Speech

I was laying in my bed on a warm night in June four years ago when the intrusive thoughts
started invading my mind.
I remember laying in my bed and staring at the ceiling and knowing that I was moments from
taking my own life. For six months I had been suffering.
Suffering from an eating disorder that consumed every aspect of my life and was leading me
down a slow path towards death.
Since then, it has been a long and hard battle between me and my body.

I fell in love with fitness when I was 15 years old and started bodybuilding. I thought it was
innocent. I started off slow, but when I started seeing results everything changed, rapidly

I began weighing myself everyday. Counting my calories down to the last crumb. I became
extremely conscious of nutrition labels. I was constantly staring at my body in the mirror, wishing
I saw something different. I would starve myself, then binge. It was a horrible cycle. It led me to
diet pills, laxatives, and excessive exercise. I felt that I had lost control of who I was. I did not
know who I was. I would do anything, even die, to have a socially acceptable perfect body.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 30 million people of all ages and genders
are struggling with an eating disorder in the United States, and many more who are
undocumented. Every hour someone dies as a result of an eating disorder.

The rate of eating disorders among college students has risen from 7.9% to over 30% from
2006 to now. With technological advances and cultural shifts, the rise of the ideology of an ideal
body is clear.

I never thought I would become a part of these statistics. So when I started to overcome my
eating disorder, I started to ask myself why? Why did this happen to me? That got me truly
thinking.

The hundreds of fitness models I followed online. The long hours I spent on the Internet and
social media, googling how to get the perfect body. Going on youtube and seeing how other
people could lose so much weight, so fast.

I was consumed. By what? Media.

Media allowed me to fixate on ideologies that society has socially constructed. I hated my body.
I would look in the mirror and point out every flaw. Society told me I was not pretty. Society told
me I was too fat. Society made me believe I was not worth it.

Media culture produces the fabric of everyday life and shapes the ways in which we behave. It
forges our very identities. It has the power to manipulate us. The commercial culture has no
interest in my well-being, they have interest in seducing me to perform behaviors that could
harm me. What do they gain? Profit.
I was subjected to the images and ideas that I could look a certain way. Feel a certain way. If I
just ate less. If I just followed this diet. I can fit in. Media won me over. The commercials, the
social media advertisements, the sponsored Instagram posts, the fad diets discussed on the
radio, the magazine covers.

I want to make society aware of the manipulation we are subjected to. I want to encourage
individuals to be oppositional to the ideologies that are presented to us.

Do not simply be a passive consumer in a capitalist society, be oppositional. Create your own
identity. Become an active reader and learner and be aware of the domination that is imposed
upon us with each and every form of media we view.

No human deserves to be shamed for the size of their body or shape of their body. No human
deserves to develop the mindset that they need to look a certain way to be happy or feel
accepted in society.

I ask myself, why must we live in a society where we are driven by profit? Where we are driven
to conform to consumerism and are subjected to certain ideals. Commodification. Gender
norms. Acceptable forms of masculinity. Ideas relating to how one can be socially accepted.
Driven to purchase and idolize the means which make us “normal” and enable us to be properly
integrated into our socially constructed world.

We have become submissive and obedient in a way that allows capitalism to thrive and
constricts us from creating our own narratives. It can lead us down the wrong path, as it led me
down a path of having a viscous eating disorder that took over my life. I fell victim to this and
have learned that mass media messages can no longer have control over me. I am my own
person and I have to accept myself as I am and not aim to be what media tells me to be. I have
learned to be oppositional.

With all I have said, I believe it is time for a change. So let’s make that change, starting with
you. Love yourself and create your own narrative. Thank you.