When you become so preoccupied with food and weight issues that you find it harder and harder to focus on other aspects of your life, it may be an early sign of an eating disorder. Without treatment, eating disorders can take over a person’s life and lead to serious, potentially fatal medical complications. Eating disorders can affect people of any age or gender, but rates are higher among women. Symptoms commonly appear in adolescence and young adulthood. There are several different kinds of eating disorders but the most common are anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge and many more. Eating disorders are very complex conditions, and scientists are still learning about the causes. Although eating disorders all have food and weight issues in common, most experts now believe that eating disorders are caused by people attempting to cope with overwhelming feelings and painful emotions by controlling food. Unfortunately, this will eventually damage a person’s physical and emotional health, self-esteem and sense of control.Anorexia is the most common when it comes to teenagers; it is caused by multiple factors such as unwarranted fear of being overweight and low self-esteem. It is most common in young women and teenage girls. Many pre-teens to teens develop an eating disorder due to society views of what is beautiful and deserving. New research courtesy of Dr Ian Stephen from Macquarie University, published in the journal PLOS ONE, has found that both genders consider an unhealthily low body fat content for women as most attractive. Whereas the study found that both genders find men with a healthy level of body fat most attractive. That tells us that if you're not skinny then no one wants you and that can lead many people to an eating disorder due to the human nature of wanting to be loved and accepted. In 2022-2023, it is projected that around 416,300 people in the United States will have an eating disorder. Eating disorders affect at least 9% of the population worldwide. That's 9% of the U.S. population, or 28.8 million Americans, will have an eating disorder in their lifetime. Eating disorders in most cases aren't a lifelong thing; some people can take medication or go to therapy. Other ways of helping are calling an eating disorder hotline or messaging a hotline or simply just trying talking to someone.The NEDA feeding hope does and has just that. They offer a hotline and messaging times and appointments to get you back to health and happiness. If you yourself or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder don’t be afraid to speak up and get help. Many disorders can lead to horrible medical problems such as high blood pressure, weight loss and even death if not treated and taken care of in time. Another thing if you need help then don’t seek it on social media such as tick tok,Instagram, Snapchat or any other social media platform.A lot of the time the information they give out is incorrect and can make things a lot worse if followed.Only by getting help from a professional can you get the help you need to be on the right path to recovery. Social media is one of the biggest causes of eating disorders and body image issues as well as very low self-esteem. Creators will edit their photos and videos to make themselves look different and more appealing to their audience. You can't believe everything you observe online because most of it is just a bunch of lies and filters. Different people have different ideas about what is beautiful.Beauty is a gift, just like good health or intelligence and although beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, the feeling of being beautiful exists solely in the mind of the beheld. It doesn’t matter what’s on the outside, it matters about the inside because the inner beauty is more beautiful than the outer beauty. Being beautiful isn't everything... Sometimes it's interesting to show how you feel on the inside and on the outside, just through expressing yourself. A great quote from Edgar Allen Poe says “There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion.” This quote tells us that we need to be ourselves and not worry about what other people think about us because that is what makes us beautiful. How about instead of us tearing eachother down we lift eachother up and show each other we are here and we are beautiful no matter your standards or your opinion. Another quote is from Albert Einstein he simply says “Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.” When he said this he meant that if you're honest and true to yourself as well as others then that's the truest form of beauty. I want everyone to get up in the mornings and feel beautiful. I want everyone when they go to bed to feel good about themselves.