It’s no coincidence that eating disorders are most prominent in Western civilisations where capitalism has replaced community. In such civilisations, we are sold the lie that we need to change ourselves in order to be enough, and, heartbreakingly, people actually believe this lie. It is for this reason that so many people spend their whole lives chasing the ever-elusive feeling of enoughness.
*‘Ever elusive’ because by making our bodies a trend, beauty standards are constantly shifting; therefore, no sooner have we reached one ideal than we are sold another, yo-yoing from heroin chic to curvy, over and over again.
One might look at the media and, in turn, the influencers that young people are looking up to and worry about such ‘trends’, but upon looking to other cultures, we can see that the issues that we are facing today are not just part and parcel of being human, and therefore they can change.
Eastern civilisations, for example, who focus not on money and power but health and wellbeing, place far less, if any, value on body image compared to people in the West. Tending to be of a more spiritual mindset, they have bigger, more important things to think about than being lean and muscular if they’re a man, or as small as possible if they’re a woman.
So, what’s the obsession in the West?
It can be argued that an increase in wealth in the West is contributing to an increase in eating disorder cases, especially since less economically developed countries show significantly lower rates of eating disorders compared to their wealthier counterparts.
Headed by capitalism, Western civilisations are all about money. Forsaking morals and a conscience for a quick buck, the people in power in countries in the West recognise that self-loathing is profitable.
Just think about it. If everyone were content with themselves, then there would be no diets to sell, or gym memberships, or cosmetic surgeries, or makeup, or any of the other pointless things that we’re sold to make us ‘good enough’. In recognition of our own self-worth, we wouldn’t be driven to work every hour under the sun to pay to feed our insecurities. Like the animals of whom our similarities are far starker than our differences, we would be content enough to just…live.
Alas, we don’t permit ourselves to just live. Instead, we spend our whole lives trying to escape what we are. Dancing with death and living life on the edge, we forget that embracing the simple way of living that being an animal offers would make us happier than any of our human wants possibly could, this being a fact that is proven when we go on holiday.
Diving headfirst into different cultures where bodies aren’t celebrated for how they look but for what they do, when we’re on holiday, we can slow down enough to understand that the pressures that we have to look a certain way in the West are, perhaps ironically, based on greed.
When we lack for nothing, we want for everything.
Escaping the hustle and bustle of work commitments and the need to be ‘enough’, on holiday, away from the pressures of the West, we grant ourselves permission to just be.
Taking a step back, we lean into something which is even more elusive than our feelings of enoughness, perspective.
Embracing who we are at a deeper level, our souls, as opposed to settling for who we think we are at a surface level, our egos… This* is the only way to live a meaningful existence.
*(And if you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for your wallet. It’s amazing how much money a bit of self-love and a refusal to conform can save).
Portfolio of Hope 