Christy's Story
Though she narrowly missed making the U.S. Olympic gymnastics squad, Christy Henrich's successes were many during her highly profiled career that tragically eneded with her death from anorexia and bulimia in July of 1994. Perhaps the saddest story and most tragic member of The Examiner's Top 50 all-time greatest athletes is Fort Osage graduate Christy Henrich. Although she never swung a bat, stepped on a track or dribbled a basketball for the Indians, she is one of the most honored and respected athletes in the school's and area's history. Henrich was a world class gymnast, who was a member of the United States National Gymnastics team from 1986-1990. She represented the United States in international competitions in Germany, China, Switzerland and elsewhere starting in 1986 at the age of 14. She finished ninth at the U.S. Olympic trials in 1988 and missed making the Olympic team by .188 of a point. That was a devastating blow to the dazzling pixie, who bounced back from a serious injury a broken vertebrae in her neck suffered in a fall for her greatest season in 1989. She finished second at the U.S. National Championships that year and placed fourth on the uneven parallel bars at the 1989 World Championships in Stuttgart, West Germany. She suffered a variety of injuries in 1990 and fell to 10th at the national championships, then retired from the sport in 1991. Christy never really overcame missing out on her life-long dream of making the Olympics and developed two deadly eating disorders anorexia and bulimia. And with her organs severely damaged by the effects of the her eating disorders, she died in July of 1994. "My life is a horrifying nightmare," she said to The Examiner before her death. "It feels like there is a beast inside of me, a monster." Her family and fiancee did everything they could to help Christy overcome her eating disorders. She was the first U.S. gymnast to die of an eating disorder, although Cathy Rigby, Christy Phillips, Cathy Johnson and Nadia Comaneci successfully fought the disease. Henrich was a mirror image of her idol, Mary Lou Retton, at the peak of her career. Henrich weighed 93 pounds when a judge at an international competition told her she needed to watch her weight. "That was perceived by Christy as 'You're too fat to be an Olympic gymnast,' " said Al Fong, her former coach at Great American Gymnastic Express. "She was an extremely strong person. She was a bull, a tank." When Fong approached Henrich to talk about her eating disorder, the two individuals parted ways. "I said to her, 'You're going to kill yourself.' She needed to eat. But she just couldn't." "I said to her, 'You're going to kill yourself.' She needed to eat. But she just couldn't."
Karen's Story
S he was a great musician. A teenager turned accordion player turned flutist
turned drummer turned singer. Karen Anne Carpenter was one of the all time
great musical sensations of the 70s. On the stage she was glamorous and
loved by the crowd. Thousands of people cheered her on as she performed
classic song after song. She guest starred on TV shows, was on the front
cover of many national magazines, and even toured the world. But amidst
all this fame and fortune, she was dying. Karen Carpenter was suffering
from an eating disorder not uncommon among the American population. Though
disorder was not rare, it was rarely talked about. Most people at that time
had never heard of the term Anorexia Nervosa. Sad but true, the death of
Karen Carpenter in 1983 opened the eyes of the world to this life threatening
disease. Karen Carpenter was well known in the 70s and 80s for her
dazzling music. She was one half of the sibling music group, The Carpenters.
Born in 1950, she grew up listening to the Beatles and performing with her
older brother Richard, and in her lifetime captured 3 Grammy's, 8 Gold Albums,
10 Gold Singles, and 5 Platinum Albums. The music she made was so great
that she held the record for the most Top 5 hits in the first year of business.
You could say that she lead her life in the spotlight. Young girls looked
up to her. She was a role-model and a symbol of American culture. At least,
this is what she was trying to be. As it turns out, it was these social
pressures that ultimately lead to her downfall. Richard Carpenter recalls
that Karen was "a chubby teenager". Genetically, she wasn't meant to be
super thin. Unfortunately for this singer, the only body that she would
stand to have was a thin one. The dieting began in 1967 when Karen's doctor
put her on a water diet, bringing her weight down from 140 lbs to 120. When
she had made it down to 115 lbs, people told her she looked good, but she
could only reply that this was just the beginning of the weight loss, and
that she wanted to lose still more. By the fall of 1975, Karen was down
to 80 lbs. She was taking dozens of thyroid pills a day, and throwing up
the little food that she ate. Karen's body was so weak that she was forced
to lay down between shows, and the audience was gasping at her body as she
walked on stage. It was this year in Las Vegas that Karen collapsed on stage
while singing "Top of the World". It was a big scare to the audience and
her family. After being rushed to the hospital, it was reported that Karen
was 35 lbs underweight. It was this final collapse that made Karen Carpenter
realize that she had a serious problem. She went to doctors and therapists,
and eventually began to believe that she was well. However, in reality,
her body was still suffering from the lack of food, the over dosages of
laxatives, the lack of sleep, and the anxiety of being on the road. When
she died in 1983, it was a shock to many people who believed that she had
been cured. The emergency call came at 8:51 am on February 4, 1983. Karen
Carpenter's mother found her naked and unconscious on the floor of a walk-in
wardrobe closet in their home in Downey, California. She was rushed to the
hospital where attempts were made to save her life, but within an hour,
Karen Carpenter was dead. She died of a cardiac arrest caused by the strain
that the anorexia had put on her heart. At the age of 32, she was 5'4",
but weighed only 108 lbs. Karen Carpenter was vibrant and energetic, they
said. As Gil Friesen, the president of A&M Records described her, she was
"...the girl next door, always up even when she was down". She had the common
signs of anorexia. She was sweet, but kept her emotions inside. She was
the kind of person who would take care of other people, but not herself.
They called her a living skull, and a tormented and unhappy woman. She was
psychotic about her weight, and self-conscious about her natural pear-shaped
chubbiness. Karen Carpenter was a talented, ambitious young white female
from a middle class home. She was the prime example of a victim of anorexia
nervosa. Anorexia Nervosa is often referred to as the stars or starlets
disease. Sometimes also called the slimmers' disease, or the rich women's
disease. Anorexia is especially common among young white girls and those
who need to have more control over their lives. Among anorexics, you will
find female hyper-achievers, fashion models, dancers, gymnasts, and ballet
troupes. It is the good girls disease. Ever since Karen Carpenter died in
1983, doctors, scientists, and therapists, among many others, have been
investigating the cause of this fatal eating disorder. One common cause,
as everyone agrees, is American culture and the media. For the past few
decades, there has been an American philosophy of "trim and slim". This
is a nation where it is sexy to be skinny and where fitness centers and
more recently, dieting supplements, are being advertised more than anything
else. The film and television industries are only perpetuating the image
conscious nature of people within the American society. Studies have shown
that since the beginning of Playboy magazine, the centerfold models have
become thinner and thinner, leading to the ideal that thin is good. Super
skinny magazine models act as role models, and girls find themselves dieting
so that they can look like Twiggy the Shrimp, or whoever the supermodel
of the decade may be. Still, many find themselves striving for the gymnast
ideal, or thinning down to look like all of the other girls in the ballet
class. It is a wide spread problem that is only getting worse as time goes
on. Many sources report that there may be a correlation between a certain
style of parenting and anorexia. Scientists are saying that anorexia can
develop when parents set excessively high standards of achievement or exert
too much control over their children. Children of authoritative parents
don't rebel. Instead, they find areas in their lives where they do have
control. One of them being their eating habits. Eventually, girls begin
to develop a distorted view of themselves. Psychological disturbances cause
them to stop seeing themselves realistically, which in turn causes them
to have a low self-image. Often, other peoples' references to chubbiness,
pudginess, or baby fat sends the signal that weight must be lost. Bright
and successful people see themselves as disgustingly fat. They feel that
they have to measure up, but that they can't unless they change their body
weight. Anorexia is about control. For some, dealing with pressure means
taking control of food. In 1983, it was predicted that one in every 300
women between the ages of 14 and 25 suffer from anorexia. All together,
one in 200 women of all ages are victims of the disease. Studies have also
found that one tenth of all female college students have at one time or
another suffered from an eating disorder. 15 years ago, there were half
a million young women with anorexia, and today, that number has risen to
more than 2 million . Writers call it an "underestimated phenomenon", a
great epidemic. To some people, dieting means cutting down on the sweets,
and taking an apple for a snack instead of a candy bar. But to others, dieting
has an entirely different meaning. Like Karen Carpenter, many people decide
to go on water diets, where they hydrate themselves to the extent that their
bodies are filled up with water and nothing else. Some are bullimic and
force themselves to throw up after they've eaten. Many people take laxatives,
or just stop eating all together. One author wrote about a woman who would
eat half a raisin at a time so that she wouldn't consume as much food, a
girl who would swallow cords to get herself to throw up, and a college student
who would rummage through garbage cans late at night to collect food so
that she could eat and then throw up everything that she had found. Though
anorexia nervosa has a surprisingly high mortality rate, it still has serious
consequences. As in the case of Karen Carpenter, it can lead to serious
cardiac problems, which have proven to be fatal. Anorexia can cause a decrease
in blood pressure and body temperature, hair loss, loss of menstrual cycle,
and a decrease of protein in the blood. Bulimia can cause ulcers, hernias,
a dependence on laxatives, and the loss of tooth enamel. When the body is
deprived of food, it must look elsewhere for nutrients, and eventually begins
feeding on muscle protein. The heart muscle weakens, and this leads to irregular
heart rhythms and congestive heart failure. Additionally, anorexia causes
an imbalance of electrolytes which causes cardiac abnormalities. In some
cases, the bodies of anorexics have digested their own nervous systems.
In the end, five to ten percent of the victims of anorexia die within 5
to 10 years of suicide or from depression caused by the illness, malnutrition,
and heart problems. Before Karen Carpenter died, no one spoke of any of
this. Girls starved themselves, but they didn't know that there were thousands
of other girls that did the same things. They surely didn't know that their
eating habits would kill them. No one was aware of anorexia and it's devastating
consequences. Up until 1983, eating disorders were not taken seriously.
They were treated like any other bad habits that no one ever mentioned.
Many thought that there was a quick fix to the problem, and that the solution
to an eating disorder was simply to start eating again. Girls believed that
they were cured, when in fact, they weren't. This problem would have continued
unnoticed had it not been for the death of Karen Carpenter. Immediately
following Karen's death, there was a massive surge in the media regarding
the great singer and her battle against anorexia. Eating disorders all of
a sudden became highly publicized. Magazines and journals began publishing
articles, and the news had top stories about anorexia and it's devastating
effects. All of the media coverage on Karen's death encouraged other celebrities
to go public with their stories. The death raised the profile of eating
disorders in the entertainment community. Jane Fonda and Cherry Boon O'Neill,
daughter of singer Pat Boone, admitted to their eating disorders and committed
themselves to getting help. Also coming forward with their problems were
Kathy Rigby, gymnast and actress, and actresses Jeannine Turner and Lynn
Redgrave. Karen Carpenter's death gave people quite a scare. In the days
and months to follow the tragic incident, there were a flurry of frightened
phone calls to medical centers from people who had been jolted by the singer's
death and wanted help. Psychologically-oriented groups had a doubling in
attendance following Karen's death. In addition, many people began to launch
voluntary support groups for victims of eating disorders. Karen Carpenter
spurred public interest in anorexia. Soon their were clinics specializing
in eating disorders. Richard Carpenter developed a fund dedicated to his
sister for researching anorexia. This death awakened the public and lead
to a focus on the problem at hand. It has been said that Karen Carpenter
is responsible for making America aware of the problems of eating disorders.
She brought it out of the closet and made it famous. As one person said,
"...she's a name, and that's going to bring more attention." When I walk
around school, I see people who feel the need to be thinner, who look at
themselves in the mirror and see fat and ugliness. People often comment
on the fact that I'm thin, and say, "You're really skinny". Being a female,
a dancer, an over-achiever, vibrant and energetic, many would think that
I suffer from the same disease that killed Karen Carpenter. But since 1983,
much has been discovered about eating disorders. If someone was to suggest
to me that I had an eating disorder, I would hand them this paper and educate
them on what it really means to suffer from anorexia. The fact is, eating
disorders are a big problem, no matter where you go. They effect me just
as they effect everyone else. You don't have to have an eating disorder
feel its consequences. Today, 8 million people suffer from eating disorders.
For some reason or another, 7 million women and one million men are intentionally
depriving their bodies of food. As time goes on, models are becoming thinner
and thinner, as are American girls. 15 years after the death of Karen Carpenter,
we are still suffering from this devastating disease, maybe more so than
we were in 1983. However, the problem is no longer our ignorance to the
fact that eating disorders exist and are killing thousands. Though the media
perpetuates the problem, we are still better off than we were during Karen
Carpenter's lifetime. We now have knowledge, which will eventually destroy
the wrath of all eating disorders. Karen Carpenter can be seen as the great
surge of awareness to the millions of people who suffer from this serious
disease. Her struggle with anorexia has opened our eyes to the danger of
eating disorders, and begun the race to finding the cure.
Ipecac and Karen Carpenter
May 13, 1985 When Karen Carpenter collapsed at 32 from heart failure in
a wardrobe closet of her parents' Downey, California home two years ago,
the acting Los Angeles coroner, Dr. Ronald N. Kornbum, said she died of
complications from anorexia nervosa, specifically "cardiotoxicity" brought
on by the chemical emetine. What he did not specify was how the emetine
got there. Experts now agree there was only one way possible: She had misused
a common, over-the-counter drug called ipecac. A foul-smelling, amber-colored
drug, syrup of ipecac has been sold in drugstores for years to induce vomiting
in poison victims. General practitioners have long recommended having a
bottle in the medicine chest as a cheap antidote; a one-ounce bottle costs
only about $2. But the fact is that ipecac, in large dose, may cause irreversible
damage to the heart, and if taken repeatedly, is a lethal poison. One month
after Carpenter's death, Deborah Mae Mellon, 32, a mother of two, died of
emetine poisoning. Two Philadelphia lawyers, Thomas E. Mellon Jr., Mrs.
Mellon's brother-in-law, and Michael B.L. Hepps, have filed a lawsuit charging
the numerous manufactures of ipecac with failure to warn the public about
the drug's toxic dangers. The suit, initiated on behalf of Mrs. Mellon's
estate, seeks $5 million in ompensatory damages and $10 million in punitive
damages. "No one can know from looking at this poison antidote that it is
a poison itself," says Mellon. "Like Karen Carpenter, Debbie thought ipecac
was harmless. She was a happy, healthy woman who simply was desperate to
lose weight." Mellon says if the cause of Karen's death had been revealed
immediately, it might have saved Debbie's life. "And it would have stopped
other women from taking ipecac, too. They would have said to themselves,
'This is what killed Karen Carpenter. I'm not going to take it.'" Now some
doctors fear an epidemic of ipecac misuse among an estimated 150,000 anorectics
and two million patients who suffer from bulimia, binge eating and purging.
A group of psychotherapists who specialize in treating the two illnesses
has decided to publicize the true cause of Karen's death. Chief among them
is Steven Levenkron, a psychotherapist and author. It was Levenkron who
treated Carpenter for anorexia-- successfully, he thought--for almost a
year before her death. "Just as Karen slipped through our fingers, so are
many other women," he says now. At a hearing later this spring in Washington,
D.C., Levenkron and his colleagues will ask the FDA to declare ipecac a
prescription drug. "Ipecac should not be readily available," he says. "It
should be controlled immediately." When she died, Karen had been suffering
from anorexia for eight years--apparently since reading a passing reference
to her chubbiness in a review. After seeing several therapists in California,
she moved to Manhattan to begin working with Levenkron. He eventually put
her in the hospital, where she raised her weight from a skeletal 83 to 108
and overcame her addiction to laxatives. In November 1982 Karen decided
that she was able to go home. Soon after, according to Levenkron's reconstruction
of her final months, she must have begun swallowing several teaspoons of
ipecac every night after dinner and eventually increased her intake to a
bottle or two. The drug, which causes sharp cramps followed by violent vomiting,
gradually weakened her and led, on February 4, to her sudden death. Levenkron
says he was shocked to learn that his patient had died from ipecac poisoning.
"I thought I knew everything about her." During phone conversations, he
recalls, he had asked her, "Are you losing weight? Are you taking laxatives?"
and she had always answered, "No." "Ipecac was something that never occurred
to me to ask her about," he says. "I assume Karen thought this was a harmless
thing to do," to eat regularly yet maintain her weight at 108. In a press
release for his autopsy report on Karen, the L.A. coroner failed to mention
ipecac. The release in fact stated that "laboratory tests had rued out drug
or medication overdose as a cause of death." Says Dr. Kornblum now, "It
never occurred to me to mention ipecac. In my mind, emetine and ipecac are
the same thing." Since Karen died, Deborah Mellon's has been the only reported
death from ipecac poisoning. But some observers suspect tat many diet-obsessed
girls may have died from overusing the drug. "We think that many anorectics
and bulimics who've died of mysterious heart failures may have actually
died of ipecac abuse," says Levenkron. Dr. Alan Adlier, a Philadelphia physician
who in 1980 treated the first reported victim of ipecac, most physicians
aren't aware that it's cardiotoxic, and to my knowledge only one lab in
the country tests for emetine poisoning." Ipecac comes from the root of
the ipecacuanha plant, a shrub that grows in South America. It is the only
non-prescription drug known to contain emetine. Until the late '70s, when
studies of ipecac poisoning started showing up in medical journals, many
doctors never considered that ipecac might be misused. "None of us had taken
the trouble to investigate this drug," says Levenkron, "because who would
abuse a drug that produces horrible pains, nausea and vomiting?" Dr. John
Adams Atchley, a Manhattan psychiatrist who is president of American Anorexia/Bulimia
Association Inc., answers the question: "If you heard [bulimics] talk about
the great joy they get in cleaning themselves out, you'd understand why
they're willing to take ipecac. They'll put up with all kinds of things
to get the almost spiritual high. Anorexia is self-starvation resulting
from a disturbed sense of one's own eating, followed by self-induced vomiting
or purging by laxatives and diuretics. Bulimics are perfectionists and obsessive-compulsives,
with high standards and low self-esteem; they are fleshier than anorectics,
whose wasted look marks them as victims of a bizarre disease, and their
numbers is growing. "In eight years I saw meetings in Jew Jersey change
from groups of emaciated young women to groups of field hockey types who
were bingeing their heads off, taking laxatives and throwing it up," says
Dr. Atchley. But on closer look there are telltale signs: puffiness around
the eyes and a swelling of the glands on the sides of the jaws. Chronic
vomiters sometimes have facial rashes, damaged teeth and premature cheek
wrinkles--like rows of parentheses on the sides of their faces. Although
bulimics seem sturdier that anorectics, they are often actually less robust.
Bingeing itself can be fatal. Recently a 23-year-old model, who had starved
herself down to 84 pounds, died in London after gaining 19 pounds during
one binge. According to a letter in the British medical journal, Lancet,
the woman's fatal intake consisted of liver, kidneys, steaks, eggs, cheese,
bread, mushrooms, carrots, a whole cauliflower, 10 peaches, four pears,
two apples, four bananas, two pounds of grapes and two glasses of milk.
Some vomiters end their binges with several bottles of diet soda. This makes
the food float to the top of their stomachs and sparks the gag reflex. Some
simply will themselves to throw up. Others--300,000 by some estimates--take
ipecac. Despite the tragedy of Karen Carpenter, not everyone agrees that
ipecac should be made a prescription drug. Dr. John Schiegel, president
of the American Pharmaceutical Association, suggests that instead, "We endorse
labeling changes on the product that will more adequately warn consumers
about the potential dangers of using ipecac incorrectly." Says Ron Williams,
APha's director of professional affairs, "Every year ipecac saves 150,000
lives. Everyone should have a bottle in the medicine chest in case of accidental
poisonings." to counteract certain poisons, ipecac must be taken within
a half hour. Dr. Atchley argues that requiring a prescription won't jeopardize
poison victims. "A mother could ask her pediatrician for a prescription
and keep a bottle in the medicine chest," he says. His position is seconded
by former users of the drug. One of Levenkron's patients, a 14-year-old
girl, said she bought ipecac at a drugstore after reading about it in a
book about bulimia. She took it several times even though it made her vomit
blood and bile. "Would you have used it even if it had a skull and crossbones
on the label?" Levenkron asked the girl. "Yes," she said, she would have.
"Karen wouldn't knowingly have done something that would kill her," says
her therapist. Her grave is in Forest Lawn.
Kate Moss' Story
Just 5ft 7in tall – a pygmy in catwalk terms – and with a lazy eye, Kate
Moss may not at first seem obvious supermodel fodder. But in the course
of her 13-year career the waif-like girl from Croydon has revolutionised
the international modelling scene. Born on January 16, 1974, she was first
spotted by model agency boss Sarah Doukas as a 14-year-old at JFK airport,
and started her modelling career doing unremarkable shoots for teenage magazines.
Photographer Corinne Day, one of the key players of the early Nineties "grunge"
period, spotted her potential and snapped the adolescent topless and wearing
a native American headdress. The picture was published on the front cover
of style bible The Face, and a Generation X icon was born. More than a decade
on, Kate's career has never gone through a fallow period. Unlike many of
her contemporaries who lost their hipness through over-exposure or as a
result of the fashion industry's constant need to reinvent itself, Kate
has always been at the cutting edge of style. Today she is Britain's wealthiest
model, with an estimated fortune of nearly 15 million. And a selection of
hip boyfriends – including Mario Sorrenti, who shot her in the nude for
the Calvin Klein campaign, Johnny Depp, millionaire model and photographer
Dan Macmillan and Lemonhead Evan Dando – and even hipper friends including
Noel Gallagher, Jude Law, Donatella Versace and Stella McCartney, has ensured
the supermodel has continued to top hip party guestlists. In 1998 Kate made
headlines when it was revealed she had checked into celeb-friendly rehab
centre The Priory, in London, after suffering what was termed "exhaustion".
Although she gave up modelling briefly, saying: "I quit because I thought,
'I hate it'. It's mind-numbing, repeating yourself like Groundhog Day",
she was persuaded back onto the catwalks a couple of months later. As the
millennium began, she cut off her trademark long hair – something she claimed
she would never do – and emerged with a peroxide blonde wedge. Suddenly
all the top designers were clamouring to use her in their ad campaigns.
In the end, designer-of-the-moment Tom Ford landed her for the Gucci label.
Since splitting with Johnny Depp in May 1998, Kate has been in a number
of relationships, but none for a lengthy period of time. She is currently
with Jefferson Hack, the former editor of style magazine Dazed & Confused,
and in September 2002 the happy couple announced the birth of their baby
daughter, Lila Grace. With the superwaif look nudged aside in recent years
by bronzed beauties from Brazil, who in turn have given way to an army of
androgynous Flemish femmes fatales with choppy haircuts and tattoos, these
days Kate is concentrating on breaking into movies. Although Kate's career
has been multi-faceted to say the least, not all has been rosy in the story
of Kate Moss. Mostly known for her unhealthy image (her thin figure is what
started the waif look and she is known as a heavy smoker), Kate checked
into the Priory Clinic, in order to kick her heavy drug and alcohol habit.
Having been romantically linked to fellow partier Johnny Depp for four years,
Kate also dated Calvin Klein photographer Mario Sorrenti. Recipient of the
VH1 award for model of the year in 1996, Kate Moss is unquestionably one
of the most successful and controversial models of the 90's, having earned
an income of approximately $10,000 per day.
Kate Moss, too thin?
People Magazine, 09-20-1993, pp 74. BRITISH MODEL KATE MOSS seems
almost too slight to bear the burden of controversy settling uncomfortably
on her frail-looking shoulders. At 5 ft.7 in. and an estimated 100 lbs.
(''I never weigh myself,'' she says), Moss looks as if a strong blast from
a blow dryer would waft her away, let alone the winds of discord now whipping
around her. When British Vogue published an eight-page layout in June of
the lank- haired, blank-eyed Moss -- clad in scanty tank tops and tacky
bikini panties as she posed in her very own unmade bed -- the magazine drew
bags of angry mail accusing it of encouraging everything from pedophilia
to anorexia nervosa. Colin McDowell, a writer for The Independent, a British
daily paper, called the pictures of Moss, looking more vulnerable than her
19 years, ''extremely close to perversion in their appeal.'' Shocked by
Moss' emaciated frame, Marcelle d'Argy Smith, editor of British Cosmopolitan,
said, ''The pictures are hideous and tragic. If I had a daughter who looked
like that, I would take her to see a doctor.'' When that same month American
magazine readers saw Moss kneeling astride rapper Marky Mark in an ad for
Calvin Klein jeans, her tiny naked bosom pressed firmly into his equally
naked chest, a few outraged mothers actually mailed their daughters' jeans
back in protest. ''It's just because I look 12,'' said Kate. But it's also
because she looks anorexic and has become the unofficial poster girl of
the au courant ''waif'' look. This fall, Moss wannabes -- and the mothers
who love them -- will see her paper-thin figure virtually everywhere they
look. Calvin Klein's new print and television ads for his Obsession fragrance
feature a topless Moss filmed by her photographer beau, Mario Sorrenti,
21, on the Caribbean island of Jost Van Dyke. Moss also stars in a less
steamy spot for Yves Saint Laurent's Opium, airing in Europe. Moss and the
other hot ultrathin models in the waif wave -- among them Amber Valletta,
Cecilia Chancellor, Emma Balfour and Shalom Harlow -- are having an effect
on already weight-wary teens. ''My friends and I were looking at pictures
of Kate,'' says Andrea Tebay, 16, of Weston, Mass. ''Gosh, we thought we
had to look like Cindy Crawford, and now we have to look like this!'' Though
Tebay's former school, private Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, Conn., ''was
always bringing in people to lecture us about anorexia and bulimia,'' she
says, ''we knew there were girls who were going to starve themselves anyway.
Girls have pictures of these models up on their walls. They know all about
their love lives.'' Adds Suzanne Henrick, a registered dietitian and counselor
at Wilkins Center for Eating Disorders in Greenwich: ''I wouldn't say Kate
Moss causes anorexia, but I had an anorectic in here just yesterday who
said she wanted to look like Kate Moss. A lot of them bring in her picture
as an ideal. I haven' t seen that with any other particular model before.''
Even without the deadly specter of anorexia, the skin-and-bones look, critics
say, underlines the idea that thinness is a principal yardstick of a woman's
worth. Jane Pratt, editor of Sassy, a magazine for teenage girls, which
defiantly does not print diets, says she has ''definitely noticed that since
this look has become big, girls have wanted to diet more. We get letters
all the time from girls who are 5 ft.3 in. and weigh 100 lbs. who want help
getting down to 95.'' (The average 14-year-old girl of 5 ft.3 in. weighs
110. By the age of 18 she has grown to 5 ft.4 1/2 in. and weighs 125.) ''A
woman becomes anorexic because her soul has been battered by the unreasonable
expectation that you can never be too thin and that fat -- any fat -- equals
failure,'' says Dr. Michael Strober, director of the eating disorder center
at UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute. Strober estimates that only three
to seven out of 1,000 young women are anorexic. But many of the other 997
often feel fat and inadequate. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
says that 70 percent of normal-weight women want to be thinner, while 23
percent of women who are already underweight want to be thinner still. Figures
from the National Institute for Compulsive Eaters indicate that 80 percent
of 10-year-old girls claim they're on a diet. Some philosophers on the female
condition see more danger in the fragility of the image than its possible
pathology. Backlash author Susan Faludi calls the waif phenomenon ''so counter
to what is really going on in women's lives. Most women, if they're embracing
any kind of body type, it's a bigger, stronger one. The most popular thing
now is weight training.'' At waifdom's source, reckons Faludi, is ''a man's
fantasy of shrinking women down to a manageable size. The look is about
being very weak and passive. It is a very Victorian portrait of a woman
where you are so weak you can barely get off your chaise lounge and on to
the retirement home.'' In the fashion world, defenders of Moss' waif look
find it more darling than deadly. ''She has this childlike, womanlike thing.
It' s a kind of sexiness that I think is very exciting,'' says Calvin Klein.
''And it's very real and modern when a woman's hair looks a little dirty,
when it sticks together a little,'' he said. Stephanie Richardson, fashion
editor of Harper's Bazaar Italia, says the waif phenomenon is a reaction
against the superwoman of the '80s, who was ''high-heeled, with big shoulder
pads, lots of makeup, teased hair. Your Ivana Trump -- powerful, rich and
glamorous. But it got out of hand because that wasn't a real woman.'' Waifdom's
detractors, says Corinne Day, 28, the photographer who shot the controversial
underwear layout in British Vogue, are ''older middle-aged people who have
just lost touch with their youth and don't like it.'' As for the charge
that the waif look panders to pedophiles, Sheryl Garratt, editor of The
Face, a trendy British fashion magazine, says, ''I don't think you can mistake
a 19-year- old girl for a 12-year-old. ((Day's photographs of Moss)) are
not going to make people want to go out and sleep with children. They are
just quite real documentary shots of what Kate is like.'' Moss herself is
calm at the eye of the storm, happy with the more than $2 million she has
made so far. Born in the London suburb of Croydon, Moss is the daughter
of Peter, a travel consultant, and Linda, now divorced. Her brother, Nick,
16 and also a model, has tattled that ''at 14, she started hanging out with
a crowd of older kids and going to pubs. She's never been very ambitious.
She likes shopping.'' She was only 14, in fact, when she was discovered
by British model agent Sarah Doukas while stopping over at New York's John
F. Kennedy International Airport on the way home from the Bahamas with her
father. ''She had a kind of ethereal look about her, a translucency, and
such phenomenal bone structure,'' says Doukas. ''She was young and absolutely
beautiful.'' Says Moss: ''People had told me that I ought to try it, but
I would never have gone to a modeling agency and said, 'I want to model.'
Never.'' Moss modeled for The Face magazine part-time until she graduated
from high school at 16, then got her big break when Fabien Baron, creative
director for Harper's Bazaar, spotted pictures of Kate at a photographer's
showcase in Barcelona. He recommended her both for the magazine and the
Klein ads, which he was designing. They were shot by hot photographer Patrick
Demarchelier. ''I really like working with Patrick,'' says Kate in her tiny
voice. ''It's really cool with him and Fabien.'' Soon she made the covers
of Allure, Italian Vogue, Cosmopolitan and dozens more, and hit the runway
for Anna Sui, Perry Ellis and Chanel, among others, in New York, Paris and
Milan. At her busiest, she works five to seven days a week, pulling in as
much as $10,000 a day. Moss, who left home at 17, shares a London house
with boyfriend Sorrenti, a former model, and another photographer and his
wife. But she works mostly in New York City, where she often camps in the
apartment of Sorrenti's mother. ''His mother is a real mother,'' says Kate.
''I mean, she cooks dinner and everything.'' In her few off hours, says
Moss, she just vegges out or goes to clubs. ''I like old music,'' she says.
''Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, Janis Joplin and people like that. If I had a
wish, I would love to be able to sing and scream like those girls do. I
can't, though.'' On the town, sometimes with fellow supermodels, who seem
not to begrudge her her success, Kate says she finds it ''so weird that
everyone knows who you are. You don't know them, but they all know you.''
And they all know her naked too. She shrugs. ''It's just work,'' she says.
Staying thin is less work. She smokes, as many models do, and has never
worked out. She doesn't diet either. ''I try to eat so I won' t be so waif-
like,'' she says, ''but even if I do, I'm not going to become this voluptuous
thing. I do have a sweet tooth, but I don't eat loads. I'll eat anything.''
Harper's Bazaar beauty and health editor Tina Gaudoin must be glad to hear
it. She was so fed up with ''stacks and stacks of angry letters, newspaper
articles and phone calls'' from the antiwaif movement that she wrote a defensive
editorial in the July issue proclaiming that ''these girls eat like horses.
Thin is their natural body type.'' Waifish model Valletta agrees: ''A lot
of the girls who are thin can't help being thin. I mean, my best friend,
((fellow waif)) Shalom, she's thin, and she can't help it, and there are
plenty of girls like that. I wouldn't diet. I'm going to eat the chocolate
cake if I want to. '' Lesley ''Twiggy'' Lawson, now 43, who created the
waif look in the '60s, says, ''I happened to be born like that. I got blamed
for anorexia and all, but I always ate well -- anything, absolute rubbish.''
But all such disclaimers are usually relative. As a rule, models are unfamiliar
with what the word eating means to most people. At a New York City club
recently, Moss was reportedly sighted chowing down with model buddies Christy
Turlington, Cindy Crawford and Gail Elliot on a single hamburger, cut in
quarters. ''Maybe on a given day they eat anything they want, but it's not
an everyday thing,'' says veteran model Beverly Johnson, 38. Notes model
Beverly Peele, 18 and not a waif: ''You don't really have time to eat. You're
so busy working and traveling and trying to get the few hours of sleep you
can. You smoke a lot, and that keeps your weight down.'' Fortunately, most
eating-disorder experts agree that merely admiring waif models is not enough
to bring on anorexia or bulimia. ''There has to be a predisposing vulnerability,''
says Strober of UCLA. A real anorectic ''suffers from extreme self-doubt,
inadequacy concerns and self-esteem anxieties that are far more extreme
than other people's. The average person will not be induced into anorexia
because they see Kate Moss.'' Adds Dr. John Mead, director of the eating
disorders clinic at Chicago's Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center:
''Girls who have a healthy self- image and come out of a good parent-child
relationship do not fall victim to eating disorders, yet they all want to
be thin.'' But this is the world of fashion, and all in fashion passes.
Nina Blanchard, head of her own Los Angeles model agency for 32 years, calls
waifdom ''a bump in the business.'' Though she has been inundated with calls
from short skinny girls of late, she ascribes Moss' success more to her
face than her body. ''It would be better if people would stop saying this
is the downfall of Western civilization,'' says Blanchard. Instead, she
says, they should ''worry about the mental health of ((their)) children
and look into their problems in terms of self-esteem, instead of worrying
that they're not eating because they want to look like Kate Moss.
Calista Flockhart's
Story
Calista Flockhart was born on November 11th, 1964 in Freeport, Illinois.
She was named after her grandmother, Calista, whose name meant most beautiful.
After finishing high school, she studied at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
She only majored in Fine Arts because she didn't want to list her major
as undeclared. After graduating in 1987, she moved to New York to concentrate
on acting. While appearing in smaller plays, Flockhart taught aerobics classes
to pay the bills. She made her television debut in 1989 playing Elise in
an episode of The Guiding Light. Soon after, she began winning praise for
her performances in Off-Broadway productions of Sophistry and All For One.
Flockhart made her movie debut in Darrow (1991), a bio-pic that starred
Kevin Spacey as the famed Attorney Clarence Darrow. A year later, she had
her first starring role in the made-for-TV movie The Secret Life of Mary-Margaret:
Portrait of a Bulimic (1992). This was part of HBO's Family in Crisis Series.
Afterwards, she won more praise for her regional theatre production of Chekhov's
Three Sisters. However, this was the beginning of a downward trend in her
career. Calista Flockhart worked for eight weeks off-off-Broadway for $400.
During this time, she lived off of a case of Ravioli that her brother sent
her. Her career picked up again with her Broadway appearance in Tennessee
Williams' The Glass Menagerie. For her performance, she won a Theatre World
Award and a Clarence Derwent Award. That year, Flockhart began appearing
in more movies with small roles in Quiz Show, Getting In, and Naked in New
York. In 1995, she had her first major supporting role in Drunks. The movie
showed an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, with different characters telling
their stories. Richard Lewis, Spalding Grey, Parker Posey, and Faye Dunaway
also starred. Flockhart appeared in two movies in 1996. One of them, the
indie pic Pictures of Baby Jane Doe, was shelved until recently. In the
other, The Birdcage, she played Barbara Keeley, the daughter of the arch-conservative
Senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman). Things were complicated because she
wanted to marry Val Goldman (Dan Futterman), the son a gay nightclub owner
(Robin Williams). The movie was a critical and commercial success. Calista
Flockhart next appeared in Telling Lies in America, which was a quasi-autobiography
by scriptwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct, Showgirls). In it, a young
Hungarian, Karchy (Brad Renfro), moved to Cleveland in the early 60's and
had trouble adjusting until he met a payola-taking disc jockey (Kevin Bacon).
He began telling lies to make himself seem cooler but soon suffered the
consequences. Flockhart played the girl who continued to date Karchy even
after he tried to give her Spanish Fly. Despite several good reviews, the
movie bombed at the box office. Apart from her brief role on The Guiding
Light, Flockhart had refused to do television up until this point. She finally
took the plunge with Ally McBeal (1997). She starred as the title character,
a lawyer. She had become a lawyer because she wanted to be with her boyfriend,
who was going to law school. However, they broke up. In the show, things
were complicated when they Alley and her ex, who was now married, started
working at the same law firm. The show was a hit, and in 1998 Flockhart
won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Comedy/Musical.
However, her success was often in danger of being overshadowed by rumours
that she was anorexic, which she has strenuously denied. Flockhart will
next appear playing Helena in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream. Kevin
Kline will play Bottom and Michelle Pfeiffer will play Titania. The movie
will be released on May 7th, 1999. Later in the year, she will appear in
Like a Hole In the Head, which is based on a Jen Banbury novel.
Thin
Theory
Is anorexia all in its sufferers' heads? One psychologist theorizes that
it may be an ancient survival instinct gone awry in our modern culture of
plenty. By Maia Szalavitz
For years we've been fed psychological theories about anorexia: It's a hunger
strike against controlling parents; it's the ultimate capitulation to cultural
commandments to be thin; it's a disease of perfectionism abetted by unattainable
images of whippet-thin models. But a new theory about the disorder suggests
it may be biological, a remnant of evolutionary history that helped some
women flee famine.Shan Guisinger, PhD, a Montana psychologist, recently
published this hypothesis in the journal Psychological Review after noticing
that many anorexics—90 percent of whom are female—desperately
wanted to recover, despite the clinical definition of the disorder as a
“refusal” to maintain a healthy body weight. “It felt
biological to me,” she says. Guisinger, who has a master's degree
in zoology from Colorado State University, considered whether there could
be an environment in which it made sense for a starving animal not to eat.
She found that many animals stop eating to focus on a more important task—be
it incubating, migrating, or defending a harem—despite extreme weight
loss. Also, research shows that if rats are forced to lose 30 percent of
their normal weight, they will run frantically on an exercise wheel and
ignore food. Intriguingly, this phenomenon develops faster in female animals.Unlike
involuntary starvation, anorexia leads to periods of hyperactivity, Guisinger
says, accompanied by a feeling of being on a mission: “There is this
sense of superiority, of virtue—a humorless quality.” In her
paper, she describes how such a mechanism could enable women to escape death,
giving them the energy and tenacity to travel beyond the famine-stricken
region. When a woman reached a food-rich region, she would become hungry,
settle, and eat.As for why today's anorexics don't recommence eating, Guisinger
says that while they do tend to lose their appetite for much of their illness,
they often experience a period of great hunger, typically late in recovery.
But because our culture has made them so frightened of becoming fat, rather
than yield they often redouble their dieting and exercise. She also accounts
for why women would suffer from the disorder disproportionately: Men wouldn't
benefit as much from a famine-flight strategy. In nature, males who try
to enter the territories of others are attacked, while females are usually
welcomed.Guisinger's theory is bolstered by other research. Studies now
find that anorexia is, at least in part, genetic, with identical twins much
more likely to share the condition than fraternals. There is also evidence
that anorexics have conflicting levels of appetite-regulating substances
in their brains and stomachs. Their brains' levels of the neurotransmitters
serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine are the opposite of what they should
be to signal a craving for food. At the same time, their stomachs send out
mixed messages, telling the brain they are full and hungry simultaneously.
Essentially, “this means that the person with anorexia is tormented
by desire for food she cannot bring herself to eat,” Guisinger says.
This odd chemical imbalance could be the biological signature of a need
to seek food but not eat it.In industrialized nations, only compulsively
driven perfectionists and those with wasting illnesses would be able to
starve enough to activate this mechanism in the first place. And indeed,
anorexia sometimes starts when another disease causes dramatic weight loss,
Guisinger says.Her theory suggests that current treatments focused on perfectionism
or family dysfunction are misguided. Perfectionism may start the disease
process, but then biology takes over. Research shows that one new therapy
that's been proven effective teaches those closest to the anorexic to help
her to eat—even in adult anorexics, this is usually the mother—and
it's easier to engage mothers in therapy that doesn't blame them. “Theories
on schizophrenia once blamed the 'schizophrenogenic' mother.… With
anorexia, controlling mothers are still the culprit,” says Guisinger,
who hopes her ideas will end this view.But the eating disorder-treatment
community—many of whom have spent years working on the assumptions
of the perfectionism theory—has responded coolly. William Davis, PhD,
the vice president of research and program development of the respected
Renfrew Center for eating-disorder treatment, agrees that anorexia is not
caused by intrusive parents but thinks that Guisinger's theory is “irrelevant
to clinical practice—it has nothing to do with an anorexic's experience
of herself.”Research academics in the field, however, are more supportive.
“It's a plausible hypothesis,” says Janet Treasure, PhD, the
director of the Eating Disorders Unit at London's Maudsley Hospital. Evolutionary
psychologist Debra Lieberman, PhD, of the University of Hawaii is skeptical
but says, “It's wonderful we're starting to think about these disorders
in an evolutionary light.”
Diary of an Anorexic
At the end of the year, it is only natural to reminisce. New millenium hype
notwithstanding, most people think of where they have been and where they
are going, of friends and family, present and past. Perhaps that is why
I recently reviewed old passages of my mother's diary. A long-term anorexic,
she kept a meticulous account of her daily life throughout the 1970's. It
was written in shorthand, and I did not have it decoded until 1990, when
I began researching the disorder. My experiences with this document began
inauspiciously. A needless and bitter argument with the translator ended
in my paying her three times what I had initially offered. To my surprise,
much of the record was boring: endless details about chores, groceries and
household items. At the time, I did not know that anorexics are notorious
list-makers and that such entries were symptomatic of the illness. On the
other hand, the insightful portions were exquisitely painful.Some may believe
my decision to unearth the diary amounts to an invasion of privacy. In my
opinion, any such violation is outweighed by the passage of time and the
potential benefit to readers offered by this rare glimpse into the deepest
recesses of a self-starver's mind. At the request of her attending physician,
my mother used her diary to keep detailed records of her medical condition
(such as weight, blood pressure, and body temperature) during her last illness.
Shortly after the original transcription was completed, I delivered the
entire manuscript to the doctor's office. However, before doing so, I had
copied the older and more interesting entries reproduced below. Because
this material can be depressing, I strongly suggest you read it when you
are in a relatively good mood. At first glance, it may seem uniformly negative.
However, closer inspection reveals the humanity of a spirited woman struggling
against overwhelming forces. I shall have to seek further support in diaries
as I am very weak. I allow the bad part of me to take over. Do you think
there is a chance for me which I feel, as I have failed most? Please stay
with me. Perhaps with your kindness I can...I hope my new psychologist can
be of some help. I need all the support I can get. Today is one of my hungry
days. Once I stay in one place or sit down, I am completely exhausted. I
must take my life day by day. I hope I can control myself. Please, please
God help me. Did you have everything you have so far? Can this go on much
longer? I must have a stronger will and overcome. 62 ½ pounds. I told dad
that I was not going to live very much more, and then I began to cry. Sorry
I spoke to him like that, and I told him that I would try and get better...must
find this evil in me more strongly. Forgive me God, nothing or anyone can
help me now. It is strongly up to me. Amen. 11/18/72- I can't sleep. I won't
sleep. [Later entries report chronic sleep disturbances and the ineffectiveness
of sleeping pills.] 11/19/72- I'm completely out of hand now. 11/22/72-
[There are recurring references to physical weakness and being on the verge
of collapse. My mother notes that she was hospitalized on this date. 60
pounds. I must get me a tie for my son. Tomorrow I will do a wish. I wish
my legs didn't ache, but I can talk it away. I think I will exist now by
habit for my son only.[My mother had not lived with my father and I since
1969.] I was irritable with my son today. I must try to be more tolerant
of him. I felt more beaten than I have in a long time. Have grapefruit juice
during night, and dolite, and tranquilizer. - 70 pounds. Thank God for getting
me through this day. 12/9/72- I am fighting a lost cause. Don't help me.
I am getting weaker every day. Trying to fight. 12/12/72- Tried to know
my child but no, no. Thank you, God, for keeping me alive even though I
am worthless. 12/15/72- God, I am not worth your forgiveness. I have two
hostile roommates. [She notes that her belly and ankles are very swollen.]
12/16/72- I want to live. Today I blew up at my son and my husband. [My
parents were not officially divorced until 1974]. My rudeness, my behavior
was unbearable, but I could forgive me.- The doctors made an appointment
for me to go into the hospital, but I put it off until next week. I have
a lot to do before I go in. My mother died on February 2, 1978. She had
been suffering from anorexia nervosa for over 10 years.
Anorexia Nervosa: 11 Areas
of Advancement
Although the origin, treatment, course, and outlook of anorexia nervosa
(AN) have remained a puzzle, advances in at least 11 areas have helped us
better understand this disease.
Genetic Links
Important multicenter studies on the genetics of anorexia nervosa are underway
to compare vulnerable patients with their siblings and parents, and to sort
out clusters of genes that increase vulnerability to anorexia nervosa. Unlike
Huntington's disease, for example, the genetics of AN do not determine whether
one gets the disease. However, genetics probably do provide a crucial predisposition
to AN through abnormalities of serotonin and metabolism and their effects
on personality, reactivity, perseverance, and perhaps weight control, hunger,
and satiety.
The Brain as a Mirror
The brain is clearly affected structurally and functionally as a consequence
of AN. Several studies have confirmed the significant effects of self-starvation
on the brain. With starvation, the ventricles of the brain increase in size
and the cortical mass decreases. One matter of concern is the fact that
there is improvement, but not complete normalization, of gray and white
matter as long as 6 to 12 months after weight restoration. The very powerful
imaging tools of functional MRI and PET scans are demonstrating a change
in the interaction between the prefrontal cortex and components of the limbic
system in regard to the sensing and perpetuation of emotional distress in
active AN. These tools will not only demonstrate the effects of eating disorders
but will also document the relative benefits of a variety of treatments.
Critical Diagnostic Criteria
In another development, diagnostic criteria for anorexia are being reviewed
with a goal of sorting out the critical features and introducing more flexibility
for traditional but perhaps out-of-date criteria. Including amenorrhea as
a criterion for AN is less useful than noting abnormalities of reproductive
hormone function in general. Broader recognition of medical consequences
of starvation not limited to levels of reproductive hormones is even more
useful. The key concept here is that AN involves self-starvation to a substantial
degree below the individual's usual or healthy weight. Some people may be
semi-starved even if their hormone levels are normal and they are at their
normal weight. This means that amenorrhea is not as important as are general
measures of self-starvation, and that a final lowest weight of 85% of normal
healthy weight is not as crucial as is a significant decline in weight from
an initial healthy weight.
Men Develop EDs, Too
A recent large epidemiologic study has substantiated that males are probably
underrepresented in both epidemiologic and clinical studies. While earlier
studies reported ratios of as many as 10 females to 1 male, a ratio of one
male to three or four females may be more accurate. This raises concerns
that males are underrepresented in clinical programs, and calls for better
understanding of the factors that may be keeping them from seeking treatment.
Axis I Comorbidities
The recognition that AN usually has associated comorbidities on Axis I or
II has been confirmed with awareness that AN seldom presents by itself but
there is a high probability of Axis I diagnoses, including comorbid depression,
anxiety, and substance use disorders. On Axis II, there is an overrepresentation
of cluster C for restricting AN and a mixture of clusters B and C for AN
binge-purge subtype. Recent studies from Denmark have highlighted the especially
deadly combination of AN with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in young
individuals. These studies spell out an approximately tenfold increase in
mortality with this combination, compared to having either of these disorders
alone.
The Rise of Neuroleptics
A number of trials are underway using atypical neuroleptics such as risperidone
and olanzapine. The hope is that they will have an effect on the core psychopathology
of AN rather than merely stimulating weight gain, as was the case with chlorpromazine
in the 1960s.
An Excellent Outcome May Be Possible
for Many
Although AN is often considered a chronic disorder with a poor prognosis,
in fact the duration of AN is quite variable, and more than 75% of patients
will have an excellent outcome. This is especially true for adolescent anorexics
who are treated comprehensively to full weight restoration with associated
cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, and then followed up carefully. A 10-year
follow-up study at UCLA documented complete improvement with absence of
any diagnostic features for any eating disorder in 76% of patients.
Insurance Limitations
Despite improvements in outcome with modern treatment modalities, many patients
cannot get access to treatment because of irrational insurance limitations.
Decreasing length of hospital stays, an increasingly common occurrence with
restrictive and irrational insurance limitations, is leading to more frequent
relapse and less sustained improvement. Groups such as the Eating Disorders
Coalition have been working to change this.
Arguments Over Effectiveness of Prevention
Efforts
Controversy exists between clinicians, between treatment centers, and between
countries on the possible effectiveness of preventive efforts in AN. Several
studies are now suggesting there is a decrease in the prevalence or severity
of AN in vulnerable individuals when pressure to lose and maintain an abnormal
body weight is removed. For example, there is evidence that the number of
cases of eating disorders declines when a strict ballet school refuses to
let a dancer participate below a certain weight or when a collegiate wrestler
is barred from participating below a certain percent body fat or absolute
weight. The more adventurous approach toward empowering young people with
media skepticism, with assertiveness, and with improved body image has not
yet been tried on a broad-enough population to comment on its effectiveness.
But the approach to "inoculating" the vulnerable subgroup of young people
with techniques to make their way through a society obsessed with thinness
merits continued work.
A Disease That Stands on its Own
There has been some attempt to subsume AN into other diagnostic categories,
such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), major depression, or psychosis.
In fact, AN "breeds true," with evidence that the core syndrome has not
changed in hundreds of years. There is ongoing discussion about the presentation
in different cultures in regard to the content of the core psychopathology.
There is support for the concept that overvalued beliefs are part of the
core psychopathology of AN, and that the overvalued beliefs vary from culture
to culture. For example, in the West, we overvalue thinness. To further
clarify this, overvalued beliefs are defined as culturally normative beliefs
that have been assigned disproproportionate values in a particular individual
and that demonstrate that individual's thinking, emotional life, and behavior.
Nor are they the type of ego dystonic thoughts or behaviors required for
obsessive-compulsive disorders. Although overvalued beliefs are not abnormal
themselves, what is abnormal is the excessive value assigned to them. This
diagnostic criterion is less frequently used than it should be and helps
to differentiate the AN psychopathology from OCD or psychosis and also explains
some of the chronicity of the disease. It also offers hope for change through
stopping the abnormal behavior and challenging the core overvalued belief
with cognitive behavioral techniques.
Family Therapy
There's exciting evidence that the families of young anorexics may be able
to be empowered through teaching techniques to keep the patient from ever
being hospitalized, even when very starved, when parents practice a stepwise
approach toward changing the self-starvation with caring but firm techniques.
Facing the plate
My heart began to pound, shaking my protruding collarbone and rattling my
jutting wrists. Blood turned to lead in my trembling arms, anchoring them
to my lap. Voluntary movement was not possible. I'm not ready for this,
I thought. I faced the pile of spaghetti, alone. A hill of stretched, pale
worms wound around each other. Dark scabs of meat infested the blob of red
goo that sank the mound's middle. It looked like it could writhe at any
moment. The smell conjured up a meal at "Mom's Italian Restaurant" on Route
27 rather than the institutional cuisine I'd expected. That didn't matter.
To me, sustenance meant guilt and revulsion. I could sooner have swallowed
a piece of homemade ravioli as chewed a giant beetle that crunched and then
squirted. Anorexia nervosa literally means nervous loss of appetite, but
that's not accurate. Like the bodies of other anorexics, mine yearned for
food. Conventional wisdom holds that taming hunger instills a sense of control
and mastery that a person lacks elsewhere in her life. The late 1970s, when
I was sick, marked the beginning of what turned out to be a boom in eating
disorder awareness in the general population. Girls of my generation, however,
didn't invent these illnesses. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics depict conditions
that resemble what we now call anorexia nervosa so it's probably been around
for at least several thousand years. The first formal account lies in a
medical paper from 1689, in which a patient was described as "a skeleton
clad only with skin." For a long time, anorexia nervosa was thought to be
a form of tuberculosis or a manifestation of some other physical disease.
It wasn't until the 1930s that researchers began to think that this type
of self-starvation might stem from psychological roots. Today, symptoms
of eating disorders -- inappropriate dieting, maladaptive preoccupation
with shape and weight, and overvaluing the role these characteristics play
in a person's life -- are extremely common, although the full syndrome of
anorexia nervosa strikes rarely. Experts estimate that about one-half to
1 percent of young women suffer from the disease. Many factors probably
contribute, and researchers are investigating the roles of personality traits,
family structure, social patterns, biology and cultural influences. Several
recent studies, including one that involved 2,000 twins published earlier
this year, have suggested that predisposition to anorexia is inherited.
This result implies that certain forms of genes put people at risk for the
disorder, thereby focusing attention on genetic as well as environmental
factors. In many ways, I was a typical anorexic -- female, adolescent, conscientious
with a perfectionistic streak, and seemingly happy and successful, yet haunted
by feelings of defectiveness and loneliness. In contrast to the textbook
cases, however, I was acutely aware of what I was doing, and why. I had
gone to a lot of trouble to land myself in the hospital. At 15, I had embarked
on a diet and had shed 50 pounds in six months. My body had started out
slightly padded, clad in baggy painter's pants to conceal my thighs. As
I shrank, I wore tighter pants to flaunt my success, until those too began
to hang on my diminishing frame. By summer, my pelvic bones looked as if
they could cut my bathing suit. I snuck downward glances as I walked briskly
to the edge of the pool, admiring how they rose sharply to define the valley
that used to be my belly. Now a vast chasm of air separated my thighs when
I stood with my feet together. The contours of my ribs resembled a row of
black piano keys, and bald cords of sinew had replaced my neck. When I unzipped
my jeans, they dropped to the floor. To accomplish this dwindling feat,
I memorized the USDA's book of nutrition and dug out my mother's scale for
weighing food. I slid the shiny knobs back and forth to measure exactly
100 grams of cherries. After I'd lost 20 pounds, my mother wanted me to
put it away and stop tallying calories. "You've reached your goal," she
said, "You're thin enough." The times I failed to shove it all the way into
the corner on the top shelf, she knew I'd been sneaking it out. "You're
trying to cause trouble," she'd accuse, yanking open the cutlery drawer.
So I left the scale in the cabinet and honed my ability to weigh with my
eyes. I dished noodles into a measuring cup in my mind and multiplied the
calories in one grape by the number in the cluster on my plate. My chest
clenched when I had to estimate the calories in a bowl of soup or a heap
of casserole. It relaxed when I encountered a single-serving Rice Krispies
box or a pre-packaged frozen bag of broccoli in cheese sauce. I could just
read the nutritional information label. If I added about one and a half
times as much water as the package of instant oatmeal called for, I didn't
dilute the flavor too much, but felt as if I was eating a heartier breakfast.
For variety, I might try half an English muffin (dry) with a slice of cantaloupe.
That gave me a good 100-calorie start on the day. Lunch was more of the
same, though sometimes I'd substitute the fruit. No blueberries, though
-- too many calories per feeling of fullness. For dinner I might eat a bowl
of iceberg lettuce (dressed in a few drops of water), a drumstick of skinned
chicken and maybe a small baked potato. Under this regimen, I biked, swam,
ran and played tennis every day that summer, except when I was vacationing
with my parents in Switzerland. There I woke early to stuff the croissants
meant for breakfast into my knapsack before my mother and father appeared
in the dining room. I ate my lunch high in the Alps, amid snow-capped mountains
and green lawns dotted with wildflowers, perched on the other side of the
rock so Mom and Dad wouldn't see how small I pared the cheese, and so they
wouldn't witness the surgical procedure with which I removed the soft part
of my rolls. I screened my activities with hunched shoulders, my body taut
with deception. I had never liked egg yolks so at least I could eat only
the whites (which carry most of the protein, but few of the calories) in
the open. I scrutinized every decision about what I would eat and do. Did
it contribute to my program of maximizing the ratio of expended to consumed
calories? I refused to go on trips that would confine me to a vehicle for
hours at a time. I could burn only so many calories jiggling my legs. I
avoided situations where dinner was served after 7 p.m. Too close to bedtime
-- not enough hours to walk off my so-called meal. For a treat, I might
go to a movie. But once inside the theater, I couldn't concentrate on the
screen. I was too busy thinking about what not to eat the next day. Nothing
was really funny, anyway. Even as I starved myself, I took pains to avoid
permanent damage. I always drank enough so my electrolytes wouldn't get
out of whack and provoke a heart attack. And although I knew I could stick
my finger down my throat, I succumbed to the urge only once. I could imagine
bingeing and throwing up forever, without being noticed, and that was not
what I was after.
Anorexic sues college
By: Martin Finucane
An anorexic student sued her college Wednesday, seeking readmission after
school officials turned her away because of her condition. Keri Krissik,
20, suffered cardiac arrest while at home in Milford, Conn., in April. She
completed her spring semester coursework, but administrators at Stonehill
College, a Catholic institution, refused to let her register last fall.
The Rev. Mark Cregan, the university president, said "we don't have the
ability to support her in the way she needs to be supported." "The last
time Ms. Krissik was on campus she almost died," said Elise Busny, a lawyer
representing the college located in Easton. "There's the risk that she would
drop dead on campus." Krissik, 5-foot-6 and between 97 and 100 pounds, has
been anorexic since she was 8. She now has a defibrillator implanted in
her heart. She said she is protected by the federal Americans with Disabilities
Act. "I'm feeling good and I feel like I can handle the challenges," she
said outside federal court. Krissik's lawyer, Abbe Ross, said her condition
had improved and that the school was "only keeping her out because of her
disability." Anorexia nervosa is marked by obsessive fasting. Its effects
can range from weight loss to delayed sexual development, heart problems,
depression and death. U.S. District Judge Rya Zobel said she would rule
quickly. update! Krissik decided to go to another college and the court
ruled that Stonehill was ADA compliant. The case was settled in undisclosed
terms.
Fat like mommy
I wanted it to be my mother's problem. She was the one obsessed with weight.
She was the one who hated her thighs. She cooked our meals, making nothing
but salad for herself, then hovered over the kitchen sink sucking shreds
of chicken meat off the bones we left behind because she was so hungry.
Not me, I always declared. I have a positive sense of self. My body is my
home. Then my body became somebody else's home. Within 10 weeks after my
pea-size fetus moved in, that home gained 15 pounds. "Your mother only gained
15 pounds throughout her entire pregnancy with you," said my dad. "Well,
she also smoked throughout her entire pregnancy with me," I answered, in
a weak attempt to hide how fat and inadequate I felt. After I hung up the
phone, I went to my kitchen and made a pot of macaroni and cheese. It was
July. I was so hot and so nauseated that all I could do was lie on the sofa
in front of the air conditioner or eat pasta. Sometimes, when I did both
at the same time, I counted it as exercise. "You're gaining too much weight,"
my first obstetrician declared from behind his enormous desk. He was looking
at my chart, not at me. He held the manila file with the records of my pregnancy
thus far. His fingers were thick and stained with the unnatural caramel
color that comes from regular sessions at a tanning salon. "What do you
think I should do about it?" I asked him, prepared to hear about nutritionists,
prenatal exercise programs and salad. He tapped his fingers on the desk.
I couldn't imagine this man reaching inside me to help pull out my child.
"Eat less," he said, still looking at my chart. At that moment, I knew I
was leaving his practice. What if I hadn't read all those books about pregnancy
and I had interpreted "eat less" to mean "diet"? I could seriously harm
my baby by following his idiotic advice. He droned on, spewing some incomprehensible
crap about pregnant pioneers in covered wagons bouncing merrily over the
prairies and how modern women worry too much. ("Although you're a Jew, right?"
he asked. When I answered yes, he said, "Me too. Our ancestors didn't know
from covered wagons.") To my recollection, lots of those carefree pioneers
died en route to the West. I asked the receptionist to make copies of that
chart of mine before I left. But the doctor's words had left an indelible
impression. I was gaining too much weight. Suddenly, all my self-assurance
went right out the window. Every pregnancy-related pound I added made me
sweat in fear of a lifetime of fat.
Don't hate me because I
am beautiful
by Ann Abel
My first week this year at Rice, a new acquaintance told me she'd like to
have just a little bit of what I have. That scared me. What I have is anorexia.
I came to Rice as a freshman last fall and decided to take the spring semester
off to concentrate on my recovery. With much hard work, I managed to regain
my health and return to Rice this semester. My recovery is going well, but
when I heard a girl lightly tell me she was jealous of my disease, I remembered
an essay I wrote six months ago. Writing this piece was cathartic, and I
hope my words help others who battle or know someone who battles with an
eating disorder. As I walked past an overweight co-worker yesterday, she
grabbed my thin arm. "...And then there are lucky little things like her..."
she said to her also-dieting friend. I have no idea as to the rest of that
conversation, but I'd guess they were discussing, like many women, their
desire to lose weight. I laughed along with them, but desperately wanted
to shake this woman and scream about how wrong she was. I am not lucky.
I am anorexic. Unfortunately, she is not alone. Despite its progress, our
society still equates "thin" with "beautiful" and is often blind to the
problems my excessive thinness cause me. Few seem to realize that being
30 pounds underweight is more dangerous than 30 pounds overweight. Certainly
as unattractive. But after all the articles I've seen comparing the risks
of "apples" and "pears," I have yet to read about the hazards of "string
beans." When meeting someone a little larger than average, or even -- dare
I say -- fat, who would dream of rudely asking, "How did you get so heavy?"
"When are you going to take some meat off your bones?" "You could stand
to lose a few pounds, couldn't you?" Ridiculous ... right? Yet people seem
to ask me similar questions, or even tease me, without giving it a second
thought. An actual conversation with a friend's brother went something like
this: "Hi. I'm Ann. Nice to meet you." "I'm Eric. Do you ever eat?" I could
have replied that he wasn't exactly built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but
I'm more polite than that. So I don't want to hear how "lucky" I am or how
"jealous" anyone thinks she is. Dropping a few pounds can improve self-esteem
as well as health, but if a little is good, a lot is not always better.
I should know. For me, it began three years ago when I was 16; a little
"successful" diet that ballooned into a devastating anorexic illness. While
the symptoms and effects of anorexia are well known among the medical community,
the causes of the disease are much harder to understand. What is known is
that most victims are attractive, high-achieving members of upper-middle
class families. I certainly fit this "anorexic" mold. High achiever in high
school. Pretty. Graduated seventh in my class of 400. National Merit Scholar.
Well-liked. Involved. But while I came off as "completely together," I was
falling apart inside. During my high school sophomore My year, the scale
hit 135, and I took some teasing about being "voluptuous" and winning wet
T-shirt contests. best friend tried to console me. "Yeah, but you carry
it well." I thought I'd be happier if I just lost five pounds. Soon I had
my chance. The summer before my junior year, I had my wisdom teeth out.
I lost that weight during the week when I couldn't eat anything solid. I
felt better about myself. People complimented me. I decided I'd lose a few
more for "insurance." I lost it all the "right way" -- a little less fat,
a little more exercise -- like all the experts said. I dropped a reasonable
pound a week -- for about a year. I wish I knew when my diet became an obsession,
but I have no idea. Four months after my wisdom teeth came out, my family
and friends began to worry. I denied my problems and continued to cut out
more fat. Although I never stopped eating, at one point, my 5-5 frame held
little more than 70 pounds. And even then some people still complimented
me! Last fall, I realized my dream of going to Rice, only to discover how
serious my anorexia is. I loved that semester, but knew I couldn't survive
another until I got my health back together. After the worst week of my
life, I made the hard but necessary decision to take the spring semester
off, come home and concentrate on my recovery. There were many "extras"
that accompanied my recovery. The joy of spending hundreds of hours and
thousands of dollars on doctors, therapists, dieticians, tests and Prozac.
The pleasure of wading through the bureaucracy of my insurance company (although
I shouldn't complain. At least my insurance covers mental health). The privilege
of putting my education on hold for a semester. The good fortune of destroying
my self-esteem. The fun of my skinny life in general -- I can't wear sleek
sexy stylish clothes. I can't go ice skating because I get too cold. I can't
go swimming because I'd really rather not wear a bathing suit in public.
I can't sit on bleachers because I don't have enough padding. I can't concentrate
because I'm usually obsessing about food. Does this sound "lucky?" I would
gladly trade cellulite for all the "luck" I've had. All sarcasm aside, I
have been lucky in two important respects. My health is extraordinarily
good, much to the amazement of my doctor. I don't suffer from low electrolytes
or anemia. The damage I've done to my reproductive system may still be reversible.
Less tangible, but equally important, is the vast amount of encouragement
my friends and family give me. Along with their support, I'm lucky to have
access to such good doctors and therapists. I've been in therapy for over
a year now, and my progress is good, but slow. My greatest blessing is in
living in a city large enough to have a group therapy outpatient program
at one of the hospitals. Six women meet with a therapist one evening a week,
and I find myself looking forward to Wednesdays. At group sessions, I can
complain about "having to eat Hagen-Dazs ice cream," and find sympathy instead
of sarcasm. My recovery is going well. I'm gaining my prescribed pound a
week, I've returned to Rice and I'm optimistic about my future, yet I'm
constantly faced with the unpleasant reality of having gone far beyond that
American ideal of "thinness." I don't understand how classmates, acquaintances,
even virtual strangers tell me how wonderful it would be to have my thin
frame. I think I look like I've just emigrated from Somalia. Some tell me
I don't need to try to gain weight. That perplexes me even more than the
idea that gaining would be fun and easy. "You can eat whatever you want!"
they claim. I beg to differ. I really want to eat fruit for dessert, but
it doesn't have enough fat. I wish I had the luxury of occasionally skipping
lunch during hectic or stressful days. Store clerks compliment me on my
"slight delicate physique" and tell me I can wear anything. True, I've had
no problems getting things to zip, but I'm tired of hiding out in baggy
styles -- almost anything else reveals too many bones. I hardly consider
"thin" a compliment anymore, but anorexia has made it so hard for me to
eat anything fattening. I wish I had a pound for every time a woman has
told me she wished she had my problem. Or that she'd have no trouble gaining
weight. As anyone who has ever dieted knows, changing one's weight is difficult.
It involves willpower and not eating what one desires. The same holds true
for gaining. My eating premium ice cream when I'd prefer sorbet is no different
than the woman who craves the cream and settles for the sorbet. It isn't
easy. It's hard to unlearn the behaviors I developed while losing weight.
My intuition tells me not to eat those greasy fries -- and social expectations
make it even harder. Our culture accepts, even expects, women to be trying
to cut back and lose weight. In high school and college, my friends often
dieted together -- a female-bonding rite-of-passage which excluded me. Hallmark
prints weight-loss motivation cards. Oprah's viewers cheered when she "victoriously"
slid into those size-10 Calvins. I constantly hear about a co-worker's progress
with Weight Watchers. Why is it that when she announces she's lost three
pounds and is closer to her goal of attractiveness, people congratulate
her? If I mention the three pounds I've put toward my goal of health, I
find as much sarcasm, eye-rolling and misunderstanding from them as admiration
and support from my true friends. I have few chances to forget how unusual
what I am doing is. Women's magazines and television commercials overflow
with articles on celebrity weight-loss tips, diet plans and features on
dressing thinner. Even the comics are a painful reminder of my anorexia.
The creator of Luann seems to find the disease suitable material for laughing
at over Corn Flakes. I saw a postcard today that joked, "Finish your vegetables,
kids. There are people in Beverly Hills with eating disorders." Ouch! Twice
a week, after I've been coping with my emotional problems with my psychologist,
her receptionist's mug reminds me of the emphasis on thinness and dieting.
"If God had wanted me to be thin," it reads, "He would have given me willpower."
I like to believe God has more important things on His mind. I guess I do
sound rather cynical. My emotional problems are frustrating and I'm sick
of being the butt of jokes as well. Jokes about AIDS, cancer, even fat people
are considered to be in bad taste, but it's still open season on skinny
people. As if a subsequent "you know I'm just jealous" justifies hurtful
words. My slenderness can also be inconvenient. Just once I'd like the window
seat in a car trip. But no one else fits quite as well in the middle. I'd
like to be greeted at work with something other than "Oh, you've got skinny
hands. Can you reach in this box for me?" I'd like to be thought of as more
than skinny. I see people I meet as much more than their measurements, whether
they're above, below or exactly average. If people had more of an idea about
the impact my physique has had on my life, I doubt they'd be so cavalier
about my "luck." I wonder how anyone can be jealous of all the insensitivity
and misunderstanding I live with. I'd gladly take those 20 pounds people
tell me they'd like to give me, but I don't know if they really want to
part with them. They're some physical and emotional padding in a rather
sharp world ... They're just a little more to love ... Sounds pretty lucky
to me.
Anorexia does not increase
death rate
Anorexia does not decrease survival rate Susan Aldridge, PhD A long-running
survey suggests that people with anorexia do not have a higher death rate
than expected for their age or sex. Many people with the eating disorder
anorexia nervosa end up in intensive care, which has created the impression
that the disease is often fatal. In fact, this is not so - according to
a new study. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic now report upon a long running study
- the Rochester Epidemiology Project. They looked at those participants
who met the diagnostic criteria for anorexia between 1935 and 1989, who
were monitored for up to 63 years (the exact time depending on when they
joined in the study). During this time, 208 patients died - 193 women and
15 men. One woman died of complications of anorexia, two women committed
suicide and six patients - five women, one man - died of complications of
alcoholism. On the whole, the death rate is not different from that expected
for a similar group without anorexia. But the potential links between anorexia,
suicide and alcoholism should be further investigated, the researchers say.
Source Mayo Clinic Proceedings March 2003
AnorexTM pill causes fury
New diet pill's tacky name tough to swallow April 3, 2003 BY RICHARD ROEPER
SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST The breathtakingly tasteless name, the box, the advertising
pitch, the product itself--all of it sounds like something straight out
of a "Saturday Night Live" commercial parody. But it's for real. There really
is a diet pill called AnorexTM. "When is a Diet Pill worth $153 a bottle?"
is the question posed on the Web site for the product. The answer: "When
you're more than 20 lbs. overweight and tired of wasting money on one ordinary
diet pill . . . after another." The Web site shows a woman standing on a
scale and holding up a pair of baggy jeans that are now far too big for
her. She beams and tells us, "It's working! Finally a diet pill strong enough
for me!" According to the ad copy, the casual or slightly overweight dieter
should not try AnorexTM. "To begin, if you are one of those people who constantly
worry about 5 or 6 simple 'vanity' pounds, Anorex is not for you. But if
you're one of the millions of Americans who are significantly overweight
(more than 20 lbs. of excess body weight and/or have a BMI [body mass index]
greater than 30), there is no longer any way to deny that ordinary diet
pills and so-called 'fat-burners' (if they work at all) so often fail to
help the significantly overweight.... "But now there's Anorex--the first
weight-control compound designed to mitigate the profound effect that variations
in the human genetic code have on the storage, use and disposition of body
fat. Anorex is an extremely powerful anorectic agent and is not intended
for use by the casual dieter. . . . However, if substantial, excess body
fat is adversely affecting your health and self-esteem, then it's time for
you to discover Anorex--the first comprehensive weight-loss compound designed
specifically to overcome your genetic predisposition." Great! And if that
doesn't work, maybe somebody can manufacture a product called Bulimi-Ahhhhh,
the first pill specifically designed to help you feel better after a binge-and-purge!
Of course, there isn't really a product called Bulimi-Ahhhhh, because that
would be tacky and grotesque. You know, sort of like calling a diet pill
AnorexTM. According to Webster's, to be "anorectic" literally means "having
no appetite." It can also mean one is "affected with anorexia nervosa,"
which as we all know is "an eating disorder characterized by a fear of becoming
fat, a distorted body image and excessive dieting leading to emaciation."
There is no such word as "Anorex"--but is there anyone who wouldn't hear
that name and immediately think of the widespread eating disorder that plagues
thousands? Why in the world would Klein-Becker usa, the manufacturers of
the diet pill, take out a trademark on "Anorex" if they didn't want to draw
that connection? Even with the disclaimers about the pill being only for
the "significantly overweight," isn't it likely that some anorexics will
seek out the product for all the wrong reasons? My calls to Klein-Becker
usa over the last couple of weeks were not returned. Funny, you'd think
they'd be proud of the product and would want to talk about it. In any case,
the ingredients in AnorexTM include calcium; Vitamin B6; Anorex itself,
aka Leptoprin, which consists of Acetylsalicylic acid, caffeine, L-Tyrosine,
Green Tea (leaf) Extract, Kelp, Cayenne and Ephedrine alkaloids (extract
from Whole Plant Ma Huang). You're supposed to take two capsules three times
a day, with or without food. "Jitters, anxiety, dry mouth or insomnia may
occur during the first week of use," warns the box label. Here's another
possible side effect. I didn't take even one Anorex TM, but the name itself
made me feel nauseated.
Reckless perfection
Reckless Perfectionism Issue of 2003-03-17 // Posted
2003-03-10
This week in the magazine, Judith Thurman profiles Vanessa Beecroft, the
Italian artist whose tableaux vivants have made her a controversial star
of the performance-art world. Beecroft's provocative work, which combines
elements of fashion and performance art, is tied to her obsession with her
eating disorder, exercise bulimia. Here Thurman discusses the complex relationships
between food, illness, and art, as well as fashion and design, with The
New Yorker's Matt Dellinger. MATT DELLINGER: Your Profile of Vanessa Beecroft
deals as much with her eating disorder, exercise bulimia, as with her art.
How are they related? JUDITH THURMAN: I wanted to write something on art
and bulimia, and I had heard about Beecroft's book. I wanted to write about
the motives behind it, and about eating disorders—a neglected and fascinating
subject that ought to be addressed by more artists but, for mysterious reasons
(having to do with courage, I suspect), isn't. So that is the reason bulimia
has such a prominent place in the piece. My initial interviews with Beecroft
were all about food and eating. And she very much wanted to talk about this
subject, which obsesses her almost exclusively. Beecroft seems completely
unashamed of her eating disorder—she talks very frankly about it. Is her
bulimia somehow a source of pride? I don't think Beecroft is unashamed of
her obsession. On the contrary: I think her art is about shame, about facing
the shame, about enlisting others to feel it, about imposing it on others—she
is a "shame" artist as much as a "hunger" artist. And I don't think she
is in any way proud of herself. There is a pride, yes—a perverse pride,
a sense of amazement that she has made her shame so glamorous and interesting—and,
at the same time, a desire to have her power curbed. What about having herself
treated? Isn't bulimia a medical problem, not a cultural one? Her bulimia—exercise
bulimia—isn't life-threatening. It isn't like anorexia, which can lead to
death. It isn't even like the more conventional kind of bulimia, which involves
vomiting, and which can lead to unpleasant physical conditions, such as
gum disease, tooth decay, ulcers, etc. Her obsession does, of course, "eat
up" a tremendous portion of her life, daily and psychic. But it also apparently
feeds her art. And she does see a therapist. As she says herself, she didn't
(and I think doesn't) want to "waste herself" completely. But she's an unusual,
and unusually strong, person. Does her work glamorize eating disorders—or,
at least, an obsession with weight—for an audience that might be more vulnerable,
like teen-age girls? It is always hard to know how teen-age girls will react
to anything. By their standards, Beecroft is old—almost thirty-four! She
also has a quite wonderfully healthy-looking figure—she's not skinny. Her
"girls"—the women who appear in her performance pieces—are another story.
I don't find them glamorous, and I tend, personally, to overvalue thinness.
They are rather frightening. There is something robotic, gruelling, and,
of course, punitive about bulimia that Beecroft captures in the performances.
Beecroft has said that the whole purpose of starting her "Book of Food,"
which is, in essence, a bulimic's diary, was to show it to a doctor, and
to get professional help for and perspective on her obsession. It dramatizes,
without glamorizing in the slightest, the devastating grip of bulimia on
a teen-age body and soul. I also think that her extraordinary (and, in a
way, courageous) candor on the subject is a discouragement to present or
potential young bulimics. At least, I hope it is. I think she hopes it is.
You describe Beecroft's almost adolescent lack of foresight or sense of
mortality. And yet she's obsessed with perfection. How does she reconcile
these two contradicting aspects of her personality? The perfectionism and
the recklessness—that's a hard one. They are contradictory. But artists,
I think, are people who tend to be blind to their self-contradictions, or
who have a tremendous tolerance for them. Extreme perfectionism can coincide
with extreme recklessness in the same way that criminality and refinement
can coincide. Or, in the character of a great writer, penetrating insight
into human nature can exist in the same personality with monstrous narcissism
and egotism and blindness to the crudest of one's own behavior. Take our
old friend Count Tolstoy. Or my idol Flaubert. People criticize fashion
magazines for not representing a full spectrum of beauty. Is Beecroft's
work, and her personal life, susceptible to the same criticism? I personally
find the earlier Beecroft pieces, in which the girls aren't so perfect,
and in which there is a much greater variety of bodies, much more eloquent
and moving, because of their vulnerability. But her own vulnerability seems
to require armor—and thinness is armor. It was interesting to hear about
Beecroft's young friends in Italy who were anorexic. I think that many people
think of eating disorders, as well as obesity, as a very American phenomenon.
Is this not the case? Anorexia and bulimia have taken over Western culture,
and are spreading elsewhere. The only community that seems relatively immune
is the African-American one. A friend told me about a Central American girl
she knows who decided to live on an apple and a piece of hard candy a day,
and has been hospitalized. There are stories of anorexia in the Third World.
Eating disorders are as contagious and addictive and are becoming as ubiquitous
as drugs. In your article, you write that Beecroft was once put in handcuffs
to stop her from beating her husband. She idolizes her absent father, and
describes herself as the male of her family. Can you talk about the gendered,
sexual dimension of her work? I think that of course there is something
extremely sexual about Beecroft's work, but I also think there is obviously
something sexual about eating disorders. My own theory is that anorexia
stems, in part, from an identification with the father. It certainly strips
a woman of her female characteristics. It gives her the body of a pubescent
boy. My eighty-pound, five-foot-four-inch, thirteen-year-old son probably
has a body any anorexic would admire. He, of course, is desperate to gain
weight and bulk up. Her work is certainly sexually provocative, or it uses
sexual imagery as a provocation. I'm not sure there is that much sexual
content to it. It is, as anorexia and bulimia are, about resisting desire,
about lashing oneself to the mast so one can't be swept away. Has Beecroft
ever used men in her work, or is it exclusively concerned with the female
gender? She has done a series of pieces with sailors and men in uniform,
including a performance on the deck of the Intrepid. She is very interested
in uniformity and fitness, and she has certain martial (Spartan, ferocious,
violent, authoritarian) inclinations, and, in that sense, I suppose one
could also say, a virile temperament. But I also don't want to put it that
way. Gender is a bell curve. There is no such thing, really, as pure femininity
or masculinity. Both sexes experience all aspects of desire, passive and
aggressive. You suggest that viewers could get something very different
from a Beecroft piece if they stayed for the entire duration. How long do
the pieces last? I sat through a long video of her last piece: about two
and a half hours. I have never seen one of her performances in a museum
or a gallery, but they also last about two or three hours. I have seen other
long performance pieces—Marina Abramovic's, for example. The time element
is very important. It changes one's experience of the performance and its
meaning. One gets a very distorted impression of Beecroft's work from the
photographs, which is how most people encounter it. She is right to say
that they leech her work of its emotion and ambiguity. They are too glamorous
and fashion-y. There is a kind of contemplative or meditative aspect to
a long performance in which nothing happens—although things happen, very
slowly, internally to the viewer and to the performer. You are wrestling
with your own impatience, your own hunger for stimulation, your own frustration—and
those emotions become part of the piece. Let's talk about how Beecroft's
work blurs the line between art and fashion. You have written essays and
criticism on both. Are they kindred enterprises? Fashion and art have an
incestuous relationship. Designers give large donations to museums who then
host their retrospectives, as with Armani at the Guggenheim, and museums
profit from blockbuster fashion shows where the work is treated uncritically,
as in the case of Versace at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Artists like
Beecroft showcase the products of designers like Prada and Tom Ford. Tara
Subkoff, who figures in the Profile of Beecroft, and who designs the supremely
trendy—and, actually, quite interesting—label Imitation of Christ, likes
to think of her business, as she put it to me, as a "project." This is art-world
jargon for something too cutting-edge to be called simply a "piece," a "work,"
or a "performance," much less "a line of tweaked vintage dresses you sell
at Barney's." Designers refer to their boutiques as "spaces," and they hire
famous architects to "conceptualize" them. God forbid they should just sell
stuff in a store. On the other hand, the best designers, like artists, are
canaries in the mine who pick up the scent of the Zeitgeist, for lack of
a better word, before it reaches the rest of us. Art, at least since 1863
and the Salon des Refusés, where artists rejected by the Emperor's gallery
showed their work to adoring crowds, isn't supposed to be beholden to academic
or bourgeois values, or idées reçues. It's supposed to be esoteric, impious,
defiant, and subversive. But you can be only so esoteric and subversive
in the fashion business. The stuff has to sell—or else, as Miguel Adrover
discovered with his Middle Eastern collection of 2001, adios. At the same
time, it's snobbish and provincial to dismiss fashion as mere frivolity.
It occupies too great a place in the culture. It's a language, a drama,
an arena. Clothes speak. About power, beauty, pleasure, sex, money, class,
desire, gender, age—the aspirations and desperations of millions of people.
So it's a subject worthy of serious thought. I also happen to love clothes.
And I was delighted to read in an essay by Roberto Calasso that Stéphane
Mallarmé edited a fashion magazine.
Obesity caused by single
gene
By Alison McCook
A small percentage of people who are severely obese may have developed their
condition as a result of a genetic change that affects the process by which
the brain tells the body to stop eating, researchers said Wednesday. The
vast majority of people have bulging waistlines as the result of a number
of factors, including their eating behavior and genetics. However, two new
studies in The New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites) suggest
that approximately five or six percent of severely obese people may carry
a particular genetic change that causes them to gain unhealthy amounts of
weight. These particular cases of obesity also appear to be characterized
by binge eating, during which people uncontrollably consume abnormal amounts
of food, the researchers note. For overly obese people, learning that their
condition results from genetics, which is beyond their control, could be
somewhat comforting, Dr. Joel F. Habener of Massachusetts General Hospital
told Reuters Health. Habener co-authored an editorial that accompanies the
current research. For this small group of people, who have likely struggled
unsuccessfully with their obesity, the extra weight "is not their fault,"
Habener said. "They actually have an inherited disease," he added. In the
future, as researchers learn more about the human genome (news - web sites),
these findings may prove useful in devising treatments that target the effects
of this particular mutation, Habener said. But any such development is likely
a long ways away, he noted. And no person who is obese currently has the
option of a pill that will melt the pounds away, Habener added. "There are
not magic bullet drugs that will make people stop gaining weight, stop eating."
The mutation featured in the current research is a change in a gene called
MC4R, which is short for melanocortin-4 receptor. A number of findings suggest
that MC4R plays a role in appetite regulation. MC4R receptors are abundant
in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that helps control appetite. Previous
research has found that mice that are missing MC4R receptors overeat and
are obese. In one of the current studies, Dr. Ruth Branson of the Klinik
Hirslanden in Switzerland and colleagues found that, among 469 severely
obese white people, approximately five percent carried the MC4R mutation.
All of the obese carriers of this mutation said they were binge eaters,
the authors note; in contrast, only 14 percent of obese people without the
mutation reported binge eating. Although knowing their uncontrollable binge
eating may be linked to genetics cannot stop the behavior, understanding
why they can't stop may provide patients with the MC4R mutation with some
relief, Habener said in an interview. For this reason, it may be worthwhile
for some obese patients who binge eat to consider seeing a genetic counselor
to determine if they carry the MC4R mutation, the researcher said. In another
report, Dr. I. Sadaf Farooqi of the Addenbrooke's Hospital in the UK and
colleagues examined the bodies and genetic makeup of 500 people who had
developed severe obesity before the age of 10. The authors found that almost
six percent of the participants carried the MC4R mutation; most carried
only one copy of the defective gene. People with two copies typically had
a more severe form of obesity, the authors note. Extending their research
into the mutation carriers' families, Farooqi and colleagues discovered
that all family members that carried two copies of the mutated MC4R gene
were also obese. However, around one-third of relatives with one copy of
the mutated gene did not develop obesity. These findings suggest that not
all MC4R mutation carriers are doomed to obesity, and some other genes may
play a role, perhaps blocking the effects of the mutated MC4R, Habener said.
Habener cautioned that the proportion of obesity due to MC4R may differ
in the general population from what is reported in the current research,
since certain groups of people may be more or less likely to carry the genetic
change. Another report in the journal Nature adds indirect support to the
current research by suggesting that obesity is a result of a number of different
conditions. The researchers found that obese mice tended to show two distinct
genetic patterns, suggesting that different genetic changes can lead to
the same disease. The findings also add hope that researchers may one day
fight obesity using treatments tailored to each person's type of disease.
Pounds with weight watchers
By Alison McCook
Although following Weight Watchers appears to help people shed more pounds
than they would on their own, people who followed the program for two years
lost an average of only six pounds, researchers said Tuesday. But especially
diligent participants -- who attended at least 78 percent of the weekly
meetings -- lost an average of 11 pounds after two years of the program,
the authors note. The average weight loss among Weight Watchers participants
"is not very much in comparison to what people hope they will lose, or what
people need to lose in order to reach the desired, svelte self," study author
Dr. Stanley Heshka told Reuters Health. These findings suggest that people
who need to lose a significant amount of weight fairly quickly for medical
reasons may want to opt out of Weight Watchers and similarly structured
programs, said Heshka, who is based at the New York Obesity Research Center,
St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. In the program, participants
attend weekly meetings and receive guidelines for exercise and how to pick
the healthy foods and portions. But these findings, published in the Journal
of the American Medical Association (news - web sites), do not suggest that
Weight Watchers holds no benefit for people struggling with their weight,
he added. People enrolled in Weight Watchers shed more pounds than did people
who were simply provided with information about smart eating and exercising,
who lost, on average, less than one-half of one pound after two years. Furthermore,
while, on average, participants lost only small amounts of weight while
enrolled in the structured program, some lost much more, with the maximum
amount of weight loss reaching around 50 pounds. The structured program
"seems to hold advantages over trying to lose the weight by yourself," Heshka
said. For people who are not yet obese but are experiencing an increase
in weight, or have a family history of problems that can be aggravated by
excess weight -- such as heart disease or diabetes -- a structured program
like Weight Watchers may have a significant impact on health, he said. In
some instances, "even small amounts of weight loss, weight maintenance --
preventing yourself from gaining more weight -- might be medically important,"
Heshka noted. "Whatever amount you can lose and keep off represents a victory,"
he added. Indeed, Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor in chief of JAMA, agreed
that losing weight via any method is extremely difficult. "Food intake is
a habit," DeAngelis told Reuters Health. "And it's very hard to change those
habits." She added that while Weight Watchers and similar programs may work
for some people, they clearly don't work for everyone. Programs have the
best chances of working if they feel natural to the people following them,
she noted, otherwise the weight loss is too difficult to maintain. "It works
as long as you stay with it," she said. During the study, 423 men and women
between the ages of 18 and 65 were either given a number to call to find
the nearest Weight Watchers meeting and vouchers to attend, or provided
with two brief counseling sessions with a nutritionist, then left to lose
weight on their own. In an interview, Heshka explained that Weight Watchers
funded the current study, and he hoped that other weight loss programs will
do the same. "I wish that more commercial weight loss providers would do
studies like this with their programs so the consumer could have some idea
of what it is they're getting for their money," he said. In a related study,
published in the same issue of the journal, Dr. Deborah F. Tate of Brown
University and Miriam Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island and her colleagues
found that among people who followed a structured, online weight loss program,
email counseling helps. As part of counseling, a trained therapist would
send participants frequent emails, answer their questions, and track their
dieting progress. When 92 overweight people followed the program for one
year, those who received counseling lost an average of 10 pounds, relative
to an average of only 4 1/2 pounds lost by those who did not receive counseling.
These findings suggest that people who need a structured program that is
more convenient than regular group meetings -- which provide similar services
to email counseling -- might benefit from an online program that includes
counseling, Tate told Reuters Health. "If convenience is one of the advantages
of the Internet, perhaps this type of approach might be something we could
use in the long-term in a convenient way for participants," she said.
Manorexia
Manorexia "An eating disorder traditionally associated with self-conscious
teenage girls is leaving some men famished." By Peter Davis They breezed
down the runway at the European shows this winter, wisps with swizzle-stick
arms and sunken chests. Yes, waifs are nothing new in the underfed fashion
world, but there's a difference: These were the men. It makes one wonder:
Aside from the scrawny Larry Clark-style models for Hedi Slimane, the Christian
Dior designer, could any fully grown man fit into these clothes? Well, Karl
Lagerfeld can. Last year he whittled himself down by 93 pounds with a strict
diet of fish, vegetables, horse meat (really) and Diet Coke. As Karl likes
to proclaim, "Muscles are out. Bones are in. " Skinny-chic may be as foreign
to the average man as Dior's razor-cut sleeveless top, but lately some guys
who live far from the catwalk have been pursuing their own version of radical
dieting. Even Howard Stern obsesses about his waistline. Look around: Men's
Health cover boys have zero percent body fat surrounding those six-pack
abs, and every rock band from the Strokes to Coldplay appears slightly malnourished.
(And they still land the hot girlfriend!) No wonder men who once took a
perverse pride in their beer bellies are now hopping aboard the Adkins express.
Or the Karen Carpenter diet. By some estimates, 1 million American men suffer
from anorexia- or, if you prefer, manorexia. That's almost 15 percent of
all cases. "I think the figure is probably higher." says Dr. Doug Bunnell,
president of the National Eating Disorders Association, who claims men "have
trouble acknowledging the disease. "It's embarrassing to admit you're afflicted
with a syndrome traditionally associated with teenage girls. But just like
their Britney-worshipping kid sisters, manoretics suffer from body-dysmorphic
disorder- an obsession with an imagined flaw in one's appearance. As a result,
they adopt bizarre eating habits. Dr. Christopher Athas, the vice president
of the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders,
cites one karate buff whose bulimia was so extreme "he'd lie exhausted on
a bathroom floor because he was so tired from purging." Bunnell adds that
"for many men, weight is a control issue." Which was the case with Daniel
Johns, the 24-year old singer from Silverchair whose five-foot-eleven frame
at one point weighed 110 pounds. "Each day I would test myself to see how
much I could endure." says Johns, who even penned a tune called "Ana's Song"
(as in anorexia) about his struggles. "If I hadn't eaten anything, it was
an accomplishment... Within a few months, it got to the point where I was
eating just so I wouldn't collapse." Not all manoretics are swooning from
starvation, some see their diet as a way to get ahead. As one 33-year old
fashion publicist explains, "Being fat is considered being unsuccessful-
in my business there's no room for that. " He tried carb-free regimes and
yoga classes and had liposuction--three times. "I want to do it a fourth
time to spot-tone certain areas." he admits. "For me, this is career maintenance."
Today, you can even find manorexia among frat boys. "My fraternity was a
hotbed of anorexia," says one Cornell graduate. "You had the guys who pound
beers and the guys who drink martinis because they have fewer calories.
We actually had to fire a cook because the food he was making was too fattening."
If only the poor chef had taken a page from Lagerfeld's cookbook. Horse-meat
tartare, anyone?
Child anorexia 'needs
action'
Child anorexia 'needs action' Images in the media have been criticised Greater
attention should be paid to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia among
children, the charity ChildLine has said. According to a new report by the
charity, around 1,000 children and teenagers ring it every year because
of eating disorders. And many choose to go to a friend before seeking help
from an adult. Health charities estimate more than a million in the UK have
an eating disorder. Anecdotal evidence suggests the problem is getting worse
among children and adolescents. The ChildLine report looks at what lies
behind eating disorders, finding callers raise family tensions more than
any other issue. They also discuss problems with bullying, school pressures
and bereavement. Angry behaviour ChildLine 's chief executive Carole Easton
said young sufferers must not lose hope. "The cycle of denial and deceit,
and frequently withdrawn and angry behaviour of a young person with an eating
disorder, can almost seem designed to drive away those who care about them,
leaving parents and friends utterly bewildered and at a loss as to how to
move forward. "But their love and support is essential in building up a
young person's self esteem and bringing them back to health. "Although there
is no single solution to the tortuous situation an eating disorder can provoke,
families and friends are the best allies a young person has. "The most effective
remedy is when everyone - friends, family, school, professionals, and counsellors
- works together to ensure there is always someone to turn to." Weight loss
John Wheeler, ChildLine's director of counselling for southern England,
is familiar with eating disorders as the father of a former sufferer. Nancy,
now a 23-year-old student, developed anorexia at 16 and her weight eventually
fell to six-and-a-half stones. Mr Wheeler said his daughter's problem had
become apparent on holiday. "Nancy was getting very thin and was avoiding
eating at family meals. It was a very frightening experience as a father.
"You feel very critical and guilty of yourself wondering what it was that
caused this situation. "It's very important not to blame yourself entirely
for these situations. Anorexia is a complicated condition which are there
are lots of causes of." Sensitive age Ms Wheeler said bullying by a teacher
had helped trigger her condition "That really did affect me. That combined
with my sensitive age - I was at an age where I was just coming into noticing
boys and going out. "I can remember looking through magazines and equating
being thin with being the best." Nancy said she had started being extremely
aggressive and defensive about the condition. "Even my own mum I saw as
an enemy trying to make me fat."
Ed's on the increase
An increasing number of people are seeking help for eating disorders, experts
have warned. The Eating Disorders Association (EDA) answered more than 18,000
calls to its helplines last year. But it says many other people were unable
to get through because of the sheer volume of calls. The EDA estimates that
nearly 18% of anorexics calling its adult helpline will die - and many others
will develop long-term health problems such as osteoporosis or a loss of
fertility. Serious disorders such as anorexia or bulimia can start with
something as apparently innocuous as skipping the odd meal, experts warn.
In an attempt to alert the public to the health damage of eating disorders
the EDA has commissioned eye-catching and hard-hitting postcards. The association
hopes the cards will point out that missing meals is never a healthy option.
Research shows us that approximately 18% of all people with anorexia nervosa
will die prematurely The postcards have been based on an original design
by Julia Clark-Lownes who is recovering from an eating disorder. Nicky Bryant,
chief executive of the charity, said that unless people with eating disorders
sought early help, they could suffer long-term help problems such as osteoporosis
and loss of fertility. "We know that people's lives are at risk because
of the lack of recognition of the problem and help available. "The letters,
calls and e-mails we receive from desperate, distressed and often grieving
parents, relatives and friends tell their own story. "We also know that
anorexia and bulimia nervosa and related illnesses affect the lives of almost
every one of us, either directly or indirectly," she said. Recent research
by the Eating Disorders Research Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry in
London found that eating disorders could be due to the physical or genetic
make-up of the brain. The unit found that the brain could be naturally vulnerable
or even pre-disposed to the illness and could be more susceptible to an
eating disorder following a physical change in the brain due to an event
that happened in child hood. Dr Sara McCluskey, consultant psychiatrist
at the Priory Hospital Hayes Grove, said that better understanding would
lead to improvements in care. "A more in-depth understanding of eating disorders
will lead to further improvements in the level of care and help that medical
professionals can provide to both the patients and their family," she said.
Ed's genetic
A particular gene might make someone more vulnerable to eating disorders
such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia, experts suggest. The new research,
presented at the British Psychological Society's annual conference, suggests
the gene might make the brain more sensitive to chemicals which regulate
appetite and mood. The variant gene, identified by David Collier from the
Department of Molecular Genetics of the Institute of Psychiatry in London,
has been shown to be twice as common in women suffering from the disorder.
So having this gene might significantly increase the risk of developing
an eating disorder. Dr Collier said: "Anorexia doesn't seem to be a disease
of dieting, it has a deeper biological cause, and perhaps many factors that
trigger it are family factors from an early age." Eating disorders are commonly
thought to have a psychological root, with perhaps more than one trigger.
Ed'd or vegatarian?
Your daughter's seemingly healthy eating habits could be masking a deadly
eating disorder At her cousin's wedding, Melissa, 14, looked around at the
female guests and imagined what the kids at school would say:. What a bunch
of porkers. "Right there," says Melissa, who was teased for being slightly
overweight in junior high school, "I decided I was going to be different."
As she entered high school, Melissa became a vegetarian to cut the calories
and fat her family's meat and fried food diet was heavy on. People praised
her slimmer appearance as well as her self-discipline in following such
an apparently strict diet. Melissa continued to lose weight, believing that
the slimmer she became, the more she would impress people. But by the following
spring, it was obvious to everyone but Melissa that she had crossed a line
and become anorexic. This is not to say that every girl who decides to go
veg is headed for an eating disorder. "For most teens, becoming vegetarian
is a healthy choice," says Judy Krizmanic, author of Teen's Vegetarian Cookbook
(Viking, 1999). But as with any significant change a child makes, the parents
must be sure she's doing it correctly--and with the right motivation. "Wanting
to be healthy, being concerned about the environment or animals are all
good reasons," says Nancy Logue, Ph.D., director of the Renfrew Center,
an eating disorder clinic in Philadelphia. "But when a lifestyle is pursued
to extremes, or extreme behavior becomes attached to it, there's potential
for a serious problem." Anorexia, a pathological fear of weight gain that
leads to excessive weight loss, often manifests itself with an obsessive-compulsive
personality. Vegetarianism is not simply a lifestyle choice for an anorexic
girl. What and how she eats become the daily yardstick by which she measures
her worth. Common beliefs among anorexics include, "If I'm a good person,
I can have five extra bites at dinner" and "I'm a strong person because
I can eat less than other People. Everyone else is weak." A report in the
Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine (August, 1997) analyzed how teens
hide eating disorders behind the healthy facade of vegetarianism. The study
found that while veg teens ate more fruits and vegetables than their omnivorous
peers, they were also twice as likely to diet frequently, four times as
likely to diet intensively and eight times as likely to abuse laxatives--all
behaviors associated with eating disorders. The National Association of
Anorexia and Associated Disorders estimates that more than 8 million Americans
suffer from full-blown eating disorders and that 86 percent of them develop
the problem before age 20. While anorexia is relatively rare, occurring
in just 3 percent of women, its consequences can be dire. "It has the highest
mortality rate among eating disorders," says Monika Woolsey, M.S., R.D.,
editor of the After the Diet Newsletter (www.afterthediet.com) and author
of the upcoming American Dietetic Association book Eating Disorders: Putting
It All Together. One reason eating disorders begin in adolescence is because
those years are a time of intense pressure--from friends, parents, teachers
and society. A key developmental issue for teens is identity, and they begin
to struggle with questions like Who am I? and Where do I fit in? According
to Amy Tuttle, R.D., L.S.W., director of nutrition services at the Renfrew
Center, "Young girls are looking outside of themselves for the first time
for guidance on identity, and what do they see? That they are supposed to
be thin. That women are supposed to have petite needs." To have a strong
appetite--for food, competition or recognition--is still largely considered
unfeminine in our culture. For girls, the external pressure to be thin and
popular combines with an internal drive to excel and be perfect and makes
them especially vulnerable to anorexia. (Not surprisingly, 90 percent of
all anorexics are female.) According to the Renfrew Center, 53 percent of
American 13-year-old girls are already unhappy with their bodies. And researchers
have found negative body images among girls as young as 9. GROWING NEEDS
Teenage girls usually don't shoot up six inches over a summer the way boys
often do, but they still need nearly as much food to fuel their growing
bodies. And they need the right mix of calories, notes Tuttle. In general,
girls aged 11 to 18 need 2,200 calories a day--more if they're physically
active. Of that, 40 to 50 percent should come from carbohydrates, 20 to
30 percent from protein and no more than 30 percent from the good fats found
in olive oil, avocados and nuts. "Teenage girls should also get plenty of
calcium, iron, zinc and vitamins D and [B.sub.12]," says Tuttle. Here's
what the National Academy of Sciences recommends your daughter take in every
day: Calcium 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams (mg.) Nondairy sources include broccoli,
legumes, seeds, leafy greens like kale, collards, mustard and bok choy,
and calcium-fortified foods. Iron 15 to 18 mg. The best sources are from
the dried bean family, which includes lentils, lima and kidney beans. To
enhance absorption, include vitamin C-rich foods like cantaloupe, broccoli
and tomatoes with your meals. Vitamin D 800 international units (IU) Getting
15 minutes of sun exposure without sunscreen, two to three times a week,
will allow the body to make enough on its own. Vitamin [B.sub.12] 3 micrograms
(mcg.) Sources include fortified breakfast cereals, soy milk, veggie burgers,
eggs and dairy products. Although seaweed, algae, spirulina and fermented
products (like tempeh) contain [B.sub.12], it is a form that is not easily
assimilated into the body. Supplements are another good source. Zinc 15
mg. Found in whole grains and whole-grain breads. Grains lose zinc when
processed to make refined (white) flour. A HEALTHY START It's just as important
to provide your daughter with a supportive environment as it is to educate
her on good nutrition.
* Be a good role model. Becoming a vegetarian should be enjoyable. Emphasize that a balanced diet has room for treats and that there's no need to deprive oneself.
* Be aware of your own prejudices toward overweight or thin people that may fuel her insecurity. "One of the most effective things we can do is to stop judging people by what they eat and what they look like," says Woolsey.
* If other family members eat meat, create vegetarian nights for everyone. Let your daughter decide what the menu will be and let her help you cook it. This will connect her to healthful food and teach her to be responsible for her new lifestyle.
* Compliment her on her skills and attributes, not her size or weight.
* Don't compare her with others, whether it's about appearance or schoolwork.
* Don't refer to foods as either good or bad. That only reinforces the all-or-nothing thinking of an anorexic. WARNING SIGNS People often lose some weight when they go veg because they're still learning how to eat healthfully. If you notice some of the following symptoms, however, your daughter may have a problem.
* Continued weight loss after the first two or three months of being vegetarian.
* Distorted body image. She repeatedly comments that she's fat or still needs to lose weight, even if she's thin or of a healthy weight.
* Regularly skipping meals or denying she's hungry.
* Complaints about feeling bloated or nauseated when she eats normal portions.
* Elimination of other foods besides meat, especially those that contain fat, like peanut butter, tofu, soy meat substitutes, breads, pasta and other nutritious foods.
* Ritualistic behavior. "Anorexics typically eat their food in a specific way, whether it's eating in a circle around the plate or cutting everything into several tiny pieces to make the food last," says Woolsey. "Or they may refuse to eat if food isn't served exactly on time."
* Compulsive calorie- and fat-gram counting. "It's hard to tell the difference between someone who's trying to educate herself and someone who's become obsessive," says Woolsey. But sometimes it's Obvious. "One of my patients spent over an hour choosing a salad dressing because she had to read every single bottle in the store."
* Obsessive and/or compulsive behavior. Teem are known for being passionate about whatever interests them at the moment, but it's not normal to spend hours rearranging canned food, setting aside the number of beans she can have that night or brushing her teeth five times a day.
* Frequently weighing herself.
* Thinning hair. She may also grow a layer of downy body hair.
* Complaints of being cold even when room temperature is normal.
An anorexic's story
The illness came on with alarming speed. The 5-foot-tall Denver teenager
ate only lettuce and cottage cheese and drank only diet soda. Her weight
plummeted from 90 pounds. She lost interest in her beloved horse and withdrew
from other activities. Within two months, she was hospitalized for the first
time, and she began a diary, in which she wrote: "Today I weighed 79-3/8
[pounds]. What a pig." With that, Jenny, the middle of five siblings and
the valedictorian of her high school, entered the nightmare world of anorexia
nervosa, a psychiatric disorder that affects 1 percent to 2 percent of girls
and young women, causing them to become obsessed with dieting and losing
weight. In Jenny's world, that meant starving herself, making herself throw
up and embarking on a relentless exercise schedule, sometimes biking as
much as 30 miles in a day. For 11 years, she struggled with the disease,
forced to dig up her past in brutal psychotherapy sessions, cycling in and
out of treatment facilities, taking medication, undergoing electric shock
therapy, attempting suicide. She was hospitalized 12 times and spent months
in eight different psychiatric facilities. "I am terrified I'm going to
kill myself, especially when I give in and eat. My body is in a state of
horrible shock, and I don't know how I can control myself and stop self-destructing."
Through it all, Jenny dealt with doctors who charged that she deliberately
refused to get well. Some became so frustrated that they resigned from her
case. There was even an attempted exorcism and talk of confining her in
a state psychiatric hospital. In 1989, Jenny died at the age of 25. She
weighed 45 pounds and had suffered at different times from osteoporosis,
kidney failure, depression and loss of sight. No One Ever Got to the Root
Throughout her struggle, Jenny kept that diary. Now, 13 years after her
death, some of her entries have been published as Slim to None: A Journey
through the Wasteland of Anorexia Treatment, which is billed as the "first
published journal of a non-surviving anorexic." Jenny's father, Graydon
"Dee" Hubbard, a retired accountant living in Steamboat Springs, Colo.,
selected passages from 707 pages of Jenny's journaling, sometimes adding
his own entries to make the narrative clearer. He also chose to use the
pseudonym Hendricks for Jenny's last name, used Gordon Hendricks for his
own name, and changed the real names of most of the other people she talks
about in the book. The cause or causes of Jenny's unrelenting illness were
never discovered. Although she was diagnosed variously with anorexia nervosa,
post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and compulsive personality disorder,
no one ever got to the root of Jenny's nightmare. But her agonizing awareness
of it was clear. "I weigh less than I've ever documented (66) and I must
be very ill right now. I'm weak and probably a little insane from starvation."
Many of the professionals treating Jenny threw the onus on her, her father
says. "I think most of the treatments stemmed from the conviction that the
illness was a choice," Hubbard says. "I believe that a lot of her troubling
memories were the product of a very powerful professional just insisting
that she come up with something." "I'm here to work this out. It's my fourth
year into this disease and I've gone beyond the initial compulsive crap.
I've had it with throwing up, laxatives, the bag of it. I don't intend to
do that ever again. I've got to give my body the full chance it deserves."
Various doctors and therapists forced her to wade through the father-daughter
relationship, the mother-daughter relationship, speculated that she had
an Oedipal complex and even raised the specter that she had been abused
as a younger child. Jenny's mother was told to shun her and her father was
told to cancel her insurance policy (he refused). Full-time inpatient care
was equally ineffective, although certain other strategies did work for
a while. Lithium helped briefly, as did cortisol inhibitors and electroconvulsive
therapy. But none of them could be sustained. A young woman who had had
an eating disorder herself befriended Jenny and that seemed to provide relief,
until she attempted to perform an exorcism. "Utter hopelessness. Don't care
if I starve myself into oblivion because I'm skeptical getting well is going
to be good. I cannot fathom going home again, much less being on my own."
Now, Three Quarters Will Recover Treatment has come a long way since those
days, says Craig Johnson, president of the National Eating Disorders Association
and director of the eating disorders program at Laureate Psychiatric Hospital
in Tulsa, Okla. The medications available now are much more advanced, and
treatment as a whole proceeds more slowly so as not to overwhelm the patient,
he adds. "Although it's a very difficult illness, upwards of 75 percent
of patients that develop anorexia and bulimia [a related disorder that involves
binging and purging], will fully recover from the illness," Johnson says.
Still, the condition has the highest death rate of all psychiatric disorders,
according to the National Eating Disorders Association. Up to 20 percent
of anorexics starve themselves to death. "I don't think anything can help
me. I'm beyond caring, so lonely and hopeless. I feel guilty at eating one-half
an orange and bran and some lettuce for dinner. I want to get it out of
me. I AM DEAD INSIDE." In the spring of 1989, Jenny weighed 52 pounds, was
almost blind and couldn't walk on her own. She asked her father to read
her journals and publish her story, and then she received last rites. "We
sort of had this nonintervention pact," Hubbard says of her decision. "I
was persuaded that no one could really help Jenny." But she did rebound
briefly, and ended up at a residential treatment facility which, her father
says, gave him renewed hope. Community Care was located in a converted home
in a residential area of south Denver and did not subscribe to the heavily
regimented programs Jenny had previously gone through. The staff did not
try to control weight or eating, and there was an emphasis on doing things
together outside the home. Ultimately, though, Community Care came too late.
On Dec. 17, 1989, Jenny had a nice lunch with her mother and at night fixed
herself a meal of cottage cheese and a pear. After eating her meal alone,
she used the banister to pull her weakened body up to her second-floor room.
She died that night in her sleep. When Jenny's father went to pick up her
few belongings, he saw that Jenny's rubber plant, once dull and dying, had
revived during her brief stay at Community Care and was now lustrous, green
and shining. "I had this tremendous comparison going on in my mind," Hubbard
says. "Her plant was doing well. She was doing well. I always wonder if
she had gotten in a little sooner, if it would have helped. I suspect not,
but it's nice to think maybe it might have."
Saving adrienne
Click
Here to read this article.
Perfectionism Linked
to Eating Disorders
By Jennifer Warner
People who have difficulty dealing with personal mistakes may be more likely
to develop a serious eating disorder such as anorexia and bulimia, according
to a new study. In one of the largest studies to date on the issue, researchers
found that perfectionism appears to increase the risk of developing eating
disorders, but not other psychiatric problems, such as depression, alcoholism,
anxiety disorder, or phobias. "Until recently, it hasn't been clear whether
the link between perfectionism and eating disorders is unique, or if perfectionism
is also associated with the development of other psychiatric problems, such
as anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse," says researcher
Cynthia M. Bulik, PhD, of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral
Genetics at Virginia Commonwealth University, in a news release. "These
findings tell us that there may be something unique about perfectionism
that sets up a person for being at risk for anorexia and bulimia nervosa,"
says Bulik. The study, published in the February issue of the American Journal
of Psychiatry, involved more than 1,000 female twins aged 25-65 and used
standardized tests and interviews to evaluate links between perfectionist
traits and psychological problems. Researchers say perfectionism is a personality
style in which a person is overly critical of his or her own performance.
Perfectionists also tend to have an excessive need for approval and are
greatly concerned about making mistakes. They differ from high achievers
who are driven by a goal to achieve, whereas perfectionists are driven by
a fear of failure. The study found that negative reactions to mistakes and
the tendency to view mistakes as personal failures were the perfectionist
traits most significantly associated with anorexia and bulimia among the
women, and were the only aspects of perfectionism not linked to other mental
disorders. Anorexia is an eating disorder characterized by starvation and
compulsive exercising, and bulimia is an excessive concern over body weight
that leads to periods of binge-eating and subsequent self-induced vomiting
or laxative abuse. Researchers say their findings may help parents and loved
ones spot the warning signs of an eating disorder before they develop. "Most
patients and their patients say that perfectionism goes back to before they
developed an eating disorder," says Bulik. "Young girls who are highly perfectionistic
and punish themselves unduly for perceived failures can be helped to learn
how to give themselves a break and set more realistic goals. This could
also help them develop more realistic body image standards as well and perhaps
prevent them for developing such extreme weight-loss behaviors."
The Guide To Being Anorexic
(a parable)
By: Eva Joy Musick
ej-w-w@excite.com
I met Heather, a 13-year-old girl that wanted to become anorexic. Naturally
being 17 and having dealt with it in my past I was all too happy to lend
her my advice. So this is the story of how I taught a girl to become anorexic.
Give me a day with her. I told the mother. She was worried sick about her
daughter who wanted to become an anorexic. So she agreed to send her daughter
with me for just one day. I hear you want to become anorexic. I said as
we drove to my place. Yeah, so what? Don't try to tell me all the bad things
about it and how it will kill me and.... Oh no you got me all wrong. I'm
here to welcome you into the club! She looked at me shocked and overwhelmed.
What are you talking about? I said I'm here to welcome you to the club.
I was anorexic once. Now I just recruit new girls. She seemed amazed and
stunned. When we got to my place I gave her a pen and paper. Now write
down everything you enjoy and love in life. She looked at me blankly. Go
ahead. She did as I told her. While she was writing the phone rang. It was
Shawna. She and Nikki were going out for pizza and wanted to know if I would
come. I told them about Heather and that I wanted her to come too. They
said fine and so I got stuff ready to go. All done. She said laying down
the pen. Let's see. you've got friends, family, and guys. Is that all? Let's
put down life and your future too. Ok? She nodded. Ok now we're going out
with some of my friends to eat pizza. I hope you don't mind. No not at all.
She said smiling. I slipped the paper into my purse and we left for the
pizza place. When we arrived Shawna and Nikki were waiting with the
pizza already on the table. We sat down and I reached for a slice. Heather
also reached for one. You can't do that remember? You're anorexic. I said
to her pushing back her hand. But you're eating! She exclaimed. That's beside
the point. Besides I just recruit anorexics now, I'm not one. UH!!!! She
slouched back in her chair. In a few more minutes five young teens walked
into the pizza place. They all seemed to recognize Heather and came over.
Hey! She exclaimed. Oh hi are you Heathers friends? I asked them. Yeah.
You wanna sit with us Heather? one of the girls asked. Heather started to
get up but I held her arm. I'm sorry but she can't hang out with you anymore.
I said returning to my pizza. Why? One of the others exclaimed. Because
she's anorexic now and she can't have friends. I said. What are you talking
about? Heather shouted. No need to get upset. You may as well start out
right. Anorexics don't have time for friends. Do they Nikki? I said. No
you didn't have time for us. She agreed. Sorry Heather but anorexia is your
only friend now. You want to stay thin don't you? She lowered her head.
Sorry guys, maybe some other time. On the drive home I went very slowly.
We passed a couple on a bridge kissing softly. You see that Heather? I asked.
Yeah. Well mark guys off your list because you won't have any now. I said.
Don't anorexics have boyfriends? She asked. Some do. But they don't really
have time for love. They're too busy thinking about their weight. Then we
passed an old woman sitting on her front porch. Look at that Heather. At
least you won't have to worry about being like that. I said. But she looks
happy. Heather said upset. True but you won't be happy or old. I said. What
do you mean? She asked. You'll die before your old enough to even have a
future. Speaking of which get that piece of paper out of my purse, will
you? She did as I asked. Ok now take the pen in the dashboard and mark off
friends, guys, life, and future. She looked up at me. All that's left is
family. I looked toward her. Mark that off too. WHAT! She screamed. Well
you can't expect to love them can you? I said. I love my family ok? And
if you can't deal with that I don't care! She began screaming and banged
her fist into the door. By that time I had stopped in front of her house.
But you won't have time for. Don't tell me that because I will! I will have
time and you know why? Because you're crazy! Being thin isn't worth all
that! She screamed as she got out of the car and slammed the door.
That's the story of how Heather found out about anorexia. I'm not anorexic
now. All I do is to help girls know how to become the perfect anorexic and
all they will have to give up. (Not a true story but it's something
I wish would have happened to me before I became anorexic.)
Diseases in Disguise
Also by Eva Joy Musick
Part I: Getting Acquainted
I don’t know why I stared it. It’s not like it was forced upon me by others. Regardless for a while I tried to blame it on them. I thought that it was somehow their fault, that they had cursed me with it. However after a while I realized the truth. And so I became accustomed to the idea. They became more and more like friends rather than enemies. After all anorexia and bulimia are both welcomed by the people they infect.
But I’m jumping ahead and I hate it when others do that. Still I can’t remember exactly when it began or why. I just began skipping breakfast in middle school. I didn’t think much about it at the time. After all I would wake up late and simply not have the time to eat.
Then I became aware of what I was doing. That came a few years latter. I guess that means I was in the eighth grade. Even then it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.
I began skipping meals purposely. It was all because someone began complaining that she was a hundred and ten pounds. To me that sounded thin and I wanted to loose weight. It didn’t hit me that she was a good five inches or more shorter than me. I also didn’t realize that she had no figure at all. I on the other hand I had become a woman quickly and was frequently mistaken for a college student.
Regardless of these differences I wanted to be thinner. So I began to give reasons for not eating breakfast. My mother apposed me at every turn. She was worried because I had gym as my first class. Ok so I did have a few dizzy spells but what difference did that make to me? I was doing just find and loosing weight.
Unfortunately I happen to have been a perfectionist. That meant when I did eat I would begin feeling guilty. And mom wanted to know why I wasn’t eating dinner. Not to mention she also wanted to know why my meal ticket had gone down so much.
So I devised the perfect plan. It was so igneous that I praised myself for it. I could eat and then purge, only at the time I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. After all how did it hurt? Mom never heard me in the bathroom at night, or when I was supposedly taking a shower. As for the meal ticket, well that was just too easy. I would simply charge ice-cream for my friends. Everyone was happy and no one was getting hurt. Or at least that’s what I thought.
Then my friends started getting worried. I told them they shouldn’t bother, that I was eating when I got home. So I wasn’t actually lying… not exactly.
But as time wore on my parents and siblings caught on. With two sisters it’s hard to keep a secrets, especially with my sisters. So I had to quit. Or actually I chose to quit. Although it sounded like something fun to do at first it began to hurt. I think at one time I even tore a hole in my stomach. But oh well that was all in the past and I was going to get better.
Getting well is a lot harder than getting sick. I guess my stomach had shrunk or something. Every time I tried to eat I couldn’t keep it down. However after months of trying and failing miserably I finally got over it. And trust me I swore I’d never do anything that stupid again.
Part II: Relapse
I don’t know why I did it again. Perhaps I lost my mind. Or maybe it was just too much pressure and stress. In my junior year there was a lot of tension. I wasn’t at the top of my class, but I wasn’t exactly at the bottom either. I had, by that time, won two mettles. So maybe it was because of prom. Or perhaps it was because of the pressure to be better than what I was. It seemed like my friends expected me to know all the answers. My parents wanted me to become something. Somewhere, however, I lost who I really was.
I was just going about life in the usual way. I had even started taking dance lessons. After all I wanted to look good for my prom. Unfortunately I hadn’t expected my two friends to come back.
I say friends because for a time that’s what they were. When no one was around they were there. It was odd but true. It made me different from others and I liked that. Anorexia and bulimia were something that only I had. None of my friends had it or really knew anything about it. It was something that I could do for me. Or at least that’s how I felt.
Then I got sick. I think I scared my friends. They didn’t know how to handle it. To them it was something foreign and bad. To me it was comforting. It meant that I was myself.
Well myself became worse. I had no idea what a relapse could do to the body. It became uncontrollable. It was like I was in the middle of a raging storm that I couldn’t get out of. And at that time I did want out.
I knew that I had a decision to make. I could stay anorexic and bulimic or get better. Unfortunately it was a hard decision. To choose health meant gaining back the weight. It also meant that I would have to step outside myself back into the normal world.
Well I had had a taste of both worlds. On one hand I could be sick but I could be myself. On the other had I could be healthy and become a person always pretending. Neither of these choices seemed very appealing.
I chose the first. No matter what no one could tell me how to live my life. I would be special again and everyone would hover over me saying, “Poor girl! How can we help you?” Unfortunately there was a side effect that I was unaware of.
Part III: Misconception and Its Follies
They speak about me very little theses days. No one ever comes to visit me. I’m trapped in this small little room with no one to talk to. They put me here. They told me they would if I didn’t start eating. People always make threats they don’t mean. This time, however, they meant every word.
People always talk about anorexia and bulimia as if they were diseases. Why do you suppose they make that assumption? To me they were just a part of life. When I laid down I could hear them talking to me. “Just a little further and you’ll have met your goal! Won’t that be wonderful! And then we can set new ones! Oh won’t that be a treat?”
Anorexia and bulimia never really scared me. They shielded me from the outside world. Both of them would spring up and say, “She’s different from you that’s all! And she’s not an angel that’s perfect! You’ll just have to deal with it!” Yes with them by my side no one could ever tell me that I needed to stay perfect.
But then they put me in this dreadful room. All those people who hated my friends! All those people who thought they were so smart!
They really were you know. All of those people I mean. They knew what they were talking about. When they put me in this room I could hear anorexia and bulimia laughing at me. They began to say the meanest things, like, “I knew we could do it! If you were so perfect you wouldn’t have given in! Look at you, and you thought you were so smart too! Well how smart are you now?”
And that’s where my story ends. I’m locked in this cold dark room. I can’t even move in here. All those people that told me to get well came to see me. They were all there looking at me and crying. My mother cried too. She was the saddest I think. And now I’ll never get to say I’m sorry. I’ll never get to tell her I love her.
I knew this would happen from the start. I just knew that this is what would happen! If anyone’s going to get caught it’s always me! I’m that ten percent that dye from anorexia. Only ten percent and I’m part of it!
Now I lay here, not as a martyr, or even as a victim. I am here as a willing betrayer. I betrayed my family, friends, and my god. I am no better that a suicide victim. My life was not taken from me. I gave it up to the grave happily.
So here I lay, night and day. A life not taken but given away.
Eva Joy Musick
Anorexia and strep
BALTIMORE, MD -- August 13, 1997 --
Some cases of anorexia nervosa in youngsters may come on suddenly after
a case of strep throat or other infection, suggests a study in the August
issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Antibiotics may be useful in the treatment and prevention of these infection-triggered
cases of anorexia, writes child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Mae S. Sokol
of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. Dr. Sokol reports on three adolescents
with anorexia nervosa that suddenly started or worsened around the time
of streptococcal or other infection. One teenage boy developed anorexia
after a bad case of strep throat. His eating disorder decreased while he
was taking antibiotics prescribed for a sinus infection. When the antibiotics
were finished, the anorexia returned. The patient was put back on antibiotics,
and he improved again. This patient was treated with long-term antibiotics
to prevent infections and had no further episodes of anorexia. In the other
two patients reported, both the infection and anorexia got better on their
own. This is another series of cases, first reported in this Journal, of
psychiatric illness in children triggered by infection, stated the Editor
of the Journal, Dr. John F. McDermott. The first report, two years ago,
described children with the sudden onset of obsessive compulsive disorder
(persistent irrational thoughts and behaviors after a strep infection).
This report, by a different group of child and adolescent psychiatrists,
suggests a similar mechanism in certain cases of anorexia nervosa (a serious
illness marked by refusal to eat, weight loss and obsessive fears of getting
fat). The importance of these two studies taken together is three-fold.
They suggest: 1. what we have suspected all along, that these two disorders
with their overlapping symptoms, may have underlining connections, and in
some cases a common identifiable cause -- strep infection; 2. that the cause
may lie in the brain cells or neurons in a certain region of the brain,
being destroyed by the very antibodies the body produces to fight this infection
in suceptible youngsters and; 3. that treatment with antibodies and modern
immuno-technology can prevent or even reverse these difficult-to-treat illnesses
and change what has been a poor outcome to a good outcome. In other words,
these prelimenary studies, from independent groups of investigators in child
and adolescent psychiatry, may lead to some of the most important breakthroughs
in our field to date. Patients found to have infection-triggered anorexia
could be monitored closely for infections -- treating the infection early
and giving preventative antibiotics as is done with rheumatic fever, might
prevent the eating disorder from getting worse. The researchers also suggest
performing a strep test (throat culture and blood tests) in children and
teenagers with anorexia that has suddenly appeared or worsened.
How to Speed Up Your
Metabolism
How to Speed Up Your Metabolism Don't skip breakfast. You will lose weight
more quickly if you have a bite to eat in the morning. Drink hot
water with lemon Eat hot meals rather than cold. Your metabolism speeds
up very slightly when you eat and again if the food is hot. Do at least
thirty minutes of cardiovascular exercise, five days a week. This will condition
you to burn fat more efficiently. Don't deprive your body of carbohydrates,
no matter what they say. You need carbs for energy and will feel terrible
without them. Wear a pedometer and see that you take 1,000 steps every day.
If you have a sit-down job, get up every hour and walk around for five minutes
or so. Dedicate two hours a week to weight training, concentrating on the
larger muscles. Every other day is optimal.
How to Stop Food Cravings
Craving chocolate? Eat a banana. It sometimes satisfies the yearning for
chocolate and is much less fattening. Chew sugarless gum. It speeds up the
digestive system, burning more calories, and sometimes kills a craving.
Exercise! Your appetite will temporarily subside and you'll feel better
about taking such a proactive approach. Still craving chocolate? Try a magnesium
supplement. Many women are deficient in this mineral, which is found in
chocolate. Craving fatty foods? Eat fish, or take a fish oil or flaxseed
oil supplement. You may be low in essential fatty acids. Grab something
to drink. Sometimes, cravings for food are really thirst in disguise. Sweet
tooth? Protein, fat and fiber keep blood sugar levels more even and help
keep such cravings under control. Watch your caffeine intake. Caffeine seems
to make sugar cravings worse. If your will power weakens at night, try leaving
the lights on until the minute you go to bed. Dimmed lights tend to lower
inhibitions. Turn off the lights in your kitchen and avoid hanging out there.
Hair Tricks
Instant Hair Tricks To Slim Your Face Most hair stylists will tell you that
a good starting point to a face slimming hair style is to give your hair
a svelte look. How do you do that? Here are some hair tips that can work
for minimizing fuller face shapes: Don'ts Just as clothes with horizontal
strips add the elusion of weight, hairstyles with blunt edges can make your
face look much wider than it really is.
Avoid styles or cuts that have any type of strong lines that will make your
face look larger than it really is. Avoid hair that is either too long or
too short.
Avoid big hair, lots of curls, wedge styles or super short cuts.
The Square and Pear shapes are also not suited for super short cuts that
will highlight the jaw or the chin. Do's Add slenderizing vertical lines
to your hair through well placed highlights or lowlights. A talented colorist
can also add wonderful depth to your overall face with multi dimensional
color. Adding height at the roots automatically minimizes the fullness of
any face by adding instant length. Ask your stylist to add texturizing or
layers around your crown area to add height. If your hair is naturally thin
or fine use a great volume enhancing shampoo to add fullness. Add a root
lift solution or volumizing gel to the roots and use a brush to lift as
your blow dry. Remember to direct the airflow from the ends to the roots
for even more volume. If you prefer you can use a small barrel curling iron
right at the roots for added texture. Up dos add instant height. Consider
pulling your hair into a high ponytail or braid anchored at your crown.
Pull out a few tendrils on either side of your face to add a subtle slenderizing.
A shoulder skimming shag style with texturized bangs is excellent for reducing
facial width. Blow dry hair forward with a large round brush to smooth and
curl hair under. Set with a good hair spray. The best length for faces that
need slenderizing is between the jawline and the shoulders. This length
elongates your face and neck creating a much slimmer appearance. Bangs can
be flattering if worn to enhance the eyes. Select bangs that have an uneven
edge. Try angled bangs or bangs that have wispy lengths. Round faces benefit
from long straight lines added around the face. A chin-length bob with minimum
layering is a great option. Angled bobs with sides that taper softly below
the cheeks is also a wonderful selection. This look can create the illusion
of higher, more angular cheekbones. By introducing a horizontal line, side-parted
bangs that sweep across the forehead also help break up a face's roundness.
A key to slenderizing round faces is to minimize the volume of hair that
is at the sides and ear area. If a hairstyle is selected that falls above
the jaw it is best to wear an off-center part to interrupt roundness. A
longer jaw length or longer style can benefit from a center part. The Square
and Pear shapes do well with chin length bobs. A bob with fullness at the
chin will balance a pointed chin prevalent with heart shapes. A square face
benefits from a chin length bob that ends in a soft flip or gentle wave.
Adding emphasis to the cheekbones and the middle section of the face helps
a lot. Bangs are a great solution. Wearing your hair at least 2 inches below
your jaw line will also help a lot.
Limit yourself to no more than two servings of red meat per week. Make sure that no more than a quarter of your calories comes from fat. Cook your own meals at home and avoid eating at restaurants as much as possible. Eat six to eleven servings of complex carbohydrates (fruits and whole grain breads, pasta and cereals), but avoid white flour when possible. Don't go crazy on the protein. Too much doesn't add muscle, contrary to popular belief. It just turns to fat. Boycott mayonnaise and butter (or margarine). Get them out of your refrigerator. Learn to live without them. Don't be afraid to try low or reduced fat versions of your favorite foods. You may actually like them better when you don't feel guilty eating them. Stay away from energy bars, which imply that they will transform you into a fit person. Most of them are loaded with calories. Make your own smoothies. Those made commercially usually contain fattening syrups, but your home-made smoothies (without the gunk) are very healthy. Use all the garlic, oregano, etc. that you want. Eating healthy doesn't mean you can't pack your food with flavor. Pack a sandwich made with whole-grain bread for lunch. Breads with high fibre make you feel fuller than white bread. Get at least 25 grams of fibre every day. Not only does it ward off disease, but it actually blocks the absorption of calories. Don't be fooled by "fat free" labels. Many of these foods contain a lot of sugar, which eventually turns into fat anyway. Don't fall into the "it's okay to eat chicken" trap. The Crispy Chicken and Filet o' Fish sandwiches at McDonalds each contain more than twice the fat of a McDonald's hamburger. If you need whipped cream, whip up chilled evaporated skim milk - your creation will contain only half a gram of fat per cup. Use extra water in hot cereals to reduce the amount of milk and butter you use. Use seasoned rice vinegar on salads and veggies. It tastes similar to oil and vinegar, but is is fat-free and has very few calories. Cook rice in a mixture of half water, half fruit juice to give it subtle flavor without butter and salt. Use freshly ground nutmeg or another seasoning instead of salt. Substitute pureed tofu for two thirds of the butter in cake and cookie recipes.
This will cut out 43 grams of saturated fat.
Nutrition in Chinese food.
Here are some dishes ranked them from highest amount of calories from fat
to the lowest. This is American served Chinese food by the way.
Egg Roll (11g fat).
Most of the fat comes from the fried wonton wrapper that surrounds the smidgen
of vegetables and pork or shrimp. The one nice thing about an egg roll is
that it's not likely to have any cholesterol-laden eggs.
Moo
Shu Pork (64g fat).
(Pork, stir-fried with vegetables and egg and served with thin pancakes.)
There's no reason for Moo Shu to be this fatty. After all, it averages three
times more vegetables than pork. So why the 64 grams of fat? And why a higher
percent of calories from saturated fat than any other dish? Blame it on
the oil in which all those veggies are stir-fried. While you're at it, you
can blame all the cholesterol on the eggs, an average of two per order.
Kung Pao Chicken (76g fat).
(Diced chicken, stir-fried with peanuts.) The average Kung Pao contained
almost a quarter-pound of peanuts. That's 118 grams of fat (almost two days'
worth), not to mention 1,400 calories. Ugh.
Sweet and Sour Pork (71g fat).
(Batter-dipped pork, deep-fried then stir-fried with pineapple.) This was
the only entree to average less than l,000 mg of sodium. Heck. It was the
only one under 2,000 mg! That's probably because it's loaded with sugar.
Vegetables were sparse, averaging about a half cup.
Beef with Broccoli (46g fat).
(Sliced beef stir-fried with broccoli.) They averaged more than a half pound
of beef. The dish also was one of the four members of the "3,000 Club" (milligrams
of sodium, that is).
General Tso's Chicken (59g fat).
(Flour-coated chicken, stir-fried.) This dish's 3,000+ milligrams of salt
tops your 2,400-mg daily limit in one chicken swoop.
Orange (Crispy) Beef (66g fat).
(Flour coated beef, stir-fried) Expect a lot of meat and very few veggies.
You get more than a day's sodium, a day's fat and cholesterol, and a half-day's
saturated fat.
Hot and Sour Soup (4g fat).
(Pork, tofu, and egg in broth.) If only you could remove the egg. That's
where half your daily cholesterol allowance is. But most restaurants prepare
their soups ahead of time. You won't be able to remove the 1,100 mg of sodium
per cup, either. Or the MSG that's in soup and most everything else on Chinese
restaurant menus. Unless the menu says that the restaurant doesn't use MSG,
you're almost certainly going to get it in your food, no matter what the
waiter says. That's because MSG is used in the sauces and stocks that are
prepared ahead of time, she says.
House Lo Mein (36g fat).
(Chicken, shrimp, beef, and pork, stir-fried with soft noodles.) 70% noodles
and 10% vegetables mean low in saturated fat. And most of the meat is chicken.
Too bad this was the saltiest dish we found.
House Fried Rice (50g fat).
You probably don't think cholesterol when you think Fried Rice. But only
Moo Shu Pork had more. When we picked apart the food, we saw why: an average
of one egg per order.
Chicken Chow Mein (32g fat).
(Chicken with Chinese Vegetables.) 55% veggies and 30% chicken.
Hunan Tofu (28g fat).
(Tofu, stir-fried in hot sauce.) The sauce only accounts for about a third
of the dish's fat. The rest comes from its pound of tofu. Veggies? Pretty
scarce. At least it has no cholesterol and not too much sat fat.
Shrimp with Garlic Sauce (27g fat).
(Shrimp, stir-fried with vegetables.) Only 4% of calories from saturated
fat (wow!), but more than a day's worth of cholesterol in each order (oof!).
This would sock you with close to 900 mg of cholesterol, three days' worth.
Stir-Fried Vegetables (19g fat).
(Vegetables and sauce.) You won't get much lower in saturated fat. And you
sure can't beat zero cholesterol. You're not likely to do better than its
2,150 mg of sodium, either.
- Eat only at the table.
- Don't munch on the couch or at the kitchen counter.
- Don't starve yourself!
- Skipping meals only tricks your body into thinking its survival is threatened, and it will hold onto its fat stores for dear life.
- Eat slowly and chew each bite completely to decrease your appetite.
- Eat three small meals and two snacks daily instead of two or three huge meals.
- Don't eat anything for the last three or four hours of your day.
- Once you've had dinner, be done for the night.
- Don't eat anything unnecessary. You don't need "all the fixings".
- Learn to control yourself at social affairs. Don't use them as an excuse to pig out. Be strong.
- Serve yourself normal portions of food. Three ounces of meat or a half cup of rice are plenty in one meal.
- Don't nibble on things throughout the day. Some titbits contain hundreds of calories.
- Use a smaller plate than usual for dinner. You'll feel like you ate more than you actually did.
- Don't work while eating.
- Separate all of your activities from your meals, so you can concentrate on what and how much you're eating.
- Beware of the wall you may hit at 3:00 p.m. Many people feel the urge for a caffeine or sugar lift at this time.
- Have some fruit or crackers on hand to combat this.
- Don't eat a single bite while preparing meals. Chew gum, if it helps.
- Never get seconds. Make a habit of stopping after one plate of food.
Put leftovers away immediately to avoid further grazing. - Read labels carefully. Some low fat items are very high in calories.
- To slow yourself down, eat with the opposite hand you usually eat with.
Beauty Recipes
Here are a few ways that we can use food... without eating it.
Add 1/4 cup of pure vanilla extract to a warm bath.
Vanilla has the ability to lift spirits and revive.
Take a handful of pine needles and place them in the foot of old panty hose.
Knot around the
faucet and let the pine hydrate under running bath water.
Apple Tart Soap Recipe
4 oz. Clear, Unscented Glycerine Soap
1 Tablespoon Liquid Soap
1 teaspoon Liquid Glycerine
1/2 teaspoon Apple Fragrance Oil
2 drops Red Food Color
1/2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
Melt soap in small pan over low heat or in a glass cup in the microwave.
Add Liquid Soap and glycerine and stir gently but well. Add fragrance, color
and cinnamon.
Stir and let stand a couple minutes,
just enough to start to thicken so when you stir again the
cinnamon will be more evenly distributed.
Pour into molds.
Allow to set completely (in or out of freezer).
Wrap in plastic wrap or use cellophane candy bags.
Carrot Facial Mask
Ingredients Needed:
2-3 large carrots
4 1/2 tablespoons honey
Directions:
Cook carrots,
then mash.
Mix with honey.
Apply gently to the skin,
wait 10 minutes.
Rinse off
with cool water.
Dark Circles Under Eyes
To lighten dark circles under your eyes,
wrap a grated raw potato in cheesecloth
and apply to eyelids for 15-20 minutes.
Wipe off the residue and apply an eye cream.
Fruity Lip Gloss
Ingredients:
2 Tbls solid shortening
1 Tbls fruit-flavored powdered drink mix
35 mm film container
Mix shortening & drink mix together in a microwave safe bowl till smooth!
Place in microwave on high for 30 seconds until mix becomes a liquid!
Pour into clean (wash thoroughly before use) film container, or any other
small airtight container!
Place mix into fridge for 20-30 minutes or till firm!
Minty Fresh Massage Oil
10 tsp. grapeseed oil
3 drops eucalyptus oil
4 drops rosemary oil
2 drops peppermint oil
This is a green-scented massage oil.
Blend ingredients well.
Pour into a small bottle and seal well.
Warm up oil before doing any massage.
White Nails
To whiten your nails, try these:
* Use a common whitening toothpaste. Try scrubbing your nails with Pearl
Drops, it's just as easy as achieving a pearly white smile and will take
away any stains and shine up your nails.
* Soak your nails in water with lemon juice or lemon slices. The lemon acts
as an astringent and will strip away stains. Once your hands are dry, you'll
only need to put on a couple of coats of a clear topcoat.
Wrinkle Remover
Green Thompson seedless grapes! It has one of the ingredients in those big
time expensive wrinkle creams.
All you do is cut a grape in half and gently crush it on your face and neck.
Make sure that you get the "crows-feet" and the lines around your mouth.
Leave it on for twenty minutes or so and rinse with tepid water and pat
dry.
Repeat every day and before you know it... those nasty old lines will be
hard to find!
Don't forget to drink at least 8 glasses of water daily. And... eat veggies
rich in Vitamin A, such as carrots, celery and spinach.
If you can, get 8 hours of sleep every night.
Homemade Hair Spray
Chop one lemon (or an orange for dry hair).
Place in a pot with 2 cups water.
Boil until half of the initial amount remains.
Cool,
strain,
and place in a spray bottle. Store in the refrigerator.
If it is too sticky, add more water.
Add one ounce rubbing alcohol as a preservative and then the spray can be
stored for up to two weeks unrefrigerated. Anti-
Cellulite Massage Oil
Measure out 120ml of Sweet Almond Oil in a glass jar.
Add 20 drops Juniper Berry,
20 drops Grapefruit juice,
10 drops Fennel,
10 drops Cypress.
Mix well and store.
To use: Massage some of the oil into the cellulite area.
Work deeply into the tissues to help smooth out the bumpy and dimpled skin.
Do this once a day.
Healing Mask:
Add 1 tablespoon of finely ground almonds,
2 tablespoons of cornflour,
1 teaspoon honey,
1 drop Juniper,
1 drop Chamomile,
and 1 drop Lavender.
Mix all the ingredients together,
adding enough water to the mixture to form a soft paste.
Spread the mask mixture over your face and neck.
Lie down with pads of cottonwool soaked in cooled chamomile tea over your
eyes.
Relax for 10 to 15 minutes and enjoy!
Wash the mask off in lukewarm water,
followed by a splash of cool water.
| "Eat to live, but don't live to eat." "A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!" "There will be long, lean days ahead.... Desire can be quelled by a single act of will..." "Your mind should always be on your diet" "This is forever. I will do whatever it takes. I want to be thin more than anything, even food..." "We are prisoners of our taste buds..BREAK FREE" "I, the hunger artist, rarely disappoint my audience" "Eating is out of the question" "Let them waste their time talking and eating and getting silly with drink. I prefer to stay home. My abs need work" "One day I will be thin enough. Just the bones, no disfiguring flesh. Just the pure clear shape of me, bones. That is what we all are, what we're made up of and everything else is just storage, deposit, waste. Strip it away, use it up." "The more they give me, the less I'll eat" "Only two options: to eat or not to eat" "I see myself very clearly..somewhere between fat and thin, but not yet perfect" "Why can't they realize my strength? How much it's taken to make so little of myself" "Most women live their lives in a state of starvation..Why should I be any different?" "In the body, as in art, perfection is attained not when there's nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to take away" "I do eat normally. I can't help it if everyone else is constantly stuffing themselves" "I'm just perfecting my emptiness" "I've freed myself from this compulsion of eating" "Do what you need to now, so you can have light, thin days later" "Animals in nature eat only one food at a time. Not like us humans. We eat everything we can get our hands on, including them" "Everyone is just jealous because I can control myself" "Don't do anything today you'll regret tomorrow" "Nothing is so bad that losing weight won't cure" "quod me nutrit me destruit" (what nourishes me also destroys me) |
Myths
Myth: I wish I could be anorexic for a month,
just so I could lose a few pounds."
Fact: I wish I could have been anorexic for
just a month, too! The fact is, an eating disorder is not something you
can just turn off and on at will when it's convenient for you. An eating
disorder is not a conscious decision. If you feel that you want to be anorexic,
think about why you "need" to lose weight so badly.
Myth: "You're just doing it for attention. People
100 years ago didn't worry about this stuff."
Fact: People with eating disorders tend to be
very secretive about their habits; the last thing they want is for someone
to notice and take it away from them. While it is true that peoples' priorities
have changed, eating disorders have existed for centuries. Today's society
does place an obscene amount of importance on body image, but an eating
disorder is on a whole other level, and isn't realy about weight at all.
Myth: "You just need to go to the hospital-they'll
fatten you up, and you'll be just fine."
Fact: Most eating disorder programs take an
authoritarian approach, which, although it may see to work temporarily,
often only teaches the individual to be even more sneaky. Since food is
not the real issue, forced feeding is often futile, as the anorexic eats,
but with every intention of losing the weight as soon as they go home. Hospitalization
may be a necessary evil in cases where an individual's life is at stake,
but unless they really want to get better, the effects will only be temporary.
Myth: if you just think positively, you won't
be depressed!
Fact: you can't get yourself out of depression.
it's a chemical thing. yes, changing your thought patterns helps, but it's
not all about the pollyanna mindset.
Myth: treatment makes you get fat.
Fact: treatment makes you whole and happy again.
Myth:"You just need to eat"
Fact: yeah, it's that simple - i wish. thruth
behind ED's is that it's about control. NOT FOOD. food ends up beinging
the one thing a person w/ an ED feels they can control in their life and
because it's the ONLY thing, it becomes the entire focus of all their attention,
energy, and emotion. it's easier to focus on one thing that's easy (relatively
speaking) to control, compared to many things which are completely out of
our control.
Myth: "It's all in your head"
Fact: no. plain and simple. no it's not. this
is a *real* problem that is masking OTHER *real* problems. this is not something
that will simply go away if you will it to.
Myth: "If your not emaciated, you're not sick
enough"
Fact: you are sick the instant you regularly
engage in this type of thinking, habits, etc. this is not the actions/thoughts/feelings
or a person who is totally healthy. something is wrong when someonw chooses
to take this path, whatever their weight may be. the DSM guidelines to the
criteria for diagnosing an ED are quite archaic and bullshit entirely. they
badly need to be updated and compleatly overhauled. DO NOT LET A DOC THAT
READS STRICTLY FROM THE DSM TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT SICK. if they do,
slap them in the eye w/ a dead fish and waggle your in their face because
that's what kind of insane treatment an insane statement as that deserves
- ESPECIALLY from a medical professional.
Myth: Only females have eating disorders.
Fact: Although the majority of people with an
eating disorder are female, the numbers of males are increasing significantly.
Myth: Only good little rich girls become anorexic.
Fact: Although anorexia appears more pronounced
in times of plenty, culture is currently preoccupied with thinness and many
young women, regardless of their background and status, have bought into
this obsession.
Myth: Bulimia is a good way to lose weight -
to have your cake and eat it too.
Fact: Bulimia is a poor weight reduction method.
First, it doesn't work (as was concluded in a London study of 500 bulimics
where a weight gain of 7-10 pounds occurred for each) and secondly, it is
very dangerous and creates an altered biochemical state predisposing one
to numerous physiological and psychological problems.
Myth: Bulimia is only true of those who consume
huge amounts of calories (1,000-30,000) in one sitting and then throw up
immediately afterward.
Fact: Bulimia is a word used to describe people
whose eating is out of control. A binge may be as small as several cookies
or as large as three bags of groceries. People who are bulimic think about
food, feel guilty about it, binge, then think about how to get rid of the
food/weight -- any number of methods are used ... purging through vomiting
or the use of laxatives and/or diuretics, exercise, sleeping it off, and/or
fasting for the next several hours or days.
Myth: Compulsive overeating is not as serious
a problem as anorexia or bulimia. (In fact, most obese people are jolly.)
Fact: Those who are compulsive overeaters have
an equally difficult struggle with their life and suffer from numerous physical
problems and emotional strain. Heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes
and depression are only a few of the potential consequences of compulsive
overeating.
Myth: If you have an eating disorder you will
always have an eating disorder -- it will be a lifetime struggle and process
of recovery.
Fact: Although many persons who seek treatment
for their eating disorder still think about food and losing weight, these
same persons can achieve a new perspective on life which allows them to
live life fully -- without being obsessed and driven by their thoughts and
feelings.
Myth: There is a deep underlying pathology that
must be uncovered before getting well. (You need to know why you have an
eating disorder.)
Fact: Knowing why you have an eating disorder
and getting into the details of your problem won't bring about resolution.
Resolution comes through rediscovering contentment, your own innate wisdom
and your capability for making healthy positive choices.
Myth: You are helpless, inadequate and powerless
over your life and your eating disorder.
Fact: Although someone with an eating disorder
"feels" helpless, dependent and powerless, no one is. We all have what we
need to feel OK, adequate and whole. Dwelling on our "helpless thoughts
seriously limits our potential to experience our unlimited capabilities.
Myth: Being thin will mean being happy.
Fact: Being happy is within you. It is a state
of mind you create that is not dependent on anything else. You can be happy
regardless of your weight or circumstances.
Myth: "It's Barbie's fault! Every little girl
wants to look like her!"
Fact: I think people target this doll because
she pretty much embodies the messages we give to little girls about beauty.
However, I played with Barbies, but I was well aware that she was a doll,
and I never wanted to be 11 1/2" tall, with shoes that always fell off,
and a boyfriend with plastic underwear (in fact, I have never met anyone
whose eating disorder was caused by a doll). The idea behind this myth is
that our culture values thinness, therefore people have eating disorders.
I do blame society for most people's, especially women's, unhappiness with
their bodies, but there is a difference between losing weight to fit this
ideal and losing weight to the point of emaciation. Children are more likely
to be influence by the way their family and peers react to weight issues.
This includes boys as well as girls, older people as well as younger.
Myth: "You don't have an eating disorder unless
you're really skinny."
Fact: This is one of the most harmful assumptions
about e.d.'s because it might prevent "normal-looking" people who may nevertheless
be very unhealthy from seeking help. Although losing 25% of your body weight
is a symptom of anorexia, it is only one symptom. Starvation alone does
not make one anorexic; the real disorder is in the mind, and the thinking
patterns can continue even if the individual is well-nourished.
Myth: "The best little girl in the world"
Fact: Oh, this is one of my favorite stereotypes
to rip apart-just ask my Mom! Seriously, though, while I do have standards
for myself, I don't think they're unreasonable. You might be thinking of
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which many people with e.d.'s also have.
In fact, the symptoms of my eating disorder are the only things I have been
unreasonably and irrationally inflexible about. Granted, people with e.d.'s
often feel guilty for problems that aren't theirs, and often put others'
needs before their own because it is their nature to be what is considered
oversensitive. However, I am not "perfect" by any means; I can be a total
snot when I want to, so I don't want to mislead you into thinking that I'm
some delicate little doll.
Myth: "It's the parents' fault, especially the
mother."
Fact: I wish professionals would think of the
unnecessary pain they've cause my mother and the parents of other people
with e.d.'s. True, parents are a major influence on their childrens' eating
habits and attitudes towards weight. Statistics show that most mothers who
hate their bodies will have daughters who do the same (I've heard of mothers
teaching their daughters how to throw up-in this supposedly "enlightened"
age!). Although some people may try to lose weight for external reasons,
a person with an eating disorder is driven my something inside themselves,
not by the media, their parents, or their friends.
Myth: "Fat people just need to get off their
lazy butts and get some willpower. All they need to do is eat less and exercise
more."
Fact: There is almost nothing that makes me
angrier than hearing things like this. There are different reasons why people
become overweight, and some may be able to lose the weight with no problem.
No matter what the reason, though, why is it anyone else's business? It
does take some initiative on the part of the individual, but stopping the
unhealthy habits should be the goal, not weight loss. This is every bit
as harmful as telling an anorexic to "Just eat."
Myth: "I wish I could be anorexic for a month,
just so I could lose a few pounds."
Fact: I wish I could have been anorexic for
just a month, too! The fact is, an eating disorder is not something you
can just turn off and on at will when it's convenient for you. An eating
disorder is not a conscious decision. If you feel that you want to be anorexic,
think about why you "need" to lose weight so badly.
Myth: "You're just doing it for attention. People
100 years ago didn't worry about this stuff."
Fact: People with eating disorders tend to be
very secretive about their habits; the last thing they want is for someone
to notice and take it away from them. While it is true that peoples' priorities
have changed, eating disorders have existed for centuries. Today's society
does place an obscene amount of importance on body image, but an eating
disorder is on a whole other level, and isn't realy about weight at all.
Myth: "You just need to go to the hospital-they'll
fatten you up, and you'll be just fine."
Fact: Most eating disorder programs take an
authoritarian approach, which, although it may see to work temporarily,
often only teaches the individual to be even more sneaky. Since food is
not the real issue, forced feeding is often futile, as the anorexic eats,
but with every intention of losing the weight as soon as they go home. Hospitalization
may be a necessary evil in cases where an individual's life is at stake,
but unless they really want to get better, the effects will only be temporary.
Myth: "Vegetarianism is a sign of an eating
disorder."
Fact: Ah, another touchy one for me! Most inpatient
programs believe this muth, but really, forcing someone to go against their
belief system is cruel and counterproductive. I think many people with eating
disorders give up flesh-eating because we are generally more sensitive,
and are repulsed by the thought of eating dead animals. Malnutrition is
caused by a lack of food in general, not by a lack of meat. In fact, a balanced
vegetarian diet is far more healthy than one with flesh. Vegetarianism is
about respect for life, and eating disorders are the complete opposite.
Myth: "Anorexia affects mainly white, upper-middle
class teenage girls."
Fact: It would be nice if I were "upper-class,"
but the fact that I am a white teenage girl has nothing to do with my eating
disorder. It is somewhat true statistically, but this may have more to do
with facing too many choices and expectations at a young age. Also, statistics
only count sufferers who seek treatment. Many people do not because they
cannot afford to, or because their culture sees it as something to be ashamed
of. I have met people of every race, age, and economic background, male
and female. The one thing we all have in common is the self-loathing that
drives us to the eating disordered behaviors.
Myth: "Eating disorders are caused by traumas
such as abuse, divorce, or death of a loved one."
Fact: Victims of abuse do often resort to self-destructive
behaviors to deal with their pain. However, not every person with an eating
disorder has been abused, and vice-versa. Again, while dealing with the
abuse is necessary, an eating disorder develops from the individual's interpretation
of the event. Ironically, some victims may not even feel traumatized, since
they feel that they deserved to be abused. There is some truth to this,
but it doesn't apply to everyone.
Myth: "Eating disorders can never be cured,
only managed."
Fact: Believe it or not, I hear this most often
from so-called "professionals," and it saddens me. A hospital staff member
actually had the nerve to tell the mother of a friend of mine that her daughter
was "going to be one of the 30% that spends their life in and out of hospitals."
I think this may be the professionals' way of saying that they simply don't
know what to do anymore, and instead of admitting that, they put the blame
on the patient. Their frustration is completely understandable, and it would
be much better if they referred the patient to another doctor rather than
giving the message of hopelessness.
Myth: Only teenage girls suffer from eating
disorders.
Fact: Many eating disorders do begin in the
teenage years, but children, men, older women and just about anyone can
fall victim to this terrible disorder.
Myth: You can never fully recover from an eating
disorder.
Fact: Recovery takes a long time, but with hard
work and the proper treatment, you can fully recover from your eating disorder.
Myth: Eating disorders are solely a problem
with food.
Fact: With all eating disorders, weight is the
focus of life. By focusing on food, weight and calories, a person is able
to block out or numb painful feelings and emotions. Some use food as a way
to comfort themselves. Eating disorders are NOT a problem with food. They
are in fact only a symptom of underlying problems.
Myth: Bulimics always purge by vomiting.
Fact: Not all bulimics try to rid themselves
of the calories they have consumed by vomiting. Purging can take the form
of laxatives, diuretics, exercising, or fasting.
Myth: You can always tell someone is anorexic
by their appearance.
Fact: Not all anorexics look like the extreme
cases shown on talk shows, etc. Some anorexics may be anywhere from 5 to
15 lbs. underweight. They look thin, but they do not have what society considers
to be the "anorexic" look. Just because someone does not look emaciated,
does not mean they are not anorexic or that their health is not in danger.
Myth: Anorexics do not eat candy, chocolate, etc. Fact: Many anorexics do
avoid such foods, but some do eat them on a regular basis. If an anorexic
decides to only allow him/herself 300 calories a day, they may very well
choose to eat a chocolate bar, candy, etc.
Myth: Anorexics do not binge or purge
Fact: Many anorexics will go on occasional binges
and purge. Some anorexics can become so fearful of any food or drink that
they will purge whatever they put into their system, including water. Myth:
You cannot die from bulimia. Fact: Bulimics are at a high risk for dying,
especially if they are purging, using laxatives and doing excessive exercise.
Many bulimics have died from cardiac arrest which is usually caused by low
potassium or an electrolyte imbalance. Others have dies from a ruptured
esophagus.
Myth: People with eating disorders do this to
hurt their family and friends.
Fact: People with eating disorders are doing
this to themselves. They are usually very upset when they know the people
around them are worried or hurt by their eating disorder.
Myth: Compulsive eating is not an eating disorder.
Fact: It is very much an eating disorder and
is just as serious as anorexia and bulimia.
Myth: Compulsive eaters are just lazy people.
Fact: Compulsive eating is a way to cope just
like anorexia and bulimia are. A person uses food as a way to comfort or
numb themselves, block out feelings and emotions, etc. They are not lazy!
They are people in emotional pain trying to cope using the only way they
know how. Like anorexia and bulimia, they need proper treatment to overcome
it. They do not need to be sent to health spas and diet clinics.
Myth: People cannot have more than one eating
disorder.
Fact: Many people have more than one eating
disorder. It is very common for someone to suffer with more than one eating
disorder. That just proves that the eating behaviors are only the symptoms,
not the problem.
- make you think you've lost weight, but it's really just water and minerals
- only empties your colon, not the small intestine and stomach where most calories are absorbed
- bloat you
- make you addicted, b/c you want to get rid of the bloating and feel empty
- screw your electrolytes up
- nauseate you
- give you horrid heartburn
- make your skin break out
- make your eyes bloodshot
- give you headaches
- give you irregular heartbeat
- make you black out/pass out
- cause you to lose control of your bowels in your sleep
- cause you to lose control of your bowels whenever!!
- give you horrible cramps
- diarrhea for up to 3 days
- constipate you really bad when you stop
- give you a heart attack
- make you smell bad
- make your toilet filthy
- give you back pains
- cause varicose veins
- cause your intestines to lose their motility, possibly forever
- just generally make you feel terrible
- make you not want to go out b/c you're too busy crapping your guts out
- you never know when they'll kick in
- cause hemmorhoids/rectal bleeding
- cause you to GAIN weight
- ruin your good undies
- make you gassy
- make your intestines make loud noises whenever they want
- make you make godawful noises when you're on the toilet
- kill you
- MORE.... Long-term laxative use on your body? Long-term use of laxatives can damage nerve cells in the colon, interfering with its ability to contract, and thus making it harder to pass stools. Also, when you take laxatives regularly, your bowel muscles can become accustomed to responding to signals from the laxative rather than from your body. That, in turn, can cause you to become constipated when you stop taking the laxative, leading to a cycle of dependence. Furthermore, chronic use of mineral oil, often used as a laxative, can deplete the body of fat- soluble vitamins, namely A, D, E and K.
- Americans spend $725 million a year on laxatives, and in most cases
this is an unnecessary expenditure. For instance, many people believe
they are constipated if they do not have a bowel movement every day. That
simply isn't so. Normal frequency of bowel movements varies from person
to person and can mean anything from three times a day to three times
a week.
True symptoms of constipation include dramatic changes in bowel habits or continual, painful straining to eliminate small, hard stools. In some cases, such symptoms can be signs of an underlying problem like an internal obstruction. If you experience these symptoms, you should consult your physician. - More commonly, however, constipation results from poor diet, lack of
exercise or other lifestyle factors. Ignoring the need for a bowel movement,
for example, can cause constipation because the stool that should have
been passed sits in the large intestine, where water is drawn away from
it. The stool then becomes harder and dryer and more difficult to pass.
- To relieve constipation without laxatives (and to help prevent it occurring in the first place) try the following remedies:
- Eat plenty of fiber. Insoluble fiber, found in relatively high levels
in foods like whole wheat and bran, adds bulk to stools and decreases
the amount of time it takes for waste to pass through the intestine. And
soluble fiber, more abundant in fruits and vegetables, acts like a sponge
to attract water, forming softer stools that are easier to pass.
- Drink plenty of fluids — at least eight 8-ounce glasses a day. Liquids add fluid to the colon and bulk to the stool. Plenty of water and other liquids are particularly important if you are consuming a high-fiber diet to avoid causing constipation. Fiber and fluid together are what help keep things moving smoothly.
- Keep active. The muscles in the large intestine seem to work better when other muscles in the body are exercised.
Buy All Natural Laxatives for Constipation Relief.
Types of Laxatives
Bulk-forming
By absorbing water in the intestine, bulk-forming laxatives increase the
volume and softness of faeces. Stimulant
These drugs stimulate the wall of the intestine to contract, thereby quickening
the time it takes to pass faeces.
Lubricant
Lubricant laxatives soften faeces and therefore make them easier to pass.
Osmotic
Osmotic laxatives cause fluid to be retained in the intestine, which increases
the water content and volume of the faeces.
Like Mother
Like Daughter?
Our mothers often give us our first cues about our bodies. So what happens
when a severe eating disorder keeps your mom hospitalized for most of your
life? Writer and Sundance-featured filmmaker Hope Hall shares her struggle
to embrace and understand her bulimic and anorexic mother, and to overcome
the eating problems she inherited. My mother has been anorexic and bulimic
all of my life, and most of hers. She is 59; I am 29. When I was seven,
my father filed for divorce and sued for custody of my sister, brother,
and me. In a time when mothers normally gained custody, de facto, he won.
She was deemed unfit to care for us, proven by her unsuccessful attempt
at being a single mother the year before. That year was a watery memory
of smelly good night kisses, open containers of food lining the kitchen
counter, tiny portions furtively saved as leftovers, strict lists of expected
or denied food items, and formal, gourmet dinners (a dark, wood table set
with china, hardly a word spoken). To round out the picture, you must understand
that my mother is also an alcoholic and the daughter of a man who was at
the very least, verbally abusive. As I piece my mom's life together from
confusing stories and ever-unfolding accounts, I discover that she attempted
suicide more than once as a mother and again after she lost us, and suffered
at the hands of doctors and kin who treated her various maladies with forced
eating, electric shock treatment, straitjackets and verbally abusive comments
like, "just eat, goddammit." For the majority of my life, I was
sheltered from her. My older brother and sister were the parental figures
in my life. I thought I would not be affected by my mother and her destructive
habits but she'd already had a profound affect on me before I was old enough
to know it. I Went from Imitation to DenialAs a toddler, I stored food in
my cheeks for hours after a meal. My sister says because I grew up never
seeing my mom swallow, I was following her lead. I was an unbelievably quiet
child, speaking rarely, shyly. I chewed meticulously, waiting to swallow
until the food felt just ready to slip down my throat. My sister would stay
with me to help me keep eating, my plate still full, the table cleared.
She would pick a number, usually 40, and count my chews until we got there.
Then I was to swallow. I remember asking for 20 more chews and getting them.
I only liked a few foods: Ovaltine, toast, Pop Tarts, and peanut butter.
I did not like other foods: I detested corn and hot dogs most of all. I
was waifish, drifting about the house in a white nightgown, and always the
smallest and most quiet of my class. As a teenager in a big, loving, loud
family, I came out of my shell. In my heart, my mom didn't really exist.
I always carried sadness from the night, I was 11, when my father came to
my bed and told me that my mom was in the hospital and might die. From then
on, I accepted that she was gone. "Her Eating Disorder Was Destroying
Our Lives" We went to visit her twice a year, per the court agreement.
We stayed with her parents because her place was too small (a dorm room
she called the "black hole of Calcutta"), or perhaps because her
behavior was too upsetting. I tried to repress memories of my mother's reality
and those tense hospital visits with the excitement of my own junior high
school life, filled with giddy crushes on boys, long bike rides and palm
trees. Eventually the latent sadness inside and all around me became too
huge to ignore. At 15, I began to put faces and words to this emptiness,
to the space where my mother was supposed to be. As a teenager, my estranged
relationship with mother was awkward. When I did visit her, I felt more
like her mother than her daughter. It felt like she was my responsibility,
like she needed me to help her define who she was. Rather than face the
fact that my mother's eating disorder was destroying all of our lives, I
constructed crude, dramatic, explanations for her disappearance and detached
behavior.When I returned to my own pleasant existence, she seemed dead.
Like Mother, Like Daughter?Meanwhile, an incredible fear seeped ever deeper
into my bones: I would become like my mother one day. Eating became my symbolic
attempt to identify with her. If I left food on my plate, all eyes were
on it and brains spun tales that lead to the conclusion that I was starving
myself. My unbelievably skinny arms, the ribs poking through my shirt, and
the sharp line of my shinbone were clues that I tried to hide. They were
not emblematic of any other problem than the looming spectre of my inherited
sickness. I have never made myself throw up, seen myself as overweight,
or even dieted. I have often seen myself as too skinny and regimented myself
to try to gain weight. But my relationship to my body and to my emotional
figure was wrapped too tightly in my mother's eating disorders. Healing
MyselfOver the past few years, I have liberated myself somewhat from the
overbearing assumptions of my tangled mind and its machinations, but only
through nearly 15 years of intense dialogue with my mother, counselors,
friends and family. I have covered the most ground with my mom, who has
stayed up nights with me, cried and listened and explained tirelessly, and
ultimately heeded my loudest call, that of the desire to have her as a mother,
not a figurative daughter.
I have yet to figure out how to wrest my behavior from the web of caring
for a sick mother. I complacently excuse her for placing her disease before
me. I tell her that I love her, and that the love I give is not contingent
on her getting well. I try not to pressure her, but instead to support her.
She says that I am helping her to become a mother. I do not truly believe
that she can support me in any sort of consistent way. Her touch does not
even console me. I have no way of separating this dynamic from that of my
other relationships, because I still want to define it as love. In this
way I am fearful, guilty, and a long way from forming healthy, adult relationships
with others. So, it seems that her legacy--and my burden--is that while
I worked so hard to gain her affection and closeness, the job that lies
before me is to let it, and her, go.