...Ellyday By Helen Olajumoke Oyeyemi Eating disorders are becoming more and more frequent as a result of fashion’s huge expectations of people’s appearances. The praise of the eternal youthful look forces people into the use of extreme methods to obtain this ideal. One of them is eating disorders – particularly anorexia. Even though the fashion industry claims to be without guilt, because - as I once heard a man express in a show about the same theme – (of course I can’t remember the name of the show or the exact words, but it went something like this): models are just hangers, which show the clothes, there’s no reason for young girls to get so worked up over the model’s figure. The only problem is: there is! Many girls dream about becoming a model and they quickly learn if they want to be a model, they have to be thin. Really thin And the fastest way to become thin is by starving themselves. Furthermore when girls reach their teen years and the interest in boys and an aspiration to become popular emerge, insecure girls think (because of course it’s nothing like that – at least not everywhere) the only way to obtain those things is by being thin. And sometimes this obsession to achieve a perfect body goes too far. This extremely dark side of being a teenager is portrayed in Helen Olajumoke Oyeyemi’s short story Ellyday. It is about two friends, Sophie and Elly. On a cold Saturday morning Sophie pays Elly a visit to confront her, because she has discovered Elly has anorexia...
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