Anorexia and bulimia are the hallmark eating disorders, but is it possible that another disorder has eluded us? 

Dieting, a normalized word as opposed to anorexia, is at a certain extent virtually the same thing. 

Disclaimer: For the teenage outliers out there who diet responsibly and for strictly health related purposes, or possibly in response to a medical prognosis, this does not apply to you. This is for the kids that are using “dieting” as a means to either mask current disorders or as a gateway into others. 

Dieting can be, in my opinion, merely a more undetectable version of the same disease (anorexia). Or in some cases where the disorder already existed, a symptom of it. 

Depending on the diet, and some are obviously better than others, you are essentially cutting down your original intake. How dramatically, again, is dependent on the diet (I am not condemning all). But still, doesn’t this idea of reducing what you regularly eat sound familiar? 

Anorexia is a sliding scale but I think at the bottom of that scale lies some forms of dieting. This is applicable to adults even, so how do you think it would affect developing teens? 

And not only are teens developing physically, but mentally as well. This means that oftentimes impressionable, insecure teens (that’s all of us), can easily be misguided into misusing and abusing diets. 

With a growing societal emphasis on hourglass shaped bodies and flat stomachs (projected by Instagram and other forms of social media) teens are evermore tempted, encouraged even, to jump on board to dieting fads. 

For instance, when an impressionable 13 year old girl sees her favorite influencer promote a new type of diet, she is more likely to bandwagon than if her mom had simply proposed it. 

And while most fads are fine, (for example the short lived Silly Bandz) dieting fads are not. This is because as mentioned before, dieting is not always short lived. Rather, dieting can have a long lifespan as it evolves into other disorders (i.e., anorexia).

When discussing dieting, it’s best to be cautious, as the diet you’re mimicking from your favorite influencer may eventually morph into something more severe. Your family and friends may not be able to detect the underlying issue (potentially anorexia) or be able to deem when your “diet” has undermined the definition of one, (don’t forget that diets are supposed to be healthy) so you must take it upon yourself to recognize the danger signs. To do this, though, you need to be honest with yourself. Understand the implications now, so you can avoid them later.