NEDA Walk 2023

28.8 million Americans will be diagnosed with some type of eating disorder in their lifetime. Someone dies from an eating disorder every 52 minutes. These rates are only growing since the pandemic started in 2020.

Influences across platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram spread pro-diet information to their viewers.  These influencers have millions of followers, some hardly even teenagers. This misleading information about how to “properly fuel your body” and how to “be healthy” get into the heads of these young adults and sends them into disordered eating patterns.

Dieting is not a new phenomenon. In 1558, the first diet book came out. Luigi Cornaro was an overweight Italian who had many health problems due to his size. His recommendation for everyone that was tired of feeling overweight and out of control was to limit themselves to 12 ounces of food a day, along with 14 ounces of wine. In 1863, “banting” was one of the first diets people went on. It included eating a low amount of carbohydrates and having a high-protein diet. This diet that was found in 1863 is scarily similar to diets people still go on today.

Think about that, almost 200 years later and people still haven’t changed, learned, and adapted. BMI, a commonly used metric that doctors use for their patients was invented in 1830. BMI was used to inform women to find the “average man.” Nowadays people use it to judge their worth in the world. Something about that just does not make sense.

Individuals who have family members with past eating disorders are 11 more times likely to develop one themselves. While genetics play a big role in developing an eating disorder, the world around you plays an even bigger role. Just because someone is human means that they are likely to judge themselves based on what others surrounding them are doing. When all we had during COVID quarantine was ourselves, you are more likely to get in your head about the small things. All we had control over during those scary days of lockdown was what we did each day. Many teenagers and adolescents spent these days on social media.

Influencers would post daily workouts for you to follow, along with their daily food intake. Trendy diets like keto or intermittent fasting were drilled into young adults' brains after a day of watching videos on apps like Tik Tok. Big influencers were doing challenges like 75 hard. They would post before and after photos showing the weight loss progress they had done in just a few weeks.

With all the diet talk on most social media apps, the young adults that had been predisposed to an eating disorder due to their genetic makeup developed poor eating habits which turned into a disorder for a great handful of people. 

Diet culture takes a very devastating toll on many people. Just look around at our world, it’s filled with talk about our bodies and what we should and should not be putting in them. Eating disorders ruin lives and raising awareness and breaking the stigma of them is just the beginning of what needs to be done to put a stop to this awful disease.

On April 30th I will be participating in this year's NEDA walk. Myself and team Empowered RX are raising money for prevention, cures, and access to quality care for those struggling with an eating disorder. Any donation is appreciated, even just sharing this post would mean a lot. Thank you all in advance for your donations and for your support. Let’s make a change together!