Everybody Knows Somebody

This is the theme for this year’s National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. As it’s name implies, National Eating Disorder Awareness week is designed to enlighten society in regards to the seriousness of the illness and its triggers, in an effort to help the millions afflicted each year, their loved ones, and to increase prevention for these various disorders.

Knowledge is power, and I firmly believe that raising awareness will decrease the name of lives eating disorders claim each year. I also believe that parents play a crucial component in helping shape their daughter’s self image and worth. A father’s role is vital in shaping his daughter’s mind and heart.

I am NOT saying that parents are to blame for eating disorders, simply saying that the likelihood of a child developing an eating disorder rises in homes where both parents aren’t present and where a child lacks attention and appropriate affection and love. National Eating Disorder Awareness week, hopes to shed light into the darkness of the causes of eating disorders, in order to increase prevention and direct people to accurate resources for healing.

As our society becomes more polluted each year it is imperative that we raise awareness. Girls are being influenced by the toys they play with, as they hold dolls that portray a perfect body image, gaze at images of starving models in magazines and hear negative comments from adults about their weight and watching calories.

As these impressionable girls mature into women they are bombarded with airbrush adds, cosmetic surgery commercials, manufactured 90 pound celebrities, diet pills and laxatives – everything that goes against the genius of womanhood. It is no wonder that the number of eating disorders continues to rise each year.

Women NEED role models.

What are YOU doing to be a good role model?