I’ve hesitated, and hesitated some more about posting this image. It’s not an image I particularly want the world to see. And it’s not an easy image to look at.
It reminds me just how ill Anorexia can make a person and I hope it shows others that there’s an ugly side to being thin.
This photo is a world away from the beautiful models you see in magazines that so many youngsters aspire to look like. This shows the reality of Anorexia and extreme thinness and it isn’t nice.
Too many teenagers seem to think thin is beautiful. Clearly it isn’t.
With the recent news reports that eating disorders in the UK are affecting a larger number of young children than ever before, I'm re-posting this article which originally appeared on the Brit Mums blog back in September last year.
While labelling children as young as five with eating disorders like anorexia might not actually be particularly helpful, clearly there are many children experiencing eating problems who need help and support, as do their families.
For families trying to cope with anorexia, here is some information based on my own experiences and also on the research I undertook when writing my book Anorexics on Anorexia, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Sitting down for dinner this evening IJ remarked that sad people do not eat.
It threw me off kilter and set alarms bells ringing. Immediately I knew we needed to have a conversation I’d put off for some time; a conversation we should have had well before now, because children are incredibly perceptive. And when there are only two people in one household, the behaviour of each party rarely goes unnoticed.
But in the past I had wimped out and brushed the subject of food and eating under the carpet. The pair of us talk about anything and everything, and have done for some time, but when it comes my eating habits at least, I’ve haven’t been quite so open.
Anorexia is not a word a seven year old needs to know. On the whole it is part of my past – a large part of my part - and something I know we will discuss in detail one day, but I have been kidding myself about the number of times over the last few years when I have slipped back, if only for a day or two, and assumed she has not noticed.
I haven’t wanted to burden her with adult issues she is not emotionally equipped to handle but by not saying anything it has led her to believe that sad people don’t eat. Without realising it I have given her permission not to eat when she is sad too, which is a dangerous thought pattern for any child to be developing.
So we’ve had a talk about how people cope when they are sad. The words ‘eating disorder’ have not been used but she now understands that some people eat more when they are sad, some people eat less and for others their eating isn’t affected at all. I’ve explained that the important thing is to say how you feel rather than focusing on food or anything else.
It might be a little premature to be talking about relationships with food but the outcome of not talking, in our case, could have been far worse.
I do worry for girls (and boys) growing up in today’s society. I hope IJ doesn’t feel the pressure too much to be thin. Today has proved a reminder to me to continue having these conversations with her about life and growing up, and to remember I’m her most influential role model.
Whatever I do, she will do too, if she wants to. Some days there’s no harm in being reminded of that.
If you are a family coping with anorexia, my Brit Mums article offers 14 tips I hope will help.
This is a serious post with a serious message. I write posts like this once in a while; they usually result from a combination of factors, and this post is no exception.
The subject is dieting and eating disorders. Click away now if it’s not for you.
Recently I was looking back over my posts for 2010. Exactly one year ago I was writing about the dangers of pro-anorexia websites, and in July about the extent to which images are air-brushed to create completely unattainable images that we, and our children, are exposed to on a regular basis.
Many of us aspire to look like that, or have done in the past, yet they are not real. That’s something I’ll be telling my daughter as soon as she is old enough to understand. The last thing I want is for her to think that thin is beautiful and that striving to be thin should be of any importance to her, because it isn’t. There is more to life.
The last thing I want is for her to experience an eating disorder, like I did.
I agree with the points made in Tara’s post Do you need to be skinny to be successful? – that the mantra of many these days still seems to be ‘You can never be too rich, or too skinny.’ I thought – hoped - the world had moved on from skinniness being perceived as a sign of success, but in reality it hasn’t, which is a great shame.
Recently I’ve seen numerous adverts on the internet telling me how I can lose seven pounds in as many days, and a leading supermarket emailed me today to tell me about their new diet service. I’m all for healthy eating and healthy living; my concern is that the message, as Tara’s post discusses, does seem to be that thinness is everything. And it’s not.
There are two stars on our Christmas tree – one for Sally and one for Tash. They were both close friends who died from Anorexia. We remember them at Christmas. I met them when we were all in hospital together being treated for the same illness. Out of the three of us, I am the only one who survived.
Last week the ‘No Anorexia’ model Isabelle Caro died aged 28.
So thinness isn’t everything, and those that are in the best position to tell you about life at a low weight are no longer living.
I first posted this video in February last year… seeing is believing, or is it? It is worth posting again here and two minutes of your time.
One of the worst things about suffering from an eating disorder is that your life is effectively on hold. So while you’re focusing on food and thinness, the rest of the world is getting on with their lives. Growing up, moving on, living. Or so it seems.
One of the best things about recovering from an eating disorder is that you can pick your life up again and start to enjoy all the things you missed out on before. Overseas travel, weekends away, conferences, friendships and so much more, there are opportunities there for the taking.
The problem is you can’t pick your life up from where you left off. Time has moved on even you haven’t really being living it.
Those years are lost and there is no way of filling them now. If only there were.
So it’s all very well planning a career path, learning to drive and choosing a new place to live.
Except I’m not 17 anymore. I’m 37.
Nearly 40.
And it feels as if I’m in a race to do everything, experience everything and make up for lost time.
It’s exciting, invigorating and there’s so much I want to do and achieve.
Yet it’s also a little sad, and it’s exhausting trying not to dwell on all those lost years, and to carry on moving forward and looking to the future.
