uwfchick
Uploaded by UWFchick on Dec 16, 2004
Ethnography: Image of Perfect
One of society’s biggest issues is a persons image. People rely so heavily on what they look like. While some spend hours in front of the mirror, or even spend thousands on surgery, others have serious and even fatal clinical problems because of society’s image of what is perfect. I chose to write my ethnography on people who suffer from anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia nervosa. My opinion on people who are anorexic or bulimic is that they are somewhat of weak people. I say this because, to me, it seems like if a person would either starve themselves or make themselves purge, only to try and meet the standards of being “thin”, than they are weak. There are other ways to go about getting into shape, besides harming yourself in these kind of ways.
I spoke with three different victims of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. They all claimed to have had many warning signs which people began to notice as signs of their eating disorders. Anorexia nervosa symptoms include: significant weight loss, excessive dieting and exercising, and constipation. Bulimia nervosa symptoms consist of making excuses to go to the bathroom after meals, and eating large amounts of food on the spur of the moment. All victims interviewed had a fear of becoming overweight, a distorted body image, and experienced some form of hyper activity. Mood swings also seemed to be pretty common in all three. Thus, eating disorders affect a person not only physically, but emotionally too. When a person has a disorder such as anorexia or bulimia, they are affected in many ways and sometimes don’t realize the effects of the disorder. Anorexia nervosa also has many medical effects some of which can be life-threatening. I don’t think it is that hard to see signs of someone who suffers from either of these conditions. According to all three people I spoke with though, it is almost impossible to get someone who is anorexic or bulimic to admit it and ask for or receive help for it. A lot of people who suffer from these conditions, either don’t believe it is as severe as it is, or simply don’t care. All that these people can understand fully is that, in their mind, they are not “perfect”, or do not live...