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This article was about a young man who looked back on his journal and realized that he not only was an alcoholic but many of his problems were because he had an eating disorder. His family and doctors always focused on the alcoholism and not the main problem. This connects to my book because Mike Welles also suffered from this disorder

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In this op-ed, writer Seamus Kirst explains why stereotypes about eating disorders are harmful for everyone, including the people who fall outside those stereotypes.
My teenage years were turbulent and imbalanced. I was my high school valedictorian, but I was also hospitalized several times for alcohol poisoning, and other times for attempts at suicide.

As a secretive teenager in the mid- to late 2000s, I created and confided in a private LiveJournal account. I wrote troubling confessions about self-destruction that only I could access.

Recently, while working on my memoir about my struggles with mental illness, I logged back in to the near-forgotten account in an attempt to reacquaint myself with the dark thoughts that often ran through my teenage head.

What I discovered surprised me. Though alcohol abuse was always the issue most closely monitored by my parents, medical doctors, and therapists - and the catalyst for my inpatient rehab at age 16 - virtually all of my secret LiveJournal entries were focused on something else: my eating disorder.

During all of high school and college, I suffered from anorexia and bulimia. From excessive exercising to fasting, from bingeing to purging, the compulsive behaviors associated with these illnesses took over my life. My daily routines were shaped by my obsession with and rejection of food. My moods were dependent on the numbers on a scale, on the visibility of bones protruding through skin.

In one LiveJournal entry, after noting how fasting and purging was causing yellow teeth, throat pain, lightheadedness, constant coldness, and a general state of misery, I went on to explain why I felt so stuck in my cycle.

"Gaining weight scares me. I really don't think I can. I guess I will just try to maintain. If I lose a little I don't care, but I cannot gain any weight. I cannot become chubby again. Everything I eat, I imagine how it's destroying my body. I honestly believe I've gained weight every morning when I look in the mirror. I guess the best I can do is just stop eating really fattening foods and just try to stick a lot of vegetables. I think it would be really hard to gain weight from them?"

As a teenager who struggled with mental illness, I was well aware that my eating disorder took just as negative a toll on my quality of life as my relationship with alcohol. Yet as I perpetuated my pattern of self-destruction, everyone who attempted to intervene tended to focus on trying to get me to stop abusing alcohol. My issues with eating were always a battle I struggled with more or less on my own.

I suppose this isn't so surprising when you think about the stereotypes attached to eating disorders, particularly 10 years ago: Eating disorders were closely - if not nearly exclusively - thought to be associated with high-achieving, affluent, white teenage girls.

It was not hard for mental health professionals to wrap their heads around the idea that a teenage boy could be alcoholic. But a boy with a real eating disorder? That must be just a phase.

Even in popular culture we have developed colloquial terms to differentiate between eating disorders suffered by men and eating disorders suffered by women. Instead of "anorexia" and "bulimia," people often use the terms "manorexia" and "boylemia." In high school, I used these terms as well. When people commented that I looked "underweight," I used humor as a way of deflecting. I joked and called myself "manorexic."

There is no advantage to creating this gendered distinction among eating disorders. All it does is reinforce the negative stereotypes that trivialize deadly mental health disorders. All it does is further prevent people from seeking help.

Certainly there are statistics that point to the umbrella identity groups that most fiercely suffer from eating disorders. According to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), in the United States, 20 million women and 10 million men will suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life. NEDA also states that while gay men are thought to only represent 5 percent of the total male population in the U.S., among men who suffer from eating disorders, 45 percent identify as gay. Gay males are seven times more likely to binge and 12 times more likely to purge than heterosexual males, NEDA also says. ​

So, sure, just as with any other disease, we should focus on the populations that are the most vulnerable. According to these statistics from NEDA, at this point women are more prone to developing eating disorders than men. But we also need to take context into consideration; we need to acknowledge that the number of male-identifying sufferers may be totally off because until recently, it seems, we did not take the idea of men suffering from this condition seriously. Many would even argue that we still trivialize men with eating disorders, that the gendered stigma is still just as strong.

We're not going to get any closer to knowing the truth about who truly suffers from eating disorders until we dispel the stereotypes and stigmas that are so often attached. Sufferers of eating disorders are not being vain, and they don't just want attention. Eating disorders are not just extreme diets, and they are not phases that people will just "grow out of" throughout life.

People from all genders, sexual orientations, ages, socioeconomic statuses, religions, and racial and ethnic groups can and do suffer from eating disorders.

There is no such thing as "manorexia" or "boylemia." An eating disorder is an eating disorder, no matter the identity of the person who is suffering. Anorexia is the most fatal mental health disorder, and anyone who is struggling with an eating disorder deserves to be taken seriously: It's a matter of life and death.

Related: Demi Lovato Posts Eating Disorder Symbol

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eating disorders national awareness week

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This is Why We Need to Recognize that Men Have Eating Disorders Too

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In this op-ed, writer Seamus Kirst explains why stereotypes about eating disorders are harmful for everyone, including the people who fall outside those stereotypes. My teenage years were turbulent and imbalanced. I was my high school valedictorian, but I was also hospitalized several times for alcohol poisoning, and other times for attempts at suicide.

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The theme in this story is not to put yourself down in life, there are many ways to help you. Mike puts himself down because Amber didn't say yes to her when he asked her out so he started to starve himself. H

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Mike is his own antagonist. He thinks he is fat and therefore becomes anorexic. His father could also be because he has shut him down. Mike asked him to go to the gym and his father said no. The conflicts in the story are about mike starving himself. Mikes family is falling apart. His my mom has Depression . His dad pushes him away  and leaves his family.

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The Protagonist in the story is a boy named Mike Welles. Mike is a 15 year old boy who lives in NEW York who has a eating Disorders.

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The story takes place in New York. It takes place either in Mike's school or at his house.