Eating Disorders

After The Death Of Karen Carpenter Anorexia Became Top News

Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are serious problems among the young girls and boys in the high school age range. These disorders cause serious health problems, whether or not the person suffering from the disorder dies or not.

When it came to Karen Carpenter Anorexia was the disease that caused her death. Why? Because the physiology of the disease caused serious heart problems that ended up being fatal. In Karen Carpenter Anorexia caused things like a decrease in her blood pressure, causing her to faint, hair loss and a loss of her menstrual cycle because of hormonal depletion and a decrease of protein in the body which ends up manifesting itself in muscle wasting. Muscle wasting includes wasting of the cardiac muscle. This is why Karen died of a heart attack.

Before the death of Karen Carpenter Anorexia was rarely spoken of. It was known that many young girls had an issue with food and spent their time starving themselves, but it was rarely spoken about. After the death of Karen Carpenter Anorexia became a central topic among those dealing with other young girls with eating disorders.

Instead of ignoring the problem, prevention and treatment were discussed and found to be warranted. Rarely was a girl treated for these disorders before Karen Carpenter's death. After she died, however, treatment centers popped up all over the place. Other stars came forward and admitted they, too, had the same problem. This pulled the disease further out into the open.

Because of the media coverage of Karen Carpenter's death, anorexia nervosa became a disease that was in the top news stories. Many magazines and medical journals started publishing stories and articles about the disorder and how best to treat it. One thought to simply be something that could be handled with a plate of food or extra helping of something good, Anorexia was realized for the disorder it truly always was.

Today, it is really important that the media cover positive stories with regard to anorexia nervosa. This means that it is no longer acceptable to glorify those who are rail thin. This is because their thinness is most likely the result of an eating disorder, and if it's not, glorifying it could still cause others to end up with an eating disorder trying to be as thin as the person is in the story. Today, it is more important to be healthy than it is to be thin.