Written by Randall C. Flanery, PhD, Director of Webster Wellness Professionals Approaching someone about an unacknowledged psychological disorder cannot help but be awkward and unsettling. You can see that something is not right, and may even know the cause, but you will be understandably reluctant to speak up. The thoughts and fears that stream through your mind will be numerous: what if I am wrong, he or she will hate me, I will lose them as friend, or maybe I will make it worse. The discomfort is understandable, if misplaced. The unfortunate reality is that whatever is bothering the person will not get better, if nothing is said. The awkwardness is only magnified if your suspicion is that a guy you know and care about, might have
Tag: anorexia
How I got back from anorexia
At 15, Nancy Tucker went to her GP about her problems with food. She felt fobbed off and spiralled out of control – she and her mother talk about why turning to the medical profession was a disasterWhen Nancy Tucker was 15, her mother, Jessica realised that she had a problem with food. Nancy had gone on a diet, but the diet seemed to be going on and on, she seemed more and more obsessed with what was on her plate, and she was behaving strangely at mealtimes.Jessica persuaded Nancy to visit their GP, but the GP’s reaction was unexpected. She weighed Nancy, consulted lots of charts, and then said she didn’t meet the criteria for referral. Her weight wasn’t “low enough”, it seemed, to trigger help. Continue
France bans ultra-thin models in anorexia crackdown – video
France’s lower house of parliament on Friday passes a law banning excessively thin fashion models, threatening modelling agencies and fashion houses with fines and even jail if they hire malnourished women. The bill was widely debated in the lower house, with dissenters saying it would give foreign models an advantage in the industry. Socialist MP Olivier Veran, who spearheaded the bill, said new measures would require models to undergo a full medical assessment Continue reading…
I had anorexia – but not because I wanted to look like a fashion model | Hadley Freeman
A French plan to ban skinny women from the catwalk ignores the fact that anorexia is an illness. We need to look at the causes not outcomes of self-loathingNobody ever asks me what it felt like. They never ask what it was like to spend three of my teenage years in secure psychiatric units for severe anorexia nervosa; how it felt to be so undernourished I could hardly walk; how it feels now to be able to picture the doctors’ and nurses’ faces more clearly than I can those of my late grandparents; how it feels to have spent my formative years with young women who are now, in so many cases, dead; how this experience changed my personality for ever. No, no one asks that.
Let’s Talk About Our Relationship With Food
By Lindsey Mazur, RD This week is Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Part of the journey to recovery from an eating disorder involves healing the relationship with food. Let’s talk about how every one of us has a relationship to food and what a healthy relationship might look like. Everybody eats. The way we eat is shaped by many things. When I asked people to reflect on all the things that influence how we eat and what we eat, some common themes emerge: taste culture, traditions, religious beliefs celebrations, birthdays, parties, etc. emotions, happy and sad habit or what we are used to raised to eat a certain way budget diets sustainability environment animal welfare because we are hungry! It’s interesting that most times nutrition and health come
It didn’t go as I planned.
In middle school, I was the worst and most offensive pro ana moron out there. I tried all sorts of diets and tricks, I sat in ice baths until my legs turned completely white, I looked and posted thinspo, to “motivate me” If you saw someone like this on tumblr now you’d tell them that they were a sick pro ana monster who promotes a horrible mental illness HOW DARE I? I did though, I was. For years, since I associated thinness with some sort of transcendence, I wanted to be anorexic. I wanted that control. In the 8th grade, something changed. I restricted more, and became more and more consumed. I slept 3 hours a night, staying up to look at thinspo and waking up at 4am
I don’t want an A for anorexia | Charlotte Samantha
A grim spell in the eating disorder wing of a psychiatric hospital has only raised more questions about ignorance of the disease“You haven’t scooped all the butter out. Finish it all.” The nurse’s stare invaded from across the table, and her words continued the assault. She had finished supervising my breakfast, but was hell-bent on discovering any trace of leftovers, any hint of my illness now showing its mark in the almost empty flora pat beside my sticky fingers. They were sticky because – bowl of full-fat milk-soaked cereal, cup of tea, glass of water, glass of orange juice, two pieces of toast with butter and jam down – I had not been allowed to wipe my hands. Or my face for that