Eating Disorders: you don't have to be a thirteen year old rich white girl.

Similarly to many concerns in our society, African American, Latina, Asian, and Native American women have more often than not gone completely ignored when it comes to our nation's perception of eating disorders. So too have women belonging to the LGBTQ community and/or a low socioeconomic class.

If minorities were to become recognized, we would be forced to challenge our notion of eating disorders as something breed from sexism that only affects white middle/upper class heterosexuals. Newsflash, sexism is not the only system of oppression leading to eating disorders nor are financially stable Caucasian tweens & teen girls the only ones affected. How does race, socioeconomic class, and sexual identity influence a woman's appetite and concept of beauty?

In addition, the median onset of women with eating disorders is eleven and over two thirds of women who have been diagnosed with an eating disorder have had the disorder more than half of their life. Why is that information significant you ask? These two statistics discredit the popular belief that eating disorders are adolescent problems or purely transitory. Further dismantling our nation's ignorant yet mainstream ideas in regards to such diseases, nearly two thirds of women with eating disorders are survivors of sexual assault. This statistic asks us to examine how one's exposure to trauma affects one's likelihood of developing such a disease. That is, how does eating become a coping strategy or medium of control , particularly in times when one's life may appear ridiculously untamed. A little nature versus nurture, aye?

Perhaps if we cast aside our outdated hetero-normative money-in-the-bank white privilege long enough to reexamine body dismorphic disorders we, as a nation, would have a better understanding of the catalysts of such disorders, and could better treat and prevent them.

Let's not forget, incidents of eating disorders among males are increasing. Obviously, body dysmorphic disorders are not limited to females. Please, don't confuse this post's focus on women as ignoring that truth.