Dying to Fit In

When we are in our teenage years, we have a circle of friends with whom we are tightly bound and you are exposed to the same environment with limited choices to deter form the group. One's decisions and identity are determined by their circle of friends. Often times, one's group of friends exerts peer pressure on them to dress in designer jeans, hang out with the cool crowd or even be willing to endanger oneself by attempting to be skinny. For example, one would never dream of staying home on a Friday night because they were not interested in what the cool crowd was doing. Society implies that you avoid individuality, follow the majority, because there is a strong desire to fit into societies requirements.

While the teenager often faces situations where they feel the pressure of society's beliefs of perfection, a non-traditional student transplanted into a trendy setting also feels some sense of awkwardness when confronted with the societal ideals of today. Experiencing college life after decades of being out of the groove is much more difficult than it seems. A non-traditional student is often reminded of the importance of peer pressure and the necessity of fitting the molds created by society.

For some, the pressures of society's belief that to be thin is to be perfect are so intense that they manifest themselves into serios and often deadly eating disorders. Many people in the United States have an ideal of extreme thinness. Often times thesewomen or men define their beauty by their thinness as they see it in magazines and on television. Anorexia is no longer categorized as a predominatly white college age female disorder. This devastating disease is no longer race or gender specific. In America today, there are five to ten million people with some form of eating disorder, with one percent being American teens. That means that in a class of four hundred students four are likely to have some form of eating disorder. Both anorexia and bulimia tend to affect more girls than boys, however, ten percent of the people with eating disorders often go undetected in boys. Boys with eating disorders also tend to focus on athletic appearance or success rather than on just looking thin.

People with eating disorders have an intense fear

of being fat, "the fat girl doesn't get the date," and "the fat kid doesn't get chosen for the team," or "the fat kid isn't the popular one." There is often times a feeling that an overweight kid just doesn't FIT IN!

A person with this condition can look in the mirror and instead of the