Eating Disorder Talk

I know I’ve been writing a lot about media-influences on eating disorders. I am not blaming the media per se - I really believe there is a valid genetic predisposition for disordered eating - there will be a point to all of this media-attacking, soon.

Some recent reading has brought to mind this paradox that exists: encouraging healthy eating, educating the public about obesity risks, being open and removing taboo from eating disorder stories…all of these actions don’t seem to be doing a damn thing.

A recent study reported in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that participants who visited healthy food arenas will actually consume more calories, more fats and think they’re fairing better than someone who has traveled to McDonald’s for a BigMac. Read about the study, here.

Part of this is lack of education, which is understandable. It’s time consuming staying on top of what is healthy, what’s too much, what may kill you, what could prevent cancer, etc. You need a degree in nutrition and you need to devote some of your life to staying on top of the constant changes “they” put out.

Part of this is one-track ignorance. What I mean is to say that healthy living has been marketed so far past the point of most people caring - it goes in one ear, out the other. Sometimes, a few snippets of information are reserved for future reference and that’s where the danger seems to lie. Let’s use the aforementioned study as an example:

Participants were given the ability to go to McDonald’s for a BigMac or a 12″ Italian Sandwich from Subway. Subway visitors were also given the chance to supplement their sandwich with a cookie and fountain drink. We all know how unhealthy McDonald’s is, right? It’s greasy, it’s mass-produced, it may leave you wanting for quality and as a general rule, your burger will never resemble the advertisement. Subway, well, it’s obviously healthy - Jared Fogle lost weight via eating their subs and the company itself is owned by Doctor’s Associated Inc. So, should be easy-peasey - the people who went to Subway were obviously eating a healthier meal and probably took in less calories, fat and food than those visiting the arches.

Nope. Subway visitors usually got regular soda and a cookie, in addition to a 12″ sub - they averaged 56% more calories than Ronald’s visitors. Yet they estimated a lower intake. Look up what your favourite sub weighs in at, I dare you.

Part of this is also just plain arrogance, I think. People are too important, too starved for time, and too concerned with consuming and expending to actually just pay attention to needs. No one needs a 12″ sub, with three types of meat, cheese, condiments and potentially a cup of vegetables on it. With a cookie (or three - there’s a deal if you buy in bulk) and a 20oz. soda.

For an example, I used the USDA’s myPyramid application. After I plugged in my age, gender, height, daily activity level and intention of moving towards a healthier weight progressively, the resulted recommended serving requirements was overtaken by the experiment’s Subway meal:

• 70% of my daily grain needs;
• 33% of vegetable needs;
• 0% of my fruit needs;
• about 10% of my dairy needs; and
• my entire day’s meat requirements.

Yet we will all judge the person who holds weight or gains weight or even loses weight, because, well, obviously they don’t have healthy eating habits.

Obesity in North America, particularly in the States, is still rising. But even my country isn’t innocent, with Statistics Canada reporting that many age groups’ rates have doubled since prior to the 80s.

The CDC reported similar results - a jump from 15.0% in their survey which ended in 1980, to 32.9% in 2004. The site then quotes a goal of reducing the adult obesity rate to below 15% - and argues that rates are worsening.

This is reaching epic proportions at a time when disordered eating is also rising to epidemic-like levels. What’s the correlation?

I think it’s fear. The media, the governments, the neighbours who’s dog you watch pee on your lawn - everyone is a (often unconscious) fear-promoter. We are all afraid of not measuring up, being fat, dying young, dying broke, having the best toys, being the most loved, being successful, making people proud of us, being winners and most importantly, doing the right thing (the right thing can mean a million different things, it depends on whoever we think is going to judge us).

So, we eat twice the calories that we need at Subway? Jared says we’ll lose weight doing it.

Subway, consumers, McDonald’s, diet, healthy eating, obesity, food pyramid, Jared Fogle

Go figure, it’s a lot easier to track down negative self-image songs than dredge up positive ones. And without any (ahem) suggestions, this is my meager list of songs I’d iPod for my recovery. As suggested previously, check out this site for the lyrics.

• Stronger - Christina Aguilera
• Thank U - Alanis Morisette
• More to Life - Stacey Orrico
• Supermodel - India Arie
• Extraordinary Machine - Fiona Apple
• The Good Life - Weezer
• Beautiful - Christina Aguilera
• Damn Girl - Justin Timberlake
• Backstreet’s Back - The Backstreet Boys (just for fun.)

Any other suggestions, guys?

I also came upon this site. Any one have comments? Seems a little…unmarketable to me.

It’s really amazing how many songs there are out there to inspire people towards eating disorders. Conversely, a lot of positive inspiration is out there, too. Here’s the top songs I found about eating disorders, or which are known to be used as thinspiration. Tomorrow, I’ll cover some of the recovery or anti-ED songs out there - one’s used to affect positivity of self image.

1. Ana’s Song - Silverchair
2. Paper Bag - Fiona Apple
3. Lucy at the Gym - Jill Sobule
4. Big Isn’t Beautiful - King Andora
5. She’s Falling Apart - Lisa Loeb
6. Anorexic Beauty - Pulp
7. Hurt - Nine Inch Nails (hell, most of the whole damn Further Down the Spiral Album)
8. That I Would be Good - Alanis Morisette
9. Skinny - Filter
10. 4st, 7lb - Manic Street Preachers
11. Me and Mia - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
12. Cars and Calories - Saves the Day
13. Mary Jane - Alanis Morisette

If you’d like to check out the lyrics to any of the above songs, I suggest using a developed database, such as this one. Is there any songs that you’re familiar with? If you’d like to suggest a pro-recovery song for mention tomorrow, please email me or leave a comment.

Media-wise, so much focus is given to Social Anorexia, even when talking about bulimia. Social Anorexia, for those who aren’t aware, can loosely be defined as an eating disorder, Anorexia, that was brought on by a media-instilled quest for thinness. People go on extreme diets and use bulimic tactics to lower and maintain their weights to conform to some magazine/Hollywood-idealized form.

So when I came across this post on Dumb Little Man, I couldn’t help but point you in the direction. And show you my favourites:

• drink water.
• have sex daily.
• skip seconds and eat slower.
• use nonfat milk in your latte.
• skip the muffin.

I couldn’t have said those better myself. My top three add-ons?

1. Use spices such as cayenne, basil and garlic instead of excess salt.
   Just one tablespoon of salt is nearly 300% of the recommended daily amount for a lot of people. Let’s not even talk water retention.
2. Replace soda with 100% fruit or vegetable juice.
   Eight ounces of V8 juice contains only 50 calories, yet is high in fibre and vitamins A and C (as well as sugar and salt); soda’s same serving size has nearly double the calories, no vitamins or minerals (but under 10% of the sodium of V8).
3. Watch portion sizes.
   Literally learn the recommended portion amounts for your age, sex and lifestyle and then use the size recommendations. Did you know hat a serving of meat is roughly the same size as a deck of cards? A serving of pasta or rice is equal to a light bulb. Check out the link above for more comparisons.

Back in January, I heard a comment from supermodel Giselle Bundchen from a magazine. This sentence caused backlash and inspired angry tirades from parents across North America, this, “Parents are responsible, not the fashion industry.” So, yes, as a parent I was slightly upset, though my daughter is nowhere near the looking-for-signs age yet.

I felt that it placed undue judgement on the parents of people who do end up suffering from an eating disorder. I mean, sure, maybe my parents didn’t do such a good job with me, but that doesn’t stand for everyone.

Today I read an article from a small television station’s website. This article states that according to their expert, Dr. Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, children who eat dinner with their parents face half the risk of eating disorders than their counterparts. Oh, and as an aside, they mention that sharing lunch or breakfast can be just as effective for eating disorder prevention.

Stop the train for a moment, please.

Now this expert’s opinion is valid, completely. But honestly, looking over her accreditations, well, it seems as though her experience is one who has focused on eating habits and familial involvement - both with disordered eating and adolescent obesity. She might not be unbiased enough to make such a sweeping remark.

But really, eating one meal a day with your kids is enough to reduce their risk in half because it models healthier eating patterns, is an opportunity to talk and to monitor food intake? Seems to me that if it was that simple, there would be a lot less statistics out there of people with eating disorders. In fact, I would have a less popular site and you likely wouldn’t have had a reason to visit.

Do you think that eating a meal a day with your families could have saved you or someone you love?

Here’s another source to check out: Time.

I feel like I’ve been a fake, so I’d rather get my big (and exciting to me) epiphany out in the open. I blogged about it on my personal site, too - along with some other inspiring life stuff (that was sarcasm). So, to quote myself:

“…in three parts.

one was that i took some pictures of my form after seeing my doctor and finding out i’d lost more weight, unintentionally. i was awestruck and where did all of these ribs came from?

secondly, i was honest with someone i’ve been romantically involved with in the past about my weight. i’ve rarely to never been honest about it and you can guess, if you’re a man i’ve slept with and you ask me how much i weigh when i’m losing weight, i’ll lie. i’ll add 10 or 5 or 6.5 pounds to the actual number because i can’t stand to see the look that is a mixture of incredulity at the mere number and that they would still want to see me naked at that number. i have seen boys go from horny toads to pensive psychologists in the blink of an eye and it’s not pretty (for my self esteem).

thirdly, i got the usual questions which used to annoy me but now i find comforting from one of the longest best friends, stargirl. stargirl amazes me at most moments and there’s been more times than i’d like to remember than me losing weight has lead to a tear-filled conversation. not about her, unlike a lot of the people i’ve interacted with. anyways, she asked the usual questions and she believed me when i said that i thought i was too thin and needed a few pounds, say 5-10. sure, it’s still underweight, but it’s the opposite of being anorexic, so whatevs. and then we discussed my eating habits and it occurred that i’m not intentionally restricting and i’m not purging and i’m not eating diet foods (except skim milk in my starbucks white mochas) or exercising for exercising’s sake. basically, i’m not working to lose weight, it’s falling off cuz i forget to eat and get distracted and am doing one of the million things on my plate, etc. you know that to be the truth when you watch me when zoë’s eating. i will eat anything she does and often finish her leftovers.

so, point: i’m not relapsing, i’ve just not been paying enough attention to terra.”

I feel as if I’ve been lying to all of you readers. And for that and my dramatic hypochondria, I apologize. I also apologize for the near future, when I completely doubt this whole “not relapsing” thought and reverse course, yet again.

There’s been quite a lot of stir over the new iMac. Yes, it’s a beautiful machine guaranteed to convert even more people to the Apple side, but the stir has really been about it’s advertising.

The Alliance for Eating Disorder Awareness wrote a letter directly to Steve Jobs after the newest iMac advertisment went global with the tagline, “You can’t be too thin. Or too powerful.” Apple pulled the ad after 13 days of world-viewing, replacing it with the tagline-less, “The new, all-in-one iMac.”

So what do you think? Was the tagline really as dangerous and potentially triggering as AEDA thinks?

Some articles to check out:

• Wired Blogs
• Macenstein - here and here
• Huffington Post
• Back in Skinny Jeans
• Yahoo News

Forgive my lack of post yesterday, I had to prepare for a visit to my home. To read the full details, go read my (very long) post on my personal blog, from manic to mommy?. Long story short:

A malicious call was placed to the British Columbia version of Child Protective Services by a former friend of mine. Because this person chose to give the social workers my website addresses as “proof” of the danger I might be to my daughter, and because of my candor and lack of abandon when it comes to writing the most personal details of my life both on this blog and my personal blog, red flags were seen.

It seems to all be working itself out - I am getting great feedback and over 22 people volunteered to testify as to my ability to provide a safe, nurturing environment. In fact, most were dumbfounded as to why it would have been challenged, even knowing my personal history.

But fingers must still be crossed and so, please cross yours for my family.

single parenting, eating disorders, manic depression, bipolar disorder, cyclothymia, ADD, OCD, child abuse, child neglect, mood disorder, psychological crisis, truth, malicious

Personal story: my daughter and I were coming home on the bus today from the craft store - we were looking for some new yarn colours for another crocheting project for a friend’s new place. After we went past the hospital where she was born, one that offers a wonderful eating disorders program as well as the reproductive psychiatry program that I participated in, a woman and her companion got on the bus.

I’m assuming that the woman was an inpatient of the program, out on a day-trip. She was severely anorexic. So thin that her ocular cavities stood out from her face. She was a little taller than me and I’d say I outweigh her by 25 pounds. She spoke with a tiny voice to her friend, looking downward most of the time. The lanugo covered most visible surfaces. She was advanced, extreme and I’m guessing an eyesore to every other person on the bus who avoided looking at her.

I glanced her way a number of times, hoping for the chance to smile at her - to show her that I didn’t think she was worthy of dismissal or to be invisible (whether it was her intention to be, or not), but she didn’t meet my eyes until a few minutes into our bus ride. Why?

Because my wonderful daughter, nearly 13 months, who is outrageously social most of the time, leaned as far out of her stroller as she could towards the woman, hung her head backwards as if upside-down and gave her a thousand watt smile. The woman was obviously caught off guard and looked to me, as if for an explanation. Zoë tried again to engage the woman and while in the same position, did a little finger-curling wave. Then the woman gave a little half smile, barely discernible and Zoë laughed.

So did the woman. It was small, but it sounded like a form of joy to me. Toddlers are amazing individuals. They don’t judge or show hatred. Or even tension around people who may be construed as problematic by us, apparently higher, adults. They are incredibly intuitive and in those situations sometimes, they just share themselves.

It’s not really a contest, I’ve just found it ironic that both websites would post interrelated items at the same time.

On mamaVision, there some controversy over her classification of lurkers and participants in ProAna arenas. According to MV in this post, Type one ProAna congregants are mentally affected by the disease, whereas Type twos are seekers of the disease or lifestyle in an attempt to be thin enough to meet media standards. Type ones visit the forums for support from others in their situations; type two visit for tips, thinspiration, and support after breaking down during a fast.

This was on this week’s Post Secret post. See? It’s like they’re reading each other’s minds!

For more info on wannarexics, read this article.

I’m feeling witty, yet humbled after a visit to my doctor during which we found that I’d dropped another two pounds and my blood pressure is back in the danger zone. Last night, I was looking at my reflection before a hurried shower as my daughter was sleeping. She sees this all the time, me engaging in self-judgements, searching my profile for signs of bloat or…what, i don’t know.

She’s still young enough to think that a reflection is a friend to play with, to poke and kiss and try to caress - but honestly, I’m running out of time to prevent her from seeing me as a unhealthy person to model herself after. What I saw last night shocked me because though I knew I was getting thin, it crept up on me how thin I’m already getting.

So, on that note, tonight I write about recovery - something seeming far away and unattainable at the moment. But still, it’s good to have long term goals.

Terra’s Version of the Twelve Steps for Eating Disorders*

1. I admit that I am suffering from an eating disorder, because of which, aspects of my life seem unmanageable.
2. I believe that with discipline, self-acceptance and the pursuit of health, I could be restored to sanity.
3. I’ve decided that in the case and in all likelihood, I will require help to recover from this illness. I will actively seek it and accept it when it’s offered to me.
4. I’ve taken inventory of my thoughts and habits, with a view to find ways to encourage positivity and discourage negative self-talk.
5. I am willing to be open about my habits and feeling with others, especially those directly affected, as long as it is for the greater good of communication and support.
6. I am ready to recover, even though it is a scary thought to process - my life would be too short and unfulfilled without mental and physical health.
7. I accept that I am not ensconced with faults for which I must punish myself, engage in disordered eating or give up - this is a hard journey and I must work at all steps of it, but even if I fall from my path to health, I can rejoin it at any time and it doesn’t make me a lesser person.
8. I am willing to forgive myself, my family, my peers, the media and other important influences for their role in or enabling of my eating disorder and ask that they do the same.
9. I recognize that my past of disordered eating has affected others and so choose to apologize for my role in their unhappiness, when doing so would have a positive affect.
10. I will continue, even when recovered, to reassess my improvements and backslides in an effort to be in tune with my recovery constantly.
11. I will learn to live with the thought that perfection, thinness, measurement are not realistic and to use the Serenity Prayer, in some form, as a personal mantra.
12. I will, during appropriate times and using appropriate avenues, tact and sensitivity, share with other my struggle as a means to help those who are also struggling.

Adapted from the 12-Steps available through the Al-Anon website.

An alternate mantra, taken from the Quado & Carrie site states:

Recognize that your faults are exactly what make you the wonderful person that you are. Recognize that your perfection consists of all these faults and imperfections. You are perfect in your imperfection. You are exactly right, exactly as you should be, right now. When the criticism starts, just stop it dead in its tracks and say: “I love and approve of myself. I accept and love myself exactly as I am.”

12 steps, eating disorder recovery, perfectionism, thinness, guilt, Serenity Prayer

In an interesting article based on neurological evidence, Professor Janet Treasure speaks at length to Katy Campbell about her theory of genetically caused eating disorders.

Treasure says that eating disorder research needs to focus on the underlying neurological network and specifically, how information is processed by people with eating disorders. For example, she’s found that those with EDs are likely to have difficulty changing self-set rules and learned behaviours - leading them to fixed problem solving, obsessiveness and overperfectionism.

This type of mindset has been described by some as the female Asperger’s Syndrome - an austistic spectrum disorder associated with impaired social ability and repetitive behaviour patterns. Those afflicted with Asperger’s have a tendancy to focus on specific areas of interest and also can experience hypo or hypersensitivity to stimuli. Also common is the problem of interpreting facial and social cues, as well as self stimulation (such as rocking back and forth).

Ways that Asperger’s and EDs are related include the lack of ability to shift between tasks or matters once a focus has been made on one area; response inflexibility in the forms of strict adherance to plans is another symptom that people with EDs showed. Weak central coherance - the ability to be distracted from a social event by an object and being able to refocus on the event, for example - is another shared trait.

What this research can do is point mental and medical professionals in a more scientific direction in relation to treatment methods. A big positive, for sure.

For more information on autism, check out this page.

eating disorders, mental health research, eating disorder research, autism, Asperger’s syndrome

There’s a certain amount of arrogance that goes hand in hand with being a successful anorexic. You’ve been able to control your mind and body to a point where you think you are the ringmaster of your appetite and measurements. This is fallacy, yes, but it also breeds contempt towards those not displaying this self-control.

So forgive me, but this parody made me laugh out loud.

In The Know: Should We Be Shaming Obese Children More?

I had planned a different post than this, but I’ll put it on the shelf, for now.

Now the big three: anorexia, bulimia and overeating - they’re pretty cut and dried, right? Anorexics starve themselves and maybe overexercise. Bulimics eat and then throw up or use laxatives. Overeaters are pretty self-explanatory. But is it really that finite?

A month ago, I wrote about being technically, by-the-books, EDNOS. Times change swiftly and I now meet three out of four of the DSMIV criterion for diagnosis of anorexia (since I’m only a year post-partum, it’s truly difficult to judge menstrual irregularity). I was doing ok for about a five-day stretch. I was eating (one meal) daily but taking in a lot of calories overall, when you consider my coffee and (semi-occassional) alcohol habits. I went those five days without losing a pound more. I was maintaining.

Then some stuff happened in my personal life. Emotionally draining lifestyle mistakes caused such stress that my coffee consumption doubled, I drank four days in a row, my cigarette smoking went from a pack lasting almost three days to nearly one, I grew depressed and disillusioned, I was intensely lonely and looking for anything (safe and effortless) to entertain me from my loneliness. While this is going on, I forgot to eat. For most of two days.

I remembered today that I’d had only a half sandwich and some rice cake bits of my daughter’s since the weekend. What jogged this memory was the fact that I nearly lost my footing and consciousness while carrying my daughter down the stairs of our apartment building.

So that fits the stereotypical anorexic behaviour.

So I thought that I should do something about that. This was getting ridiculous and I was putting my daughter’s health in jeopardy, too (not to mention her emotional health - how is she going to develop healthy self-image with this going on as a model to her?). So I decided that, yes, I would eat today. At least a fairly comfortable amount.

I ate 95% of a happy meal by 11am. That was more than a day’s worth of food and calories, right there. But no, then came a brownie when I grabbed a coffee later in the afternoon. And then dinner time was leftovers from my daughter’s tray and half of a pizza. I just finished the other half. I’m planning on some ramen noodles next, because why not just go for broke?

So, the next time you’re painting a mental picture of an anorexic, picture me. I’m hovering around 95 pounds, nearly 5′7″, and gorging on pizza and fast-food without plan or habit of purging. My tummy will feel stuffed until I wake up tomorrow, sick. Because that’s one stereotype of restricting that you can take to the bank: If you rarely eat, you’ll pay for it in potty time, when you do.

It’s a long-standing theory - women who were abused, especially sexually, prior to puberty are at an increased risk for development of eating disorders. Stereotypically, it was thought that bulimics were all rape survivors since the purging addiction was a form of cleansing; anorexics were resultant of molestation, attempting to rid themselves of anything pleasant to touch. I’ve never heard a stereotype about overeaters, though one could go far enough to say that it’s a form of escapism - requisite by so many different types of sexual abuse.

Well known for developing an eating disorder after her rape at 12 years of age, Fiona Apple feeds the myth of eating disorders decreasing sexual aggression.

She had strange eating habits. “It was colors,” she explains. “I couldn’t eat things that looked a certain way, that were a certain color. I mean, there was a time when I couldn’t eat things that I felt clashed with what I was wearing. I don’t mean ‘clash’ like ‘fashionably clash’ - there was just something in my head that if it didn’t balance, I couldn’t eat it, and I was so afraid of doing the wrong thing. If I ate something, I felt like I was doing it because I don’t want to be crazy.’ ‘I’m going to eat that fucking apple right now, even though I’m wearing a yellow dress.’ This would go on in my head all the time. And it’s exhausting. I would tell my sister, ‘I’m just so tired I can’t manage myself anymore.’ I felt like I was the mother of some retarded child that was throwing fits all the time, and I couldn’t help it. It would take me half an hour to pick an apple out of the drawer. I couldn’t pick the right one.”

So why were you like that?

“Because I felt like I had no control over my life.”

“For me, it wasn’t about getting thin, it was about getting rid of the bait that was attached to my body. A lot of it came from the self-loathing that came from being raped at the point of developing my voluptuousness,” she explains. “I just thought that if you had a body and if you had anything on you that could be grabbed, it would be grabbed. So I did purposely get rid of it.”

In 2005, the BBC produced an article with the University of Bristol’s study findings - stating that girls who has faced abuse before the age of 16 were twice as likely as their counterparts to develop an eating disorder in later life. This was based on any physical abuse, but of the study’s participants who’d been sexually abused, 15% showed symptoms of an eating disorder. That’s 5% more than the assessed prevalence in North America.

A spokesman for the Eating Disorders Association said the findings were not surprising and should be viewed in context.

“We have known for some time that sexual abuse can lead to eating disorders.”

…

“What is interesting about people who develop disorders after abuse is that it is a defense mechanism; they do it so they don’t draw attention to themselves.”

Something Fishy had something to say, as well. If food has been used as a lure into the sexual abuse, sufferers may develop a food phobia or even, in the case of oral sexually-based abuse, an automatic gagging, choking or frightened feeling upon eating.

Survivors may feel a loss of immense control over their bodies and their lives. Because of self-blame they may carry a tremendous burden of guilt. They may feel a need to push others away, or a hurried sense to grow-up, in order to protect themselves.

The backlash of Sexual Abuse is that survivors may turn to food (or alcoholism or drug addiction) as a means to cope. Binging may offer a sense of comfort and a way to stuff down emotions of pain and anger. Purging may serve as a release of emotion or as a means to self-punish. In a desperate attempt to gain control over their bodies some victims will turn to food and restriction. They may feel dirty and violated, unable to get clean and purging may serve as a temporary fix to those feelings. They may attempt to control their body-shape, becoming overweight or under weight, in order to push people away to prevent further abuse, or so that the abuse will stop (if it is still occurring). Food, binging and purging and restriction/starvation may all provide a sense of safety, certainty and security that they feel they cannot find anywhere else.

About.com has an article detailing why anorectics may have problems with sexual relationships - in fact being sexually anorexic. Lack of development, the lack of “need” for sex, pleasure avoidance and intimacy issues are discussed briefly. I’d like to challenge this article and it’s supporting research with a survey of my own, but that will have to wait for another day, another post.