Counting my way to an eating disorder

Calorie counting apps trigger eating disorders

With a new year comes New Year’s resolutions. Many people vow to stay healthy, get fit and possibly lose weight in the upcoming year.

According to Statistics, losing weight or getting in shape is 45 percent of Americans’ 2018 resolutions. Though 45 percent of the population creates such high expectations for themselves, only eight percent overall achieve their New Year’s resolution.

Every January, we are bombarded with health and fitness ads and stories of people who have lost huge amounts of weight. Even if we don’t really need to lose weight, society pushes it on us so much that we, especially young people, feel as if it’s necessary and could fall into dangerous habits.

The National Eating Disorders Association reports that 35 percent of “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting and that 20-25 percent of those individuals develop eating disorders. Dieting can be a precursor to an eating disorder due to the obsession of modering food consumption. Calorie counting apps are becoming more popular in the dieting world but potentially create more danger by promoting this obsession.

So how does that eight percent successfully achieve their New Year’s resolution? I asked myself that same question New Year’s Eve 2015. I finally wanted to be a part of that eight percent and I would do anything to achieve it.
New year, new me

Still a senior in high school, I got a membership to Retro Fitness, a gym just down the street to my school. I had just purchased my very first car, so it made transportation to the gym much easier. For about a month, through all types of weather, I drove myself to the gym every single day, staying a little longer and pushing a little harder every time.

It came to a point where I was not seeing the results I wanted and was extremely unsatisfied with my body. Things were also starting to pick up at school and I had less and less time to go to the gym, but that did not stop me. I wanted to be as thin as possible. The thought of not being able to look like one of those models you see in a dress magazine by the time of my prom was unacceptable.

Source :- theloquitur