Fact: The 150,000 figure is false. It came from two sources: Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth", and Gloria Steinem's "Revolution From Within". Those sources misquoted the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association's 1985 report that claimed 150,000 women SUFFER from anorexia each year, not die [1][2].
Fact: According to the CDC, from the years 2003 to 2006, an average of 150 PEOPLE died each year from ALL eating disorders [3].
Myth: Anorexia is the number one eating disorder among women.
Fact: Over-eating, or binge-eating, is the number one eating disorder in America [4] (imagine that!). We rarely hear about all the obese Women and how serious a health problem it is however, because over-eating is not officially classified as an eating disorder (and how can you possibly blame it on men!). Bulimia (over-eating followed by induced vomiting) is number 2, and anorexia is number 3 [4].
Myth: Women starve themselves to death because of pressures from society to be skinny.
Fact: There are far more obese women than anorexic women. A 23.5% obesity rate [5], compared to a 0.5%-1.0% estimated anorexia rate [6][7]. This makes obesity roughly 24-47 times more prevalent than Anorexia. If there is so much pressure on women to be thin - why are so many of them overweight and so few of them underweight?
Ask any man which of the three women below he finds most attractive:
The over-whelming majority will say "THE MIDDLE ONE". All three are in bikinis. The only factor separating them is their weight. The one in the middle is the healthy weight. Men find HEALTHY women attractive.
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