and shocking.  When in discussion some of the girls in the camp discussed how so many girls wanted to be size zero or two and one of the girls states that she did not like herself for the way she looked.  I decided to look up some statistics on eating disorders a horrible disease that is often masked by their victims and ignored by the ones they love.

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2010: Statistics about eating disorders

Did you know…

• 1 in 5 women struggle with an eating disorder or disordered eating (National Institute of Mental Health)
• Eating Disorders affect up to 24 million Americans and 70 million individuals worldwide (The Renfrew Center Foundation for Eating Disorders)
• 90 % of those who have eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25 (SAMHSA)
• It is estimated that currently 11% of high school students have been diagnosed with an eating
• disorder (ANAD)
• While women are more commonly affected by eating disorders, more than a million men and boys battle the illness every day (www.nationaleatingdisorders.org)
• 91 % of women surveyed on a college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting, 22% dieted “often” or “always” (Kurth, Krahn, Nairn, Drewnowski, 1995)

 Or that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness?
• A young woman with anorexia is 12 times more likely to die than other women her age without
Anorexia (American Journal of Psychiatry)

• Five to ten percent of anorexics die within ten years of onset, 18-20 percent die within twenty years of onset, and only 50 percent report ever being cured (American Psychiatric Association)

• 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems (The Renfrew Center Foundation for Eating Disorders)

 http://www.examiner.com/wellness-in-buffalo/national-eating-disorders-awareness-week-2010-statistics-about-eating-disorders