Posts filed under 'eating disorders'
The Devil Wears Prada meets a drill sergeant in this best-selling diet book, Skinny Bitch. Does that recipe sound unappealing to you, too?
Blech. It smacks of chick-lit friendly marketing with that totally hip touch of sass (read: swearing). So what is it really? A vegan diet book. Apparently it’s light on the recipes because it’s chock full of “tough-love for savvy girls”. Huh?
Look, I’m cool with veganism. And I’m all about eating less-processed foods. But it is a bald-faced lie to tell people that veganism will make everyone—no matter their body type or genetic profile—skinny. There can be health benefits that come along with cutting out meat and dairy, but that does not automatically result in elongated torsos, designer sunglasses, and a Hollywood-ready little black dress (right, front cover?).
Also, reading the title feels like chewing on tinfoil to me. There’s a lame smugness to it—it assumes that all non-skinny women are jealous of skinny ones, that all skinny women are bitches, that becoming skinny automatically lends you an air of superiority. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
It’s dumb female-to-female hostility dressed up as faux empowerment, and to me, that goes down worse than last night’s barbecued seitan.
-A.I.
March 25th, 2008
This is my diabetes kit. Dealing with the blood-sugar testing, hypoglycemic episodes, insulin-pump management and/or insulin injections is no party. But the consequences of NOT dealing with them are severe.
A couple years ago, I got a dreadful sinus infection, found myself trotting to the bathroom several times an hour, and dropped about 15 pounds in six weeks. I had developed Type 1 diabetes (a.k.a. insulin-dependent or juvenile diabetes). It felt weird to tell friends about my new disease. But the conversations kept bumping to an awkward halt, right around the time the other person said—and I am not making this up—”You lost 15 pounds? God, you’re lucky.” After I’d just explained that I have a chronic disease.
Not long after that, my sister called me and asked, “It’s really bad if you don’t take your insulin, right?” I launched into an explanation of the disastrous things that can result if a Type 1 diabetic doesn’t take insulin. She had a new friend, a woman in her 30s, who was diabetic and systematically did not treat it. The friend was obsessed with being skinny, my sister told me. It was the first time I even contemplated deliberately abusing this disease in the pursuit of the waifish figure I’d recently acquired.
Evidently there’s a name being (informally) used to describe the practice: diabulimia.
I have often said that I can’t imagine what it would be like to have this disease as a teenager. The urge to treat it like a new variety of eating disorder would be so tempting, especially in light of the compromised self-confidence that can be a side effect of a chronic disease.
But stop and think about the reason an insulin-dependent diabetic loses weight if she doesn’t take her insulin: The body doesn’t have a way to convert sugar into energy, so the body instead devours muscle and fat, in the process drastically weakening itself and kicking a large amount of toxins called ketones into the bloodstream. Meanwhile, the sugar that’s left adrift in the bloodstream is merrily wreaking havoc on as many organs and systems as it can.
The side effects of uncontrolled diabetes—aside from ketoacidosis, slow starvation, coma, and death—include nerve damage, kidney failure, heart disease, and blindness. As a woman, it’s dangerous to conceive a baby if you have high blood sugar because the fetus can develop severe birth defects; the rate of miscarriage is also higher than in the general population.
Being thin could never be worth any of that. I’ve said that in some ways I feel lucky to have Type 1 diabetes, because an enormous component of the treatment is simply leading a healthy lifestyle: eating mindfully, staying active, being aware of what’s going on with my body and asking questions when I have them. I realize that those people who said I was lucky to have a disease whose side effect was uncontrolled weight loss were just toeing the party line of our expectations of our bodies. Shouldn’t the main expectation be health?
-A.A.
Alison Aves is a professional writer, editor, and diabetes handler living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She can be contacted at alavessf@gmail.com.
June 28th, 2007
We came across a posting on the San Francisco Chronicle’s Daily Dish a few weeks ago, on Allegra Versace’s battle with anorexia. Here are some excerpts from the post:
Fashion queen Donatella Versace’s daughter Allegra is under medical care, battling a serious eating disorder.
Donatella, 52, has expressed her heartache and has admitted Allegra was being “consumed” by the illness, and pleaded with the media to “respect our pain.”
She says, “My daughter is very ill. Anorexia is consuming her and we are very worried. However, the doctors are doing all they can to snatch her away from this cruel disease and we have faith in them.
“Please think of us and respect our pain. Many mothers will know well what I am going through and what my daughter is risking.”
It’s disturbing to see this as gossip-worthy. Why is a disease a hot topic? Let’s say they found out that Allegra had breast cancer. Would they show her in her hospital bed, post-mastectomy, with a shaved head, struggling to recover? Second, Allegra’s mother runs one of the world’s top fashion companies. Will she see a connection between her daughter’s illness and the effects of the fashion industry on women’s body image? Here’s what Marcella, our eating disorders expert, had to say about it:
“I really dislike this type of coverage. There is always picture of the physically ill person so that we can look at her as some kind of circus freakshow. I am curious to see how and if this evolves. It just seems so twisted to have one of the top fashion designers’ daughters have an eating disorder. Right now, this story does not sit well for me because it is ignoring the obvious elephant in the room. I think it would be powerful if ‘Mom’ Donatella could perhaps see how toxic her line of work is for a growing girl around body image and make a statement about this and include more diversity in body shapes and sizes for her clothes and runway models.
I am glad there is more coverage on eating disorders in popular media, I just don’t like the way it is being covered, and many experts in the field hold my opinion.”
What do you think?
–A.J.
April 17th, 2007
So if you’ve read my Gym blog #1 and Gym blog #2 you can see by now that I’m very serious about eating disorders. I had anorexia nervosa for 10 years and have now been recovered for 10 years. I have never felt stronger. I have been doing public health work in this area for the community for the past 12 years. I also work for Kaiser Permanente as a Regional Health Coordinator, working in areas such as women’s health, perinatal health, domestic violence, and multiculturalism. Right now I am studying to get my Ph.D. in clinical psychology so that I can continue my work in the eating disorders field.
This issue was a big one here on our new blog, so I thought I’d give some tips. Here’s how to help a friend or loved one whom you suspect may have an eating disorder:
* Learn as much as you can about eating disorders. Read books, articles, and brochures. Gurze Books is a great publisher of books on eating disorders. “Life Without Ed” by Jenni Schaefer is a great book.
* Know the differences between facts and myths about weight, nutrition, and exercise. Knowing the facts will help you reason against any inaccurate ideas that your friend may be using as excuses to maintain her or his disordered eating patterns. The resources below can help you with this.
* Be honest. Talk openly and honestly about your concerns with the person who is struggling with eating or body image problems. Avoiding it or ignoring it won’t help!
* Be caring, but be firm. Caring about your friend does not mean being manipulated by her (or him). Your friend must be responsible for her or his actions and the consequences of those actions.
* Avoid making rules, promises, or expectations that you cannot or will not uphold. For example, “I promise not to tell anyone.” Or, “If you do this one more time, I’ll never talk to you again.”
* Compliment your friend’s wonderful personality, successes, or accomplishments. Remind your friend that “true beauty” is not simply skin deep.
* Be a good role model with regard to sensible eating, exercise, and self-acceptance.
* Tell someone. It may seem difficult to know when, if at all, to tell someone else about your concerns. Addressing body-image or eating problems in their beginning stages offers your friend the best chance for working through these issues and becoming healthy again. Don’t wait until the situation is so severe that your friend’s life is in danger. Your friend needs as much support and understanding as possible.
To learn more about eating disorders, go to http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org and http://www.something-fishy.org. Ask questions. Post a comment below, and if I can help, or know someone who can, I will be sure to respond!
– M.R.
March 12th, 2007
Back on February 4, I blogged about a dilemma one might face at the gym: What do you do when you think someone might be overexercising, at the risk of their health? And we got some very different responses. So I thought I’d just respond to them here and keep the conversation going. I hope you will chime in too!
Commenter #2, S:
The question I wanted to raise is: What if someone is in trouble and no one does anything? It wasn’t to look judge someone’s size. I can see how it could have been interpreted that way since I did mention the size of the woman. I apologize; exercise obsession can and does occur in people of all sizes. I am coming from this gym dilemma as a person who has recovered from anorexia nervosa. So believe me, I do understand.
I appreciate what RW said about exercise and body image. Unfortunately, most of us do exercise to achieve thinness. Studies show a physiological connection between eating disorders and excessive exercise and dieting. Many of us begin by dieting and exercising, but it can lead to a possible eating disorder, especially if what is driving these behaviors is unhappiness with ourselves and our physical appearance.
To see what their take is, I recently spoke to therapists who work with individuals with eating disorders and I received the following sage comments and advice: Patients with eating disorders say that no one else seems concerned about their problem, which helped them continue their denial. Denial is the hallmark feature of eating disorders. While it is true that people have the right to be as athletic as they want and have the right to make poor food/health choices, it is also true that some folks are acting out of illness.
Having our compassion, not judgment, is helpful. Eating disorders are the most lethal of all psychiatric disorders, and to ignore possible trouble due to misguided “political correctness,” or even just politeness, is tragic. Is it so terrible to merely ask, “Are you OK?”? If I see someone at the gym or McDonald’s who looks like they are going to pass out, regardless of size, I would want to approach them and ask if they are alright.
– M.R.
March 1st, 2007
