Behind the Mirror: 'Hunger in the Brain?'

Hello Patch readers. 

Welcome to my first blog post of "Behind the Mirror." Through this blog, I hope to raise awareness of eating disorders and society's view of the perfect female form. 

It really is insane what you find in magazines.

I purchased the current issue of "Us Weekly" for the simple fact that I wanted to read about the marriage of Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert. Yes, I'm a self-admitted fan of country music.

I read the nice cover story on Blake and Miranda and proceeded to take a quick look at the rest of the magazine. An advertisement with this bold headline caught my eye:

"Hunger in the brain?"

What? As I began to read, my blood began to boil. The advertisement was for an appetite control spray. It has been clinically tested to help "reduce your appetite and help you lose more weight than dieting alone." It also tastes great and is easy to use. Seriously? 

When will it stop? When did it stop being OK to be who we are? When did it become a requirement that to be happy you had to be thin? What are we doing to our young women? What message are we sending them?

We are sending them the message that they will never be perfect enough, thin enough or pretty enough. It's not enough to find their passion in life, they have to be thin and beautiful, too. Do these young women, however, understand that those images in the magazines are not real?   

If those images become their reality, products such as appetite control spray can become very dangerous.