The Healing Journey: Ending the Cycle of Stigma, Addiction, and Mental Health Overlap

This example is:

• Focused on the specific Topic and answers the Prompt according to WHY the topic is important to her and to her audience. 
• Well-organized with Topic Sentences and Transitional flow of information.
• Provides developed, concrete examples for support.
• Uses 1-2 sources from the Library Databases to support personal examples.
• Introduces sources, directly quotes sources, and provides correct In-Text Citations and a Works Cited page to match.
• Uses “I, we, us” to connect to audience and AVOIDS “I” summary or “you” terms.
• An Introduction, Body, and Conclusion are clearly formatted.
• Plagiarism and AI are not used. It is clear the student write the essay. 

Student Name

Course Name and Code

Professor Pelosi

Writing Exam 

Due Date

                                                                    Eating Disorder in Adolescents

            Any topic that has to do with young children or adolescents will always be important to me. I have been an educator for about three years plus, and everyday I am learning more. Recently, I found out that a student of mine has been medically diagnosed with an eating disorder. Once I found out I immediately started looking up what exactly an eating disorder is and how I can be of help to my student and their family. This topic is important to me because I want to better my knowledge on what exactly an eating disorder is, more specifically on how social media plays a role in adolescents’ eating disorders. I feel as though if I better my knowledge on how eating disorders are influenced by social media, I can help not only my students, but people in my personal life as well.

            A topic of personal interest to me is how social media influences eating disorders in young adolescents. An eating disorder is a mental health condition that would affect us when we eat more or less than one normally would; as well as worrying about your physical appearance and adjusting your food intake to get the body image that you desire. In the report from Mental Health Weekly Digest, research was conducted and discovered that “[…e]ating disorders often [start] in adolescence and have among the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disorder. [Additionally,] cyberbullying has increased in prevalence among adolescents and significantly impacts mental health” (“Researcher” p. 433). This proves that although eating disorders may develop in other age periods, they frequently initiate in the adolescent’s stage. It also gives us insight on just how much cyberbullying affects our children’s mental wellbeing. This statement was really eye opening to me while I was doing my research on eating disorders. Having research data prove that social media affects the way young children view themselves makes me wonder what else is social media influencing on our young adolescents.

      As teachers, we constantly hear our students say numerous things about social media. Often, it is about a new trend that is going around or a meme that is going viral; something that can be taken like a grain of salt. In a brief article, “Does Cyberbullying Affect Adolescents’ Risk of Developing Eating Disorders?” they discussed how “Cyberbullying victimization was associated with worrying about weight gain, tying self-worth to weight, inappropriate compensatory behaviors to prevent weight gain, binge eating, and distress with binge eating.” (“Does” p. 133). I 100% agree with this statement, mainly because I have single-handedly witnessed this happening in my classroom. When I was doing a group activity with my students I had them select a picture from a book or magazine to make it into a positive quote. This way, the whole class can see it throughout the day and the students feel like they have a say in what happens in the classroom. Once the groups were made and they were looking for their picture, they came across an old magazine of a celebrity. They were saying how fat (celebrity’s name) got and how “Ice Spice” looks better and is skinnier. They kept going on and on and said they will not eat a lot of food from now on so when they get older, they will not have to worry about being fat. I was left speechless. I did not know how to approach this situation because I have not had a problem like this occur before. I have always been with the same age group of kids, and this was the first time something like this has happened. I stepped into the conversation and gave them a talk of why saying something like this is not okay and they should not worry about anything like that because they are still young. Even then, my students tried reasoning with me as to why being obese is “embarrassing” and how there is not one celebrity they can think of that is of a big size so they also should not let themselves get big. They kept on going on about how being fat would make them “unpopular” and how nobody likes fat people. It was disappointing having to have a conversation like this with my students because I realized that social media is affecting their lives negatively. Every time I told them that weight does not make a person who they are, they insisted on how I was wrong.

            While I was conducting my research for this essay, I found it getting personal on my end. I am an older sister to a nine-year-old; my sister is close in age to the student that has an eating disorder in my classroom. I was too focused on my work life that I did not even realize the same thing could be happening to me at home with my younger sister. As I was reading an article I found that “[a]dolescents should limit social media that encourages eating disorders and appearance comparisons. Parents should advise their children to avoid cyberbullying and encourage them to report online harassment if it occurs” (“Does” p. 133). I had to put my work aside and talk to my sister about what is going on and let her know if she were to ever feel influenced or discouraged by what she sees on the media, to let me or her parents know about it. I also took it a step further and discussed with my parents about the risks social media could play on my sister.

            As educators, we are constantly facing new challenges within our classroom. With technology advancing, adolescents are more exposed to being easily influenced by social media. However, social media is not always good for adolescents. Since they are still in the age where everything they see they want to do, they pick up on what they see from celebrities or other social media influencers and apply it to their daily lives. There are ways we can prevent adolescents from being easily influenced by social media. It can be as easy as talking to them, setting limits to their amount of social media intake, or simply letting them know that they do not have to look a certain way.

                                                                          Works Cited

“Does Cyberbullying Affect Adolescents’ Risk of Developing Eating Disorders?” Mental Health Weekly Digest, 18 Sept.       

                   2023, p. 133. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A765622539/AONE?

                   u=lincclin_pbcc&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=ce5ea3ec. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024.

“Researcher from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Details New Studies and Findings in the

                  Area of Eating Disorders (Cyberbullying and eating disorder symptoms in US early adolescents).” Mental Health

                   Weekly Digest, 25 Sept. 2023, p. 433. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A766416370/AONE?

                  u=lincclin_pbcc&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=d2815205. Accessed 26 Feb. 20

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