Anorexia: a closer look

Anorexia Nervosa is an eating disorder and a psychological disorder where dieting and controlling food intake becomes a preoccuation and main focus of the daily life. Some more key feautures are a distorted image of your own body, refusing to want to maintain a health body weight and also an intense fear of gaining weight. It can become very serious and severe, with thoughts about exercising, dieting, food, your body and purging becoming a full-time task and take up most of your day—leaving little time for friends, family, and other activities you used to enjoy. Life becomes a relentless pursuit of thinness and going to extremes to lose weight.

But no matter how skinny you become, it’s never enough. Because the main issue is not really about the food or the weight but the control and the (short) feeling of success that restricting food intake can give. Controlling the emotions of hunger can become almost euphoric and spending so much time thinking about weight and dieting becomes a 'safe place' where you do not have to face the hard emotions of other problems in your life. But the euphoria is shortlived and soon you will be facing even lower self-esteem, less control, depression and isolation along with an array of physical consequences!

While people with anorexia often deny having a problem, secrecy is a big part of disordered eating behavior, the truth is that anorexia is a serious and potentially deadly eating disorder. But remember - recovery from anorexia is absolutely possible and there is help to get! With proper treatment and support, you or someone you care about can break anorexia’s self-destructive pattern and regain health and self-confidence.

What are some common anorexic signs and symptoms?

• Preoccupation with food, planning meals and cooking for others
• Counting calories, weighing food and reading nutritional values before eating
• Lying about eating or avoiding events where food will be present
• Wearing baggy clothes to hide a rapid weight loss
• Secretive behavior about food, eating alone or in ritualistic ways, hiding or throwing away food
• Denial about weight loss and dieting
• Obsession about scales and the weight in numbers or measurements (such as sizes)

It is not crystal clear why some people will fall ill with anorexia, it can come from a range of factors such as genetics, sexual or physical abuse, low self-esteem or high-level athletics. It does not even have to be a clear reason for the disorder, somehow resticting food intake came into your life when you were at a low point - and it became a way of coping with hardships. We do know that it is more common in females, but remember it can effect people from all gender, social classes and ages! If untreated, you can go on for decades with a disordered eating pattern and I have met elderly women in treatment being up to 70 years old. But it is never a day to late to start recieving treatment!

Hope this gave some insights! Keep checking back, I will continue on in an upcoming post and guiding you through bulimia - 'til then - be as happy as you can be!

Consequences of anorexia

I will shortly be posting a longer article about anorexia, why it occurs, how to recognize the symptoms and how to take steps towards recovery. But I ran upon this image and just had to post it. I thought it was such a striking illustration of the physical consequences that anorexia has on your health. It is recognized as a mental disorder, but it is so important to remember that it has physical attributes and can actually be fatal! So please take care of yourselves and your loved ones!

How can I help a friend suffering from an eating disorder?

This is the most common question I get from people, how to helpfully assist someone with an eating disorder. It is a tricky matter because many times the person suffering does not admit to being ill or is neglecting to see what damage he or she is doing to his/her body with the disordered pattern of eating and living. Here are some very helpful tips for loved ones who wants to help:

• Offer to make the first phone call or doctor's appointment, ask your friend if it is OK for you to take the first step in getting help for your loved one
• Don't judge! This behaviour is caused by an illness and you need to respect that it is not a personal flaw
• Read and do research about eating disorders so that you have facts and information and know the background of the illness. This will get you more prepared for the battle
• Talk to your loved one in private, tell him/her how very concerned you are and that youi are aware that it is a serious and possible deadly condition
• Encourage them and tell your loved one that whenever he/she wants to talk about it - you will be there and ready to do so
• Be aware of the decieving behavior, people suffering from eating disorders can be very manipulating and secretive
• Do not give demands, ultimatums or get angry or aggressive - this will not assist your friend but can actually make him/her more secretive about the behaviors
• Remember to get help for yourself! You are not the only one who has a loved one suffering, and there is a lot of support out there for you as well! You might actually want to talk to a professional about your worries as well.

These are some of the tips I have found helped me as well as my freinds and family in our battle against anorexia. Do you have more tips? Please e-mail me, or comment here, and I'll add them as well :-)

A letter to ED

When I moved into my new apartment around christmas time I found some old writings and pictures I had saved in a special folder from my first time in treatment. Among those things was a handwritten letter I wrote to ED, the name I gave my eating disorder (abbreviaton of Eating Disorder). Reading it again today gave me the chills, what a tight grip he had me in and what he made me do. Reading this helps me to be even more confident that I never want to go back to that state of mind. Please excuse my language in the letter, ok here we go:

Aug 24th 2009
Dear Ed, I hate you! Before I met you I had everything. A social life, friends, family, success in school and an upcoming career in track and field. Then you came around and promised me you could improve all those things. If I followed your orders I would do better in school, jump higher at track meets, become more popular at parties and become heappier and healthier. You lied to me! Neither of those things came true!

Instead, because of you I stopped going out with my friends, stopped enjoying food and sweets, had to quit my track team and had to leave school to go to treatment. You made me want to die at times!
But I still believed your word and that you had my best in mind. Today I know better.

I never want to go back to a place were you can have power over me. I worked so hard to gain back everything that you took from me. I am going to work even harder to keep the ones I love close to me and to keep you out of my life. I deserv better than you, I deserv the best I can get.
Fuck you ED.

A college campus issue: eating disorders among students

It was during my freshman year in college my anorexia started escalating beyond my control. Trying to fit into my new college environment came at a high price, I wanted to achieve so much and be successful in so many areas at the same time; academics, social life and varsity track, so I almost ended up killing myself in the journey there. By the time I was admitted to an eating disorder treatment program the scale showed I had lost 40 pounds over the course of fall semester and was severely underweight. I had been so determined to not gain the feared freshman fifteen that I had ended up losing the double by the means of starving myself, purging after meals, using laxatives and running on the track two times a day. A series of events and a way of living I would not even wish upon my worst enemy.

Newly graduated high school students are right now having busy days arriving at college campuses all over the country to start their first semester away from home. Housing forms and meal plan papers are filled in and doorm rooms are decorated and furnished. Expectations are high and the process is many times as exhilarating as nervous, we all know that coming to college is supposed to be a life-changing experience. My college years were no exception, but it did not happen in the way I had planned it all out and I certainly did not count on having to be admitted to a hospital before the end of my first year.

I remember my freshman orientation week and the lectures we received regarding safety, avoiding drinking and driving and resisting overeating in the all-you-can-eat dining halls. Very legitimate warnings, but it makes me wonder where the ammunition is to fight the increasing prevalence of eating disorders among college students? The United States is a world leader in counts of deaths due to eating disorders and anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses and is the 3^rd most common chronic illness among adolescents. Entering college I knew neither of these things, nor did my parents. But we would soon find us more familiar with this issue than we had ever wanted or expected and we want to prevent other families from having to face the exact same battles. We need to fight the stigma that surrounds talking about mental disorders and we need to put prevention on the campus orientation curriculum. We owe it to the millions of young men and women around American college campuses that compromise the future of our nation.   

 

 

 

Those were the days!

Oh, the ideal woman in the fashion magazine has not always been heroin-chic-skinny á la Kate Moss. Check out this ad from the 50-60's when diets where a no-no and curves were bliss!

Ugly truth or beautiful lie?

Almost as far back as I can remember, anorexia and bulimia have had me in a tight grip. I have spent years and years of my life suffocating under these illnesses and the ideals of beauty and body that I so hard tried to achieve. After having to quit college a second time, and spent two long visits at two different treatment centers I have now made a commitment.
As of today I will treat my body and soul the way it deserves, and I will finish my college studies in physical therapy. I will blog about my experiences as a former eating-disordered young woman and I will try to push everyone around me to a healthier place and find acceptance of who I am :-)

Follow me on this trip exploring the skinny ideals of today's world..Why are they the way they are? How can we accpet ourselves and our beautiful bodies and not give in for the pressure that today 's ideals are having on us? How can we prevent young people from falling into the same trap that I (and many with me) have fallen into? Are we going to let eating disorder prevalence rise or are we going to do something about it?