Eating Disorder - Contest Entry

Despite not being part of my schools Psychology classes, I, and a good part of the general population of the world knows about eating disorder. It's not those feelings of being fat and therefore reducing the amount of food consumed or doing an exaggerated diet. It's more about the more or less consuming of food due to a severe shock or an intense experience. Of several results, I'll tell the experience of a friend of mine (which did happen but I refuse to say who he is) who started suffering from "Bulimia nervosa".

It was the ninth grade, and if I might say, he was quite chubby (but so was I so who am i to talk about), and at the beginning, he was really OK with it. No problems. Until a girl moved into our class. You could really see that he liked her, and one day, I started to try and get thin to impress her. I don't know if she said something to him concerning this matter, but I'm not a person to mind another persons affairs,... until he started to come to school really weak and pale. He looked like I hadn't seen the sun for months. We all knew that he had started to eat less, but at that rate, it was dangerous.

In these cases, the help of those around you is vital, an I'm glad that it happened. The other class from our year, who knew my friend well, started bringing him vitamin beverages every morning, in hopes of helping him lose weight in a orderly fashion.

At first, he would always deny the help. Even the teachers were getting worried, until he finally got to his senses and let us help him. Therefore, some of us (like me) would keep him under a watchful eye, keeping him in line. When we went with some of our class to our class graduates summer journey, he had become a new person, and at the same time, the old person who always knew how to make people laugh.

Now, after the journey, our class took different paths, everyone went to the school they thought being the best for them, I even got stuck with a classmate I've been with for eleven years now, and she doesn't even close to the school. So I talk to her about him from time to time, and I'm pleased to know that he has quited such a foolish path.

So let's put this in phases:

The Problem:

My friend started to try and lose weight in the worst way possible, eating nothing or almost nothing;

Causes:

My friend though that if he has a less chubby look, so he could attract a classmate of mine, who had never stated that she didn't think that chubby people weren't attractive;

Problems it caused:

My friend started to look more exhausted, more pale and he almost collapsed one time;

The Cure:

I don't know what would happen in other people's situations, but my friend was cared by everyone, even people from another class. The road for recovery was then lighter and easier for him.

Three months after:

My friend was able to walk a full hike of 10 km under the hot sun of Barcelona, when me and some of the other people who had graduated ninth grade, and still capable of making people laugh.

So here I am, one more time, to try and prove that the road of recovery and even the very act of falling in such idiotic temptations can be avoided by the simple offering of a hand.

(word count:600 words)