Header: Eating Disorders in El Paso

Eating Disorders in El Paso

Eating Disorders in El Paso

Abstract

Eating disorders are prevalent not only in the El Paso community, but across the world.
The three most commonly diagnosed eating disorders are binge eating, anorexia, and bulimia.
The worst part about having an eating disorder is that a person can go their whole life without
knowing they have an eating disorder. Most people do not know the factors that lead to the
development of an eating disorder or what is even considered to be an eating disorder. What most
college students do not know is that eating disorders are most commonly found amongst 18-21
year olds, which coincidently is the age of most college students. Advertisements are one of the
main contributors to the cause of the various aforementioned eating disorders. The interesting
part of advertisements is that they affect people and influence what a person sees as correct or
desirable without them even noticing until they analyze what it is that they are watching. From
surveys done at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) the study shows the need within the
El Paso community amongst the population that is most prevalently affected by eating disorders.
The surveys portrayed the lack of knowledge, through the contradiction of answers to similar
questions in different formats, in college students at UTEP. The conclusion of this study shows
the need for outreach and treatment programs for people with eating disorders or people that are
potentially at risk for developing an eating disorder(s).

The cases of eating disorders in the United States have increased throughout the past 40
years. According to statistics there are over 24 million people, both male and female, that are

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diagnosed with an eating disorder in America (ANAD, 2015). The amount of eating disorder
cases in the El Paso community are not really defined and/or known. The reason that El Paso
really does not have information on eating disorders is because El Paso does not have the
necessary resources to treat eating disorders. Once there is someone diagnosed with an eating
disorder in this community they are relocated to a big city in Texas to get treated, such as Dallas
or Houston.
Eating disorders are forms of mental illnesses that have not only affected the American
population but the whole world. According to the National Institute of Mental Health there is an
estimated 25 percent of college students in the United States that will struggle with an eating
disorder whose age ranges from 18 to 21 year old (Glossner, 2015). There was a survey about
eating disorders given to students at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), whose main
goal was to associate the percentage (25 percent) given by the source above to the percentage
(17.65 percent), however there was no match between the two.
It is said that eating disorders have increased over the past 40 years, however the reason
for the development of them has not yet been identified. The cause of eating disorders has been
linked with advertising for 30 years, but still no responsibility has been taken by advertisers,
said by Reed in his article Eating Disorders and the Media. There are many factors pointing
toward advertisement and the reasoning behind the accusation appears to correlate with the
factors. Outside influences are one contributor to eating disorders, for example, magazines,
movies, and television promotes thinness (Is Your Teen at Risk for Developing an Eating
Disorder, 2014). No one truly remembers when being thin became the number one thing people
had to be, once magazines started to show that being thin was the new cool thing to be that is
when people started to be insecure with their bodies. Women started to develop bad eating habits

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and exercising excessively in order to be thin and have the ideal body that magazine portrayed on
their front cover. Women are not the only ones to develop eating disorders; men also become
insecure and try to obtain a lean muscular physical appearance.
When people think of eating disorders they think of anorexia and/or bulimia, they dont
understand that an eating disorder can be due to over eating as well. The most well known eating
disorders are anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. These three eating disorders can affect college
students without notice. From the survey results the eating disorder that most likely affects UTEP
would be binge eating. Most college students tend to eat whatever they can whenever they can. It
is also important to mention that there are people who over eat when they are stressed. As high
school students are about to graduate they start to hear about the freshmen fifteen. The freshman
fifteen is a common thing to any incoming student to a college and/or university. This term refers
to any student new to college that gains at least a total of fifteen pounds within their first year in
college.
The survey that was used on the students between the ages of 18 to 21 showed that half of
the advertisements that they saw exposed a certain message on physical appearance, and also
agreed that after seeing them they would sometimes feel bad about themselves and how they
looked. There were ten questions asked on the survey that exemplified ten different aspects of
insecurities that could lead to eating disorders. They ranged on topics from personal appearance
to health consciousness and advertisements. I believe that the survey will reveal a small portion
of a big issue that affects a majority of the college and/or university population.
The first question on the survey was, How often do you think advertisements are related
to body image? From the results it was found that a little bit more than half of the 112 students

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surveyed, 59 percent of them said that body image was in fact related to advertisements. This is
indicative of the fact that the aforementioned advertising does in fact have an important impact
on the general population. Students in this case are the ones that are greatly affected by
advertisements and lose self-confidence and doubt the image they have. In some cases it is so
extreme that people try to change their body type, which is impossible to do. People will stop
eating or eat more and do things that are out of the ordinary or out of their diet just to meet
someone elses perfect body image.
The next question stated, Have you ever been motivated to lose weight after seeing an
advertisement? 56 percent of the population surveyed responded that they sometimes felt
motivated to lose weight. This goes to show how much advertisements affect a persons personal
life choices if they motivate more than 50 percent of a selected population. Media and everything
within it drive people to do things; advertisements are a big part of media persuasion.
The third question said, Do you feel insecure about your body? 38 percent of the
population said they did indeed feel insecure about their body, while 26 percent of the population
said they sometimes felt insecure about their body. In total this is 64 percent of the population
that doubts, or has insecurities about their body. Nowadays nobody is satisfied with what they
have either it being an object or something within themselves. Appearances are always judged
and that is why people become insecure with themselves.
The following question was, Are you health conscious? From this question we found
that half of the surveyed population was health conscious and half of the population was not
health conscious. The problem with this is that when people are not health conscious they do not
know what is wrong and what is right, therefore they will end up eating whatever they want.

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People do not know that just because their body image is not what everyone might see as ideal,
doesnt mean that they are not healthy and vice- versa.
The fifth question stated, How often do you eat? 18 percent of the population said that
they eat when they have the time, 21 percent said they eat two times a day, and 62 percent of the
population surveyed said they eat three to five times a day. These three eating habits can all be
unhealthy. If you only eat when you have time you will more than likely not get all of the
necessary nutrients you need per day. When a person only eats twice a day, they tend to overeat
on both meals, which is not good for their metabolism. Eating three to five times a day is good,
because it will increase your metabolism and prevent overeating, due to the intake of small meals
throughout the day. However, a problem will occur when people eat three to five large meals per
day. Knowing that the people surveyed were college students there is a high chance that they do
eat large meals when they eat.
The next question asked, What do you eat? When asked this question half of the
surveyed population said they would eat anything. This is usually due to the inability of people
(students) to pre plan their meals or to have the money to buy healthier food options. It is sad
when you can buy a cheeseburger for a dollar, but have to buy a salad for seven dollars. From the
summary of the values food has you can predict that students will unfortunately choose to eat a
cheeseburger, two or even three to satisfy their hunger instead of a balanced meal.
The subsequent question implored, Do you think you over eat or under eat? This
question portrayed 35 percent of the population that would overeat, 41 percent of the population
that would eat regularly, and 24 percent of the population that under eats. This is obviously a
question that will be answered to ones opinion and as human being we will most likely not

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accept when we do something wrong, hence the 41 percent saying they eat regularly. Even if
they were to eat regularly what would the diet really consist of when they eat regularly?
The eighth question said, Have you considered yourself to have an eating disorder? For
this question 18 percent of the population was not sure if they have or had an eating disorder.
This is not good because most people do not know what can and cannot be classified as an eating
disorder, so they could live their whole life without knowing that they actually have a mental
illness.
The following question asked, If yes, which one? 6 percent said binge eating and 3
percent said anorexia and bulimia were the eating disorders they suffered from. This is
interesting due to the fact that the United States is the leading country in the risk and/or
occurrence/development of obesity and cardiovascular disease.
The last question asked, Do you think advertisements are responsible for eating
disorders? The results from this question are interesting, because 59 percent of the population
said that they didnt think that advertisements were responsible for eating disorders, while only
41 percent of the population said that they did think advertisements were responsible for eating
disorders. The reason that this is interesting is because the first two questions asked about
advertisements and more than half were in agreement that advertisements did affect perception
and motivation. This shows how much people know about eating disorders, because the use of a
different word(s) that basically asked the same question provided two different results.
After collecting data from the surveys it can be said that people do not know the extent to
which advertisements influence insecurities within themselves that potentially lead to eating
disorders. It is amazing to find that more than half of the college students surveyed said that

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advertisements were indeed related to body image, but didnt say that advertisements were
related to eating disorders. The sample surveyed answered another question about motivation and
how advertisements did motivated them to lose weight. This however, does not mean that
students know that this could possibly become an eating disorder if someone goes to extreme
measures to lose weight. It is to my belief that with more extensive psychological research there
could be a better approach to handling and/or treating people with eating disorders. Some people
go their whole lives without knowing they have an eating disorder and then their eating disorder
turns into other chronic diseases/conditions such as, high blood pressure, high cholesterol,
diabetes, cancer, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), dehydration, malnutrition, etc.
The implications of eating disorders within El Paso can vary from age, location,
economical status, and family history. El Paso County contains over 1 million people, from
which approximately 23,000 are enrolled at UTEP. This is concerning for a significant portion of
the population is at risk for obtaining an eating disorder that could impact the rest of their life,
and they do not even know. It is evident that El Paso is not well prepared to treat eating
disorders. Community outreach programs need to be implemented in order to provide preventive
information to the members of the community. This information would promote the health of
members who are not aware that they are suffering from an eating disorder. The information
would also provide a plan of action for individuals suffering from various disorders. These
outreach programs should be free of charge to all members of the community. These programs
could not only be for the community but for the El Paso region, including El Paso, Las Cruces,
Horizon City, Socorro, San Elizario, and other small cities around El Paso.
The topic of eating disorders is something that not many people would think is happening
around them but somewhere else in the United States. Little do they know that they happen more

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than they think and that maybe even one of their neighbors is suffering from an eating disorder.
Small cities like El Paso have cases of eating disorders yet they are not looked into because they
dont really have treatment centers. There is not enough information on how to avoid one or how
to get help. No one will teach you how to love yourself and your body and because of that there
are eating disorder cases that will lead to death. People will feel ugly and will want to end their
life because they think they will not be loved because of how they look.
In conclusion, the fact that the survey given to students at UTEP gave positive results
towards eating disorder signifies that there are individuals that need help. There is a proposition
for all of this research, and that is that El Paso should have a prevention center for eating
disorders and a treatment center for once the mental illness is diagnosed. Within the program,
there should be a great deal of an emotional treatment. A mental illness is not easy to get rid of,
but it is treatable and in the long run it can be controlled. El Paso, as a community should come
together to treat this problem. It is understood that you cannot stop advertisements from
happening, yet no one said that all advertisements have to make people insecure about their
bodies. If negative advertisements cannot be stopped then positive advertisements should be
developed to make people feel good about themselves. Accepting that your body is beautiful no
matter what is very hard to do, however it is not impossible. I believe that with proper help this
community will receive the help that it not only deserves, but also needs.
References
ANAD. (2015, January 1). Retrieved March 31, 2015, from http://www.anad.org/getinformation/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/
Glossner, L. (2015, March 24). Speaking out against disorders. Retrieved March 30, 2015, from
https://www.liberty.edu/champion/2015/03/speaking-out-against-disorders/

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Is Your Teen at Risk for Developing an Eating Disorder? (2014, November 4). Retrieved March
30, 2015, from http://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/emotionalproblems/Pages/Is-Your-Teen-at-Risk-for-Developing-an-Eating-Disorder.aspx
Reed, S. (n.d.). EATING DISORDERS AND THE MEDIA. Retrieved March 31, 2015, from
http://www.csun.edu/~sm60012/GRCS-Files/Final Projects/EATING DISORDERS AND THE
MEDIA.htm