Families and Eating Disorders

I am a member of SHINE at UNL this semester, which is a group that brings students information and awareness about body image and eating disorders. For our class, we have to read a book called Surviving an Eating Disorder: Strategies for Families and Friends. As I was reading it, it made me think a lot of the systems theory that we talked about the other day in class. You see, a lot of people think that eating disorders are started by cultural ideals, or images in the media, which would be macro-system. But through the book they share many personal accounts, and as it turns out, almost all start out from problems in the micro system, such as negative family relationships regarding food and body image.

In the future, I would like to help people who struggle with eating disorders, and thinking about this has reminded me how important it is to consider what solutions we can come up with based on the closest interactions a person has - with their family and friends.