How an Eating Disorder Begins

What's really wrong about this whole thing is that another journalist has already done this, and very recently (see : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6335077.stm for more details) What do these people think they're going to have to add to the debate ? They're not food obsessed, they know there's a end to the experiment, and hopefully, they're not in the grip of an eating disorder. Call it the "size zero debate" all you want, most people understand that anorexia is not a new thing and while it seems to be in the news more at the moment, giving an old condition a new name does not make it worthy of carrying out stupid experiments. Am I alone if wondering why a young woman would go on an eating regime like this if she didn't feel deep down that she wanted to see how much weight she could lose ? A dangerous experiment, one that may have long-lasting repurcussions.

I've always thought that not eating in itself, anorexia not nervosa, feeds the ED and vice-versa, that force-feeding yourself helps you eat. Not that it is that simple, but it is part of it. The rise in EDs is also related to the rise in what starts out as crash diets.

A few years ago Oxford or Cambridge university did a very interesting study with anorexics, giving them small doses of cortisone for the adrenal glands. It was a small study, around 80 patients, but they had an astounding success rate, of around 90% if I recall correctly, without any therapy, just hormone treatment. I theorize that a lot more "mental disorders" will be found out to be hormonal ones, just like people used to be sent to mental institutions for menopause (hysteria) and for hypothyroidism.

Did anyone see the show Work Out on Bravo last night?

There was a scene where a therapist came in to talk to people with eating disorders (mainly overeating) and I thought she said some really insightful things!

I liked what she said about how we treat ourselves and how we tend to beat ourselves up and stuff down emotions with food. She said to think about yourself like a 5 or 6 year old that you have to take care of, when that child is upset do you give them a candy bar and tell them to shut up? That really hit me.

And then she went on to talk about how people who do get down on themselves are usually attracted to people who treat them like they treat themselves because it feels so familiar.

I know, obvious concepts, but I just never realized them before. Take what you will from it!

HAHAHA! And then I went to read the next article on here and it's called TV: The Enemy of Weight Management.

HAHAHA! I'm a tube head, I admit it.

While I think it's great that people are trying to educate the public on eating disorders, going about it in this way kind of completely misses the point. People don't wake up and go "Hey, I've put on some weight, I'm going to become anorexic". It's a mental illness, not a diet. Spreading information is great, but this makes me a little uneasy because it might help perpetuate the idea that people with eating disorders are just spoiled rich kids with no "real" problems (yes, someone actually said that to me once.)

I've struggled with eating/exercise EDNOS and I think this experiment is sort of interesting. I got very addicted to working out for a while (I used to exercise for 4 hours a day) and it was like the more I worked out, the fatter I did feel. I figured I couldn't increase my exercise any more due to not having enough time in the day, so I tried to get thinner by eating less and less. It's not pretty...you get crabby and lightheaded and nauseous when you don't eat enough.

In a sense though, this experiment is sort of just like a diet...she knows it will end soon. If you truly have an ED, you don't view it as something that will end in two weeks. You don't think "Only two more weeks of this starving crap, then I can go back to being normal". It gets a lot more complex than that. Not to mention that a lot of the time, EDs aren't even about food. In my case, it was linked to control issues. I was struggling to find a job, my husband was controlling what I could/couldn't spend, I felt like I was pretty much good at nothing except working out. And since I was in control of the food budget, I could control what I ate. It made me feel like I was at least in control of SOMETHING, even if it was getting obsessive.

Wow! Scary.

It might have been just a journalistic feint, but the authors of both article and the BBC article seemed to get caught up in it. It left me with the impression that there's some positive feedback that takes place - to use Spectra's terms, the sense of being in control of something got kind of heady. It got me wondering if the line between being normal and being "food obsessed" is pretty thin.

I'm sure some of it was journalism and the author's awareness of how she was portraying her experiement, butat least in my experience, there's a lot more to it than that. When a person isn't eating, or is eating and throwing up, or taking diet pills or using laxatives or any of that stuff, it messes with your body on a chemical level. Weird things start to happen. Starving produces euphoria (doesn't mean it's good, but it still happens. Something to do with the brain and chemicals and stuff like that).

There was a study done on young men (volunteers)at the University of Minnesota to study the effects of starvation after WWII. The fewer calories the men were given and the more starved they became, the more obsessed they became with food. They would do things like read cookbooks, talk about food constantly, hoard things, dig through trash for food, etc. Then they actually began to diet and be very concerned with their weight and the shape of their bodies. Weird stuff happens internally when people don't get enough to eat.
I'm just running out the door or I would google the study for you. It's very interesting.

Quito said:
It might have been just a journalistic feint, but the authors of both article and the BBC article seemed to get caught up in it. It left me with the impression that there's some positive feedback that takes place - to use Spectra's terms, the sense of being in control of something got kind of heady. It got me wondering if the line between being nor[...]

When I was trying to maintain my lowest weight (a healthy weight but apparently too low for me) I was completely obsessed with food and exercise. I exercised at least a couple of hours a day, copied dozens of delicious sounding dessert recipes I never intended to make, got totally stressed out about going out to eat or being around tempting food, and talked about food, weight, exercise, and calories CONSTANTLY.

Some of this sounds so familiar.

Oh.. Very scary about eating disorder which I have not faced yet thank God

I've seen things like this take a hold of people and it's pretty scary. Just like our journalist friend has began to "lose her mind", thus the reason it makes it extremely difficult to talk to the person with a problem like this in "real life".

Just as scary is the phenomenon of "workout bulimia" like Spectra has told us about above. I find this to be just as common... if not more common than some of the other disorders. Of course, it's tough to catch many times because other people just think that the person is "hardcore"...

susan said:
When I was trying to maintain my lowest weight (a healthy weight but apparently too low for me) I was completely obsessed with food and exercise. I exercised at least a couple of hours a day, copied dozens of delicious sounding dessert recipes I never intended to make, got totally stressed out about going out to eat or being around tempting food, a[...]

Susan, same thing happened to me, and funny thing is, my weight wasn't that much lower at that time than my comfortable weight, just about 9-10lb less. I remember doing things like weighing a banana before eating to make sure it was exactly 2.5 oz and not more, and if it was, I'd cut some out and toss. Crazy.

I really am getting tired of these 'In just SIX weeks!!' type of slimming programmes. If you do any type of crash diet for six weeks of course you're going to be ill & get a messed up head.

I'm also bored with seeing the guinea pigs in these shows are women who don't have 9 - 5 jobs or full time familty responsibilities. We're not shown how 'normal' women cope on these diets, we're shown how presenters with few other life obligations cope on a food restriction project.

I'd really love to see a show following a woman in full time desk job trying to reach size zero over the course of a year.

It can get really tough when all you can think about is how fat you feel, no matter what the scale says. It's deceiving. I've gone all the way up and all the way down, and it does become like a sickness in the end.

Fasting for weeks at a time, workout bulimia, actual throwing-up bulimia, laxative abuse, obssessive weighing of food (like Jan's example with the banana), fretting constantly that I'll never be thin enough... collecting recipes for food I'll never cook and would never eat. Oh yeah... been there, done that, got the tiny T-shirt.

I can relate to all of the comments here. This type of obssession with food, exercise and dieting is all-consuming and such an incredible waste of time and energy.

To answer Quito - in my experience, the line between being normal and being "food obsessed" *is* pretty thin.

You've missed the point. The point is, most women are not MEANT to be a size zero,period. It doesn't matter if they have to starve for 6 weeks or a year to get there...it doesn't mean it's natural or right.

Slimr Reaper said:
I really am getting tired of these 'In just SIX weeks!!' type of slimming programmes. If you do any type of crash diet for six weeks of course you're going to be ill & get a messed up head.[...]

"Once the disorder gains a foothold, it wants to take over and move in permanently."

i can attest to that.

I am very disturbed that I go on this website for info on ED and there is advertisements for how to lose weight! Isn't that way too encouraging for those with ED?

Diane, while this blog deals with EDs, it is, as the name says, a diet blog, so most people come here looking for weight loss advice.

I recommend www.something-fishy.org for ED-specific help, and no weight loss ads.

this article is completely true. it's sad to hear me say this, but i've gotten to the point where i need to lose weight.

im in high school and my boyfriend past away last summer and back then i was 120 lbs and 5'6/5'7 and now one year later i am 135 and at the same height. i completely let myself go. i think it was due to my depression that i lost my boyfriend. i dont really know. but currently i am 130, and i dont know what else is there to do other than starve myself by not eating hardely anything at all. i want to get back to where i was, to 120 lbs. i would give anything to go back to normal.

Hi Nicole.

Yikes! Losing your boyfriend must have been horrible. I'm feel bad for you.

You probably don't believe me, but you don't need to lose weight. You're used to yourself at 120, but 5'6" and 130 lbs is a BMI of 21.

Don't starve yourself. Instead, work on getting strong, and on loving yourself.

Right now I'm feeling very tempted to just stop eating and to watch the pounds drop off rapidly over the next few weeks. But I know that its a dead-end road. I'd put the weight back on, it'd be bad for my health to lose the weight rapidly and then gain it equally rapidly. Not to mention, my mind would be totally messed up. So, no thank you, eating disorder.

I'm going to do it through exercise at the gym. I hate the guilt that comes from overeating, I hate the vicious cycle of binge-eating after a period of under-eating.

I've noticed how I always look fatter in pictures than in person, but its such a shame that people have become such photo-whores, showing off gorgeous photos of themselves on facebook.

It just upsets me sometimes when I see people placing so much importance on conventional good looks, like a slim figure, a small nose, perfect skin, big breasts. Surely personality and charm matter more, right? At least, to me they do.

Hey,,
Im a young teenage girl.. just so confused about life.
I Have been diagnosed with Ed-no's but to be honest i dont think i have got it.

I Have been starving myself since christmas or maybe even before. But i have been eating small snacks to keep me going. Its just like no-one gets it. Everyone around you seems to think u are doing the rong thing and just want to stop you.

I Just keep thinking to myself THINSPO.. makes things seem alot easier. This Is like my way out of all things that go rong in my life and i find it really helps.
I have just sunk into this depression and cant get myself out of it. Dont u just love the feeling of that empty stomach x

Thankyouu for listening.
wb soon x

Hello i am sarah, i havent been diagnosed with ednos, but i think i may have it. I am still eating reguarly but not eating as much as i used too. I Dont like to eat, i think it will make me fat, and i hate it. i would like to be skinnier. Thankyou for listening to me. Love Sarah x

Hey Sarah.
Dont worry hun we all support eachother on this site and its good to see your a new member of this.
Is there anyone you have got that you can talk to about all this?
wb soon

x