Does family or culture have more of an influence on the occurrence of eating disorders?
a. What challenges did you overcome throughout this inquiry project? How did you go about overcoming these challenges?
During my research, the challenges that surfaced was how I could go more in dept with my research. I was struggling to find information that doesn’t overlap with ones I already had. I was struggling with my third post, where I was supposed to talk about how our parents and culture affect our perspective of food and weight gain/ loss and how we can fix the problem. I couldn’t find any new and interesting information for this post. Thankfully, I’ve gotten suggestions to mention how covid affect our lives, especially our eating habits. This is more interesting and educational than my original subtopic for that post. I overcame the challenge by considering the ideas brought up by my classmates.
b. How did this inquiry change the way you think?
After doing research on different types of eating disorders and their symptoms, it made me be more conscious about my friend’s eating behaviour as well as myself and my family. I realized the ways a family could influence the occurrence of an eating disorder, and it does not limit to words like “you’re so fat/ skinny.” The dynamic of a family also plays a very important role regarding our mental health. It also made me more aware of my own eating habits and how I could change them to better my mental health. It also made me realize how covid affected us more than I thought it did. This topic is closely related to our daily lives, and I’m glad I could educate myself and others about this topic.
c. How did this investigation impact your future decisions?
This became my motivation to improve my life and my habits, especially during my last research about COVID and ways we could cope with it, it was really helpful for me. Getting help and helping yourself during this challenging time is very important. When I did research on the types of eating disorders, I thought about myself and realized I had to change my thought process regarding food. After reading the consequences of EDs I knew I had to change myself and the people around me.
d. What impact will this investigation have on others locally and/or globally?
I hope this could urge people to consider how their family and culture could be a cause of their problems, and it’s not their fault. It’s ok to get help especially during this time. I hope families and future parents, locally/ globally could put their child’s mental health first. Mental health and eating disorders are gaining more attention globally and I hope this would continue to change for the better so us and the next generation don’t have to suffer as much.