Luke Dumke CBI

I decided to relate a specific article to Akiko's eating disorder. Throughout My Year of Meats, it is very clear that she is bulimic, throwing up everything she's eaten after she's done consuming it. However, I wanted to aim toward a different point of view because in today's society, it seems as if people only recognize disorders such as bulimia and anorexia to be conditions that only females suffer from. But that is not the case.

I found this article on the Huffington Post about someone's first-hand experience living with bulimia.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-cuban/men-eating-disorders_b_4150441.html

Within the article, it describes how people at school, and unfortunately even his own mother, used to call him fat, which eventually led him to become bulimic.

The saying "Sticks and stones" is, according to the writer, Brian Cuban, one of the biggest body misconceptions. He notes that "Words do hurt, words can cause permanent damage."

The writer of the article also goes into male body stereotypes, and how much the "norms" of being a male can affect the way younger men view themselves as.

          -Men have to be strong

          -Men are leaders

          -Men don't worry about weight

          -Men don't starve themselves

Also, mentioned toward the bottom of the article, a statistic from the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) states that around 800,000 men have suffered from bulimia and/or anorexia. Yet, as mentioned, these numbers aren't accurate because men tend to "hide in the shadows of the disorder" simply because of the stereotypes mentioned above.

So, even despite that Akiko is a woman and that anorexia and bulimia are primarily viewed upon as a disorder that women only suffer from, I found Brian Cuban's article highly intriguing. It's rare when the focus of bulimia and anorexia are centered on men, but it is very clear that not only woman suffer from the conditions.