Kathy makes a very good point. At the end you talked about teasing others to avoid getting teased yourself. I think that is a common thread with most kids. In the schools I attended, 80% of the people took their fair share of ribbing. Fortunately, no one took ALL of the butt of everyone's jokes. At least for eating disorders, it seems that adolescence and the universal concern with weight are a fatal combination. Even though usually no one is the butt of all the jokes, adolescents typically have a self-centered view of the world. Everyone probably isn't making fun of them or marginalizing them all of the time, but when you are an adolescent, it often times seems like that. Adolescents who have eating disorders have more of a problem of the psychological sometimes, which I believe was mentioned in class today. Children can be brought up by parents who are always accusatory of everything a child eats, and as a result, the child may grow up to think that everyone is watching them, trying to get them. Therefore, at the risk of alienation and being acused of speaking about a subject that i could NEVER know anything about, I believe that eating disorders are not weight concern taken to extreme proportions (excuse the eating pun), but instead, outside concerns complicated by a common concern about weight.