stigma of eating disorders

why is there such a stigma associated with eating disorders?

is it truly someone's choice? surely a genuine eating disorder is a mental illness just like depression. it would be thought very low to laugh at someones depression, yet often i hear bitchy comments about girls who have disordered eating patterns.

someone made a really poignant comment on here a while ago about their idea of utopia - food would not exist, instead sustenance would be kindness, love and friendship. i love that. its really stayed in my mind.

theres someone at work who some people are getting worried about. a year ago i wouldn't have thought too much about it. now, it makes me so, so sad. there's nothing stronger than empathy, and having been in someone's shoes.

i am so lucky to have recovered so far, and..i know this sounds silly, but lucky to let myself eat whatever i want. sometimes i just wish i was a child again and didnt know what a calorie was. does anyone else wish they'd stayed pretty much ignorant on weight loss?

Not necessarily weight loss but definitely the calorie counting...I lost fine and healthy before I got into calories, but once I got into them I developed LOTS of problems with eating and food...

Yea i was the same i was perfectly healthy and not overweight at all but i found as soon as i discovered what a calorie was i began watching everything that i ate and it's almost taken over my life i can no longer even look at food without thinking how many calories are stuffed within it

yep sometimes ignorance is bliss

i really wish i hadnt gone out and researched caloric content for EVERYTHING because now its all deepy engraved in my head and its so subconscious for me to add up/calculate EVERYTHING i put in my mouth :(

The only 'problem' I have with people with eating disorders is that occasionally you will find one of them that insists he/she is right and tries to encourage others (this is usually a teen thing) to eat like them. And in a case like this you have to take a stronger stance than just empathy.

But overall I agree that people with eating disorders need help not more hurt.

Original Post by deflepfan16:

Not necessarily weight loss but definitely the calorie counting...I lost fine and healthy before I got into calories, but once I got into them I developed LOTS of problems with eating and food...

 I agree with this wholeheartedly. Counting has caused a lot of moderately obsessive behaviors  of mine to develop into truly problematic obsessions. 

 I can totally relate. 

My thoughts on this, as it relates to this site, is that the concept of an ED like anorexia or bulimia is hard for many members to relate to.  So there is a divide, as there is always the potential to be when there is a shortage of empathy.  You might find a very positive person who has never had any experience with depression will be more prone to tell a depressed person to 'just get over it', but the depressed person will understand it isn't quite that simple.

Same with this site.  People who are struggling to go from an overweight BMI to a healthy BMI usually have little empathy for someone who is underweight and wants to be more underweight; with someone who is afraid of food.  I don't think that makes either side wrong, or makes them bad people for not coming together.  It's just hard to force empathy.

I think we have a great opportunity on this site every day to learn more about each other, to learn more about ways we can help others to be stronger, healthier, happier people.  Ignorance can be blissful, but having the willingness and capacity to learn is even more blissful.  :)

I've often said I wish food never existed, or that people ate only to survive and not socialize.

I've struggled with anorexic bulimia for over a year now, and I find myself thinking back to my childhood when food didn't dictate what I did during a day and meals didn't take hours of planning ahead of time.

Ignorance truly is bliss. I'm only eighteen, and began losing weight when I was 16. I'm 5' 9" and at the time was a healthy 146 pounds. At first I simply started eating healthier and lost 10 pounds unintentionally. At 17 I became bulimic. It consumed every part of me. My thoughts during the day and my nightmares at night, waking up thinking I had binged and needed to puke. At the end of the summer I weighed 130.

When I went to college I started eating 3 meals a day-3 healthy meals. But I had to keep myself busy til I went to sleep at night to keep from getting bored and wanting to binge. The result of that was losing another 15 pounds. I now weigh 115 pounds (give or take) and I obsess over everything. I do, however eat carbs, meat (lean), vegetables, fruit, dairy, and even a cookie now and then. It's hard and it takes a lot of planning. This site is my own best enemy. I count everything, but for the wrong reasons. I stay around 1300-1500 a day.

I heard someone on tv say once, "Imagine if a heroine addict had to have a little bit of heroine every day to survive." That's how it feels.

The even sadder part is that I loved to bake. I make beautiful cakes for special events and wanted to go to Johnson & Wales for pastry. But when this all started I knew that'd be impossible.

I know this was rather winded, sorry. But your post clicked with me and felt like writing.

Original Post by deflepfan16:

Not necessarily weight loss but definitely the calorie counting...I lost fine and healthy before I got into calories, but once I got into them I developed LOTS of problems with eating and food...

 

+1 to that ^^^

I miss ignorance...in this case anyway!

i remember when i was about 15 and went on holiday to czech republic to visit family and ate so much delicious food. fresh bread for breakfast dumplings for dinner, fruit dumplings for pudding. i of course put on a little weight and my nan exclaimed that 'i had really filled out nicely'. fair enough i was pretty tiny back then but i took it as a compliment and was happy. if someone said that to me now i would literally be depressed and it would trigger me for sure. what a difference half a decade makes :(

Oh, calories... Anorexia stole my teens and now bulimia is consuming my early 20's, literally. I was on the larger side of healthy before anorexia (although bigger bones are an ethnicity thing for me) and dropped down to around 60lbs at 5'8". During recovery I began binging, justifying it with the fact that I needed to gain, but every now and then I panicked and would purge. Fast-forward a few years and I am exhausted by bulimia. I have a healthy  BMI of 21, so I don't even look like I am suffering anymore, but I am in a lot of pain. If only I had known the dangers of counting calories, I never would have started. Weight loss for me is simply not worth the pain, and now I try only to maintain and not to diet.

Original Post by new_bee:

why is there such a stigma associated with eating disorders?

 

Because it appears to be self-inflicted.  Which puts it more in the category of an addiction than an illness.  And if you think of any common addiction... alcoholism, drugs, cigarettes, gambling...  they are all engaged in voluntarily initially before they get out of control.  They are all rather shameful and stigmatised.  Obesity is treated equally unsympathetically.... it's our choice to get fat and we all know the medical consequences.  The ED sufferer made a conscious decision at some stage to eat very little, to take the laxatives or to be deliberately sick....  but then feels to compelled to keep doing it.

An illness, you can argue, is defined as something that strikes randomly and/or can be treated medically.    The person suffering from Parkinsons Disease has some drugs available to help but is otherwise the victim of sheer bad luck.  They are blameless and therefore not stigmatised.

Eating disorders - like alcoholism  - are often not treatable in the strict medical sense, they can only be overcome voluntarily with support and supervision.   And there's another reason why these behaviours don't work like normal illnesses and why they attract so much disdain.....  the 'patient' doesn't want to get better a lot of the time.   They seem to prefer being ill... And that runs counter to our core purpose... the survival of the species.   "Why don't they want to be healthy?  What's the matter with them?"  

 

 

 

I won't pretend to understand your situation with dieting or weight-loss, but I will comment on the idea that individuals suffering with eating disorders "seem to prefer being ill". While eating disorders often lead to serious illness, the individual does not intend to be ill. And why do they only "seem", don't you think finding out for sure would be better than making assumptions on a group of people you are not a part of?

Despite which end of the food/body conflict spectrum you're on (under/overweight, etc) food issues are much more complex than most give them credit for. Therefore, cut-and-dry "support and supervision" will not necessarily resolve the origin of the problem.

We are not that different from people trying to lose weight. We all have body/ food conflicts, but we cope completely differently. So before you belittle all those trying to overcome EDs as "'patients'" remember the word patient refers to an individual undergoing medical treatment and not why they're there.

I'm just saying don't assume you know something about somebody else when you don't know what their journey is all about.

 

An inability to get better is not the same as a preference for being ill. While I acknowledge that I am unwell, there is nothing I would like more than to be well again. I am always trying, but it is a long road and there's nothing I can do about that.

The idea that eating disorders are self-inflicted is as ludicrous as suggesting any other mental illness (for that is what eating disorders are) is self-inflicted. There is not usually a point, in my and my ED-afflicted friends' experiences, where people voluntarily engage in ED behaviours. Unless you count dieting, which is where most EDs begin.

Eating disordered behaviour tends to creep up on people. "The ED sufferer made a conscious decision at some stage to eat very little, to take the laxatives or to be deliberately sick....  but then feels to compelled to keep doing it." To me this phrase is untrue. In my experience, a person will diet, and then begin to become wary of fats and high calorie foods, and this leads to fear of food, and a gradual elimination of food groups - cutting back of the quantity and range of food consumed. A healthy person does not simply purge or use laxatives or starve. By the time these behaviours are occuring, an eating disorderd mindset has probably already been established.

That eating disorders are treated with disdain is not a reflection of eating disorder sufferers themselves - gi jane seems to suggest that it is a reflection of their own unwillingness to be well. Instead it is a sad relection of the lack of understanding of serious mental illness in our society.

Someone asked 'why are people with eating disorders stigmatised' and I attempted to answer the question honestly.  I didn't claim those were my views (did I?) but they are quite prevalent and common views.