Tackling Myths about Eating Disorders and Anorexia among todays American Youth

By Ricky M. Elgendy Published: December 8, 2011

I never truly understood the idea of Eating Disorders or really took it as a serious mental condition until now since I took this course and did my group project on the Barbie theory. I have never met anyone who struggled with this problem in my life and for the past 25 years of my life, I have been brought up to eat as much as I want or need. Growing up in a Caribbean family, the common factor is to not only eat, but to enjoy eating. In most Caribbean countries, somebody is almost laughed at for being too skinny and people always pressure them to eat more. Boy, you better put some meat on them bones. Here have another plate, is a commonly heard phrase amongst family members and I had that told to me many times throughout my childhood, as I visited different family members homes at dinner time.

Even my mother grew up with the same tradition decades ago in Haiti, so for years when we would watch Television and see mostly young wealthy girls from the suburbs who have Eating Disorders purposely take laxatives, vomit their food, practice self starvation and physically harm themselves, we could never understand it. So we thought that they were either too bored, looking for attention or they just want to be on TV talking about their disorder. We never even knew or seen any people of color struggle with this problem. The general population also has limited personal knowledge about this epidemic and often create their own ideas of myths associated with people struggling with this.

(Photo courtesy of hypnotherapist.org)

In 100 Questions & Answers About Anorexia Nervosa by Sari Fine Shepphird, PhD, she lists a series of the crucial and commonly misunderstood myths that the general population have about their disease and she proves them to be false.

Myth: People chose to have anorexia. Fact: People do not chose to have anorexia. Anorexia, like other forms of eating disorders, is a serious illness. (Shepphird, 38)

(Photo courtesy of newdimensionshomehealth.com)

Myth: Eating disorders are primarily about food and weight. Fact: Anorexia and other eating disorders are not solely a problem with food. Behaviors such as food restriction, fasting and purging are symptoms of underlying issues. (Shepphird, 38)

Myth: Individuals with anorexia are just trying to get attention. Fact: People do not develop anorexia as a way to seek out attention. Although it is maladaptive, anorexia can sometimes serve as a persons way to cope with something painful in his or her life. (Shepphird, 39)

Myth: Anorexia is about vanity. If a person with anorexia says, I feel fat, its just to get compliments. Fact: People with anorexia experience a real distortion in their body imageDescribed as looking in a fun-house mirror, the self- perceptions of people with anorexia are not an accurate reflection of their true body weight and shape. (Shepphird, 39) Now after I read this, I seriously wonder if my ex girlfriend had this issue. She is about 90 pounds, wears a size small and was always saying that she looks fat in front of other people. She even says it to a person who was actually overweight by over 300 pounds. I used to tell her all the time to stop saying that because she is very skinny and she is making the overweight person feel back about herself. I probably should have had a serious talk with her back then when she brought this up, but I never took what she said seriously. Like most, I thought she was just trying to get attention or to get people to tell her, Oh please I wish I had your body girl. You are lucky!.

(Photo courtesy of Softpedia)

Myth: Anorexia is a rich, young, white girls problem. Fact: Research as shown that this is not true. A person with anorexia may be from any racial, ethnic, or economic background. Anorexia does not discriminate. It affects young and old, female and male. (Shepphird, 39). I definitely think that this is the biggest misconception that people have. Whenever we hear the word Anorexiathe first thing that generally comes to mind is White Girl. In If Your Adolescent Has an Eating Disorder: an Essential Resource for Parents by B. Timothy Walsh, M.D., and V. L. Cameron, they also speak on this myth by saying, The Office of Womens Health (OWH) points out, an increasing number of girls and boys from all ethnic and racial groups are suffering from eating disorders, although their cases can go unreported due to the lack of studies that include representatives from these groups. They stated that the reason for the exclusion of minorities in early research on eating disorders was due to most studies only being conducted on college campuses or in hospital clinics. For reasons related to economics, access to care, and cultural attitudes toward psychological treatment, middle-class white females were the ones seeking treatment and thus became the subjects of research. In addition they go on to say, Also, the OWH surmises that girls of different ethnic and cultural groups may not seek treatment because of difficulty in locating culturally sensitive treatment centers. (Walsh, Cameron, 42)

Myth: You cannot die from anorexia if you exercise to keep your heart and body strong. Fact: People with anorexia may believe this myth in an attempt to convince themselves that their illness is not serious. Some believe that taking vitamin supplements will protect their bodies from the effects of malnutrition or that they will not face health risks if they avoid certain wellpublicized eating disorder behaviors. (Shepphird, 40)

(Photo courtesy of my-children.me)

Myth: Anorexia is just a phase. Fact: Anorexia is never normal behavior. It is an eating disorder that needs serious attention. (Shepphird, 41)

Myth: You can never recover from anorexia. Fact: You can recover. Recovery can take time, but with the help of treatment, it is possible. (Shepphird, 41)

It is important to know that there are two different types of eating disorders. In Eating Disorders: Opposing Viewpoints by Jennifer A. Hurley, she describes them. Anorexia Nervosa is distinguished by the refusal to maintain a normal body weight. The longer and more extreme the starvation, the more severe the health repercussions. Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by episodes of bingeing and purging- through vomiting, laxative use or compulsive exercising.

Although both eating disorders are highly detrimental, many medical professionals consider bulimia the more dangerous disorder. (Hurley, 26, 27) Hurley goes on to explain the reason why this is, Bulimics almost always maintain a normal body weight and are extremely secretive about their disorder. Thus, the friends and family members of a bulimic may not even know of her problems until she is already in an extremely advanced stage of the disorder. (Hurley, 28)

(Photo courtesy of eatingdisorderadvice.org and methodsofhealing.com)

In If Your Adolescent Has an Eating Disorder: an Essential Resource for Parents by B. Timothy Walsh, M.D., and V. L. Cameron, they list the personality traits for family and friends to look out for in determining if their loved one has anorexia disorder. Anorexia nervosa has been consistently linked to such personality and temperamental traits as negative self-evaluation, low self-esteem, extreme compliance (submission to the wishes or suggestions of others), obsessiveness, and perfectionism. These traits continue to characterize individuals with anorexia nervosa even after recovery. (Walsh, Cameron, 42) To me, most of these traits are in pretty much young person I ever meet. Everybody feels down sometimes and it could be mistaken as

having anorexia, especially if the person who is down is very thin. I guess it is best to have an open and delicate conversation with the person to get the underlying truth, and maybe even bring the person to get evaluated by a professional to determine if there is an issue or not to be worried about. I did find it to be very interesting that even after treatment and recovery, these negative traits are still in the person. So their body heals, but not their mind or mentality with how they view and feel about themselves. So I wonder if they ever do truly recover or do they relapse later on in silence.

In Anorexia and Bulimia in the Family: One Parent's Practical Guide to Recovery by Grainne Smith, she provides very good and wise advance to combat bulimia in a family member that I never even thought of. Allow everyone to serve themselves. To make no comment about what goes on to anyones plate (not easy) no matter how much, how little, how bizarre, how disgusting, how amazing. Making comments, whether they were meant as encouragement or condemnation or disgust, simply cause more bad feeling. To continue our lifelong practice of eating together at the table, despite more than one suggestion from Anorexia of separate eating times. To tell anyone who is there for a meal of the eating problem and ask them to avoid mentioning any topic connected with food and try to keep conversation general, to think of topics in advance if necessary. At the end of the meal, to try to keep Bulimia at the table, to keep her talking, anything to disctract her from going immediately to the bathroom to get rid of what she has eaten. It

is possible that a discussion of interesting topics may indeed help prevent or at least delay a visit to the bathroom. (Smith, 113 to 115) I really love all of this great advice that Smith gave, because she herself is a person who is now recovered from anorexia after many years of effort to beat the disease and these steps helped her become the expert in this topic that she is today.

(Photo courtesy of acelebrationofwomen.org)

(Photos Courtesy of the Wendy Williams Show)

Even fitness guru Richard Simmons had a serious eating disorder for all of his life and he described it on the Wendy Williams show on 11/15/11. He took diet pills, threw up, starved and did other things ever since he was a child to remain thin, since he thought that people would ONLY like and accept him if he was physically thin. He said at one point he lost 115 pounds in 2 and a half months and lost all his hair, which resulted in him having to get a hair transplant at the insanely young age of 19. I never knew that he of all people in this world would have that issue, since he is always working out and helping other people get in shape by way of working out for decades. I also never knew that anyone can get a hair transplant at the age of 19. That is a procedure that is supposed to be done by middle age and older men who have lost their hair through the aging process and not starvation. He gave a piece of advice to the audience by saying, If men and women lose their hair too quickly, it doesnt come back and if you look in the mirror and you do not like what you seechange it!.

In Understanding Eating Disorders: Conceptual and Ethical Issues in the Treatment of Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa by Simona Giordano, she describes how the idea of an eating disorder is virtually unknown in other countries as they are here. Eating disorders have always been thought to be related to social factors. They are found almost exclusively in Western countries or Westernized societies. Medical literature does not report cases of eating disorders in developing countries. They are already registered in South Africa and Santiago Chile. They are spreading in areas that are becoming more Westernized, such as China after Mao. For these reasons, it is agreed that eating disorders are a culturally bound syndrome. (Giordano, 146)

In conclusion, I wonder after reading this, where did we or the westernized society get the concept of eating disorders from since developing countries seemingly have no problems with eating? And since we are spreading our ideas around to different countries and continents, would eating disorders be the norm one day in the future? If so, then this would be a huge problem for how women see themselves and their life span will be radically reduced a unfortunate number of years. In a world where the western world dictates what is cool and the norm for other countries to follow, I can only imagine the young girls all over the world who may see this as something that is normal U.S. culture and not as the disease it really is. At least this article proves that the current commonly misunderstood myths about eating disorders are false and we will just have to wait and see what happens in the future as more people learn the truth about the disease one person at a time.

Bibliography

Giordano, Simona. Understanding Eating Disorders: Conceptual and Ethical Issues in the Treatment of Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa. Oxford: Clarendon, 2005. Print.

Shepphird, Sari Fine. 100 Questions & Answers about Anorexia Nervosa. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 2010. Print.

Hurley, Jennifer A. Eating Disorders: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 2001. Print.

Walsh, B. Timothy, and V. L. Cameron. If Your Adolescent Has an Eating Disorder: an Essential Resource for Parents. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Smith, Grainne. Anorexia and Bulimia in the Family: One Parent's Practical Guide to Recovery. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. Print.

Wendy Williams Show interview with Richard Simmons on November 15, 2011.