Eating disorders are diseases that truly fall under the radar to the public. Many people are unaware of how dangerous they really are to the body. Although all eating disorders are serious and should be known knowledge to everyone, drunkorexia is a recent epidemic that has hit the younger population as a way to dangerously and drastically lose weight.
Explained by medical doctor Dale Archer, “Drunkorexia is the act of restricting food intake or calories by day so one can party and get drunk at night without fear of gaining weight from the extra calories of the alcohol.”
This new eating habit is mainly common in young women. At the younger ages of 21 to 24, drinking is a common social event.
Drunkorexia is extremely popular in the drinking crowd because women want to be able to drink without gaining weight.
Women also find drunkorexia has two very desirable side effects, such as getting drunk much faster because of the lack of food in the stomach, as well as vomiting, which victims find comforting because they think they are getting rid of calories.
With such a serious outbreak of drunkorexia, much research has been done in order to find out why someone would want to do this to his or her body. 30 percent of women between 18 and 23 have skipped a meal in order to drink more. 16 percent do it on a regular basis.
Just reading these facts myself as I write them, make me realize how popular such an unfortunate route women are taking to become “thin.”
MTV’s “True Life” series aired a new episode called “True Life: I’m Drunkorexic” on Jan. 6. The episode follows a man and a woman who suffer from Drunkorexia and shows the viewers the daily struggles they face.
Not only would you find it shocking how many people suffer from Drunkorexia, but what the victims think about it is even scarier.
A recent graduate student from the University of Texas shares her opinion on drunkorexia and her experience with it. “I’ve done it [drunkorexia] for years and I’m still healthy and skinny. That’s the best of both worlds to me, so it’s not likely I’ll stop it any time soon.”
It truly upsets me to think such a young woman would think this way about an awful disease and that she thinks so negatively about herself that she would need to take such extreme measures to be happy with body.
The reality is that, along with many others, she has fallen victim to a horrible disease.
Such an awful disease can really affect the body negatively, especially with the addition of alcohol. Eating disorders specifically affect the heart because of malnutrition but drunkorexia is even more harmful because of the affect it has on the liver from the alcohol and the binge drinking.
Drunkorexia along with all other eating disorders have really affected so many people in such a negative way.
It’s appalling to see how many people, men or women, young or old, suffer from eating disorders.
Just this past week from Feb. 24 to March 2 was the National Eating Disorder Association’s (NEDA) annual awareness week in order to inform the public about all eating disorders and show people the truth about them.
Everyone should learn to love themselves and their own bodies because body image and looks will never define who you are.
