Why?

First, go here and check out the picture of the emaciated tennis player in the middle of the page. When I saw that picture in a newspaper, I was shocked, disgusted and nauseated. It was NOT something I wanted to see when I was eating a sandwich.

I have always been puzzled by the problems that girls have with eating disorders. How much disdain or hatred can someone have for her own body that she is willing to intentionally starve herself? Is the pressure from her peers and the media so great that she can overcome the biological instinct to feed herself? There are people who go on hunger strikes for a variety of reasons, from protesting social injustices to expressing solidarity with each other. Does an anorexic possess that kind of zeal? How is it possible for anyone's reality to be so distorted that she can't see herself wasting away in the mirror, and can continue to starve herself?

I know that there are also men out there who are obsessed with their bodies and spend several hours a day in the gym pumping iron to the detriment to their health, but it doesn't seem to be manifested on nearly the same scale as anorexia/bulimia in women. Whereas I see weak or fat guys constantly mocked on TV shows and in movies and commercials, I hardly ever see a fat woman being made fun of. I guess it's mainly because I hardly ever see a fat woman on TV! Then again, I hardly ever see Asian men on TV, and that doesn't compel me to go out and bleach my skin, or install rocket boosters in my feet so I can slam dunk, or practice rhyming so I can get into freestyle battles with Mos Def.

I know I have been guilty of cracking a joke from time to time at the expense of some obese people, but those people looked like elephants! We all like to have an athletic, beautifully toned body, but most of us are also realistic. I can make the disctinction between deathly ill wasting away, thin, normal, chubby, fat, and morbidly obese. Why can't some of these girls do the same?