No Thinspiration

Aimee Liu, the author of over 10 books, spoke with me recently about her new work, Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders (Warner Books, 2007), and how her life with anorexia impacted the words within.

Kelly Jad’on: Why the title, Gaining?

Aimee Liu: That is the word which strikes fear and loathing in the hearts of those with eating disorders. It is associated with gaining fat. It has richer meanings, though. Gaining pleasure, gaining independence, gaining confidence. All of these appetites are connected. To gain freedom from eating disorders, you have to gain in power and maturity. This is central to recovery from eating disorders.

In our culture, women are told implicitly to be afraid of gaining weight both in pounds and purpose; a lot of women portrayed as celebrities or in fashion magazines are encouraged to remain in a state of immature adolescence. The unspoken message has long been that an “ideal” woman is a perennial child whose sole value and responsibility is to look cute. But today, with the creation of Size Zero clothing, the message is even worse. Now the “perfect” woman is a zero - in other words, nonexistent.

Aimee, where did the anorexia begin? How old were you when you began losing or wasting?

Wasting has multiple meanings related to one’s life and body. I originally began dieting in 7th grade. I developed what is now considered true symptoms of an eating disorder in the 8th grade. That was back in the 1960s, when few were diagnosed. I was obsessive, and at 5’6”, remained below 100 lbs until college, around age 19-20.

I was never as severe as some anorexics, near death; I maintained a weight that was too low. Like a vast majority who hover on the brink of anorexia, the real damage is psychological.
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Nicole Richie, whose rail-thin frame has been a source of much discussion in the media, is now joining the chorus of voices saying that she is too skinny.

“I know I’m too thin right now, so I wouldn’t want any young girl looking at me and saying, ‘That’s what I want to look like,’ ” Richie tells Vanity Fair in its June issue. “I do know that they will, which is another reason I really do need to do something about it. I’m not happy with the way I look right now.”

Richie blames her severe weight loss on, in part, her December breakup with then-fiancé Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein. “I get really stressed out, and I do lose my appetite,” she says. (She and AM have been spotted together again recently.)

In an effort to put on a few pounds, Richie says she forced herself to eat – particularly high-calorie foods like burritos – but eventually sought professional help. “I started seeing a nutritionist and a doctor. I was scared that it could be something more serious.”
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The struggle with anorexia is a long way from the glamour of catwalks, fashion glossies and the latest diet. Two men talk about the women they love for whom ‘thin’ is a constant state of mind

It’s hard to say whether, if Grace had been bigger, I would still have found her attractive. You can never know that kind of thing. But her slimness wasn’t part of my initial attraction to her. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Slim girl - great!’ It was more about our connection. I don’t think Grace was very thin when I first met her, and I don’t think her size has really changed since then. Physically she had recovered from anorexia while at university. The psychological part is a longer recovery process and I met her during this time, when she had just moved from university to London, and was in her first week of a new job. She wasn’t comfortable with changing her environment or disrupting her control or routine; it wasn’t an easy transition for her.

But I would say she was still recovering for the first year we were together. We met at a work party - she was 23 and on the graduate scheme for an advertising agency; I was 24 and worked for a media agency in the same London building. We got talking and found we knew some of the same people. Grace called me the next day to arrange another meeting that weekend, and a month later she was my girlfriend. On our second date - over dinner in a restaurant - Grace told me: ‘There’s something you need to know. I was anorexic, but I’m better now.’ I didn’t really understand what eating disorders were all about. I don’t think I would have known at all, unless she had told me, at least not for a couple of months. I might have asked her why she needed to diet, because she was very slim, but I never thought of her as too thin. Every woman seems to be on a diet and think she is too fat! As soon as Grace told me, I was very conscious of looking out for signs that she was controlling her diet. I looked to see if she had finished her plate, but there was nothing really obvious. No one else would have noticed.

I read Grace’s book [Thin, published by Penguin, which details her experience of anorexia], and there’s a section where Grace says she felt she had to tell me this secret, even though she’d only just met me. She wrote that she didn’t want to spend too much time in the loo, because I’d probably think she was being sick. That’s exactly what I was thinking! Being sick after eating is, of course, a different eating disorder altogether, but I didn’t really know that then. For a few weeks after she told me, I kept an eye on her - seeing if she went to the toilet during a meal, that sort of thing. But as I got to know more about how Grace was actually feeling and the history of it, and how far she had come from where she was, I got less concerned. Grace has actually never binged in the time I’ve known her.
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Their views on food and body image could not be more different: Susannah Jowitt is the author of Fat, So?, which celebrates larger women. Candida Crewe wrote Eating Myself about her battle with anorexia and bulimia.

So what happened when they met?

Susannah Jowitt, 38, is 5ft 7in, weighs 14 stone and is a size 16 to 18.

She lives in West London with her husband Anthony and children Adelaide, five, and Winston, three. Susannah says: When I was 14, I nicked two pieces of bread from the middle of a new loaf of Hovis, then carefully re-sealed the bag with that fiddly piece of sticky yellow tape to escape detection.

Such extraordinary attention to detail was all in vain. My mother had counted the number of slices in the loaf and confronted me with my crime.

It was at that moment that I should have realised all was not well in our family’s Garden of Eating. How many parents count the slices in a loaf?

Such elaborate surveillance was necessary because I was, apparently, a Fat Child and needed to diet. My brother, on the other hand, was a Thin Child, so he was allowed sweets after tea (that’s how I remember it, anyway).

My parents yo-yoed between being people who loved their food (my mother was a truly great cook) and people who paid for their love of food by eating grapefruit. I inherited their greediness but, to my mother’s frustration, I missed out on the guilt gene.

Looking back at photos of myself as an adolescent, I wasn’t even particularly big - sturdy, yes, and with the same frame as my mum, who, by that time, was fat - but certainly nothing to worry about. But worry she did.
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If popular entertainment revolves around physical appearance - then what might go on in the mind of a TV executive?

Recently actress Alex Kingston criticized TV show Desperate Housewives. Kingston claimed “she was turned down for Felicity Huffman’s role because she has too many curves.” Kingston (known for her role in ER) went on to say “I didn’t get the part, and I know why: irrespective of acting ability, I’m just way too big.”

Of course these are her assumptions - and may simply be ’sour grapes’ - but one look at the cast of Housewives shows that Kingston may be on the mark.

The question is - why? What’s with the ‘thin’ casting? It is obvious that in certain circles, and in certain TV shows - size is a real factor. This is not to say that women cannot be naturally slim-figured - but why go out of the way to ensure that a female cast remains thin?
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Dec. 18, 2006 (Newsweek)
If a food craving strikes, try a manicure to “keep your hands occupied.”
This kind of tip is common fare on pro-”ana” (anorexia) and pro-”mia” (bulimia) Web sites. Well intended or not, they’re not “benign,” says Dr. Rebecka Peebles of Stanford University, coauthor of “Surfing for Thinness,” published in Pediatrics last week. Stanford researchers surveyed patients treated for eating disorders, ages 10 to 22, and found that users of pro-eating-disorder sites were sick longer. And 96 percent of them reported learning new tips for weight loss or purging; 69 percent said they used them.

The sites tend to gloss over bad news: people with anorexia are 56 times more likely than their peers to commit suicide. (And they’re not broadcasting the November anorexia-related death of Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston.)

Sites deny being harmful, saying they provide a community for those with eating disorders. The term “pro-ana” is broadly used, and sites vary greatly. “We offer them support, saying, ‘It will be. Continue going to your doctor’,” says five-foot, 89-pound proana.us owner Anna Robbins.

In November, the Academy for Eating Disorders suggested a mandatory warning statement: “Warning: anorexia nervosa is a potentially deadly illness. The site you are about to enter provides material that may be detrimental to your health.”

—Karen Springen

LONDON (Reuters) - Marg Oaten’s daughter was a happy, healthy girl who loved table tennis and drama until at the age of 10 she developed anorexia. Twelve years on she is still fighting the illness, which almost killed her.
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“I was absolutely distraught,” said Oaten, 54. “It is the worst thing in the world to know your daughter might die.”

At her darkest point, Oaten said her daughter existed on five flakes of cereal a day, washed down with a mouthful of water.

Children as young as seven can suffer from eating disorders. The illness also afflicts older women as well as men and boys, though it is most common in young women, health experts say.

In Britain, about five to ten percent of women aged 14 to 24 suffer from some form of eating disorder. The ratio falls to 1 percent for the whole female population, said Professor Janet Treasure, head of the eating disorders service and research unit at King’s College London.

Bulimia nervosa, when a person binges and vomits, is two to five times more common than anorexia nervosa, when someone restricts their intake of food and drink, she said.

Both psychiatric disorders, can be fatal — two models from Latin America died this year after becoming anorexic — or cause permanent health defects such as brittle bones and infertility.
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With skimpy swimsuits and trips to the beach in mind, toning various body parts and dropping a few pounds in time for summer has become a priority for many. Coupled with regular cardiovascular exercise, healthy eating habits can severely impact one’s weight as well as one’s overall body image.

When it comes to shaping up and slimming down, several factors impact a person’s body and general healthiness. Different diets and eating routines work for different people. The following “dos” should put a positive spin on helping those who wish to revamp their eating habits in the hopes of transforming their bodies for the better.

DO eat well-balanced meals throughout the day, kick starting your metabolism with breakfast as often as possible.

DO eat several helpings of salad, fruits and vegetables throughout the day. Recommended amount is five servings of fruit and vegetables each day.

DO drink lots of water. Strive for at least eight glasses a day, but drink as much as you are able. Your body will eventually crave the water, which often makes you less hungry for snacks throughout the day while also flushing toxins from your body.

DO avoid eating simply because you are bored. Popping candy, cookies and other sweets into your mouth merely to pass the time is not conducive to modifying and maintaining a healthy body image.

DO sit down; enjoy your food and CHEW! Avoid scarfing down your lunch in the car as you drive. Rushing meals and trying to get too many other things done while eating may prevent the food from digesting properly. Take the time to enjoy a leisurely meal without constantly trying to do something else.
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Katharine McPhee discusses her courageous decision to enter rehab for her eating disorder.
“American Idol” second-place runner-up KATHARINE McPHEE credits the hit TV series with helping her get her life on track. In the December issue of Shape magazine, currently on stands, the 22-year-old beauty talks about her decision to enter the Eating Disorder Center of California to deal with her bulimia.

“After I made it through the first round of auditions, I knew I had to get better if I was going to go all the way,” Katharine recalls in her interview. “In this way I can say the show literally saved my life.”

After discussing her bulimia with her mother, Katharine entered the program, finishing up the three-month outpatient program just days before “Idol” stopped airing the audition episodes and began focusing on the Top 24.

“The therapists asked me if I was ready to let go of bulimia, and I definitely was,” Katharine told the magazine. “Yes, I was scared, but I knew I had suffered enough.”

Growing up, Katharine had always been considered skinny. It wasn’t until she decided to try modeling and acting that food became an issue. She was only 15 years old, but casting directors kept telling the size-10 teenager to lose 10 more pounds. The end result was that she became obsessed with her weight, and when she saw a TV show about purging, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Since leaving Eating Disorder Center of California, Katharine says she has been successful in using the tools they gave her, so that she made it all the way to the “American Idol” finals, through this past summer’s “Idol” tour and through the stress of recording her upcoming CD without suffering a relapse.

“It’s hard to eat healthy on the road, but as I learned in the center, it’s not necessarily what you eat but how much,” she says.

More than half the people diagnosed with eating disorder anorexia never fully recover, 20 percent remain chronically ill and five percent die, the British Medical Journal estimates.

Here are some key facts on the disease:

WHO IS MOST AT RISK?
- Anorexia has the highest fatality rate of any psychiatric illness, with 13 to 18 percent of sufferers dying, most commonly due to heart disease or suicide, health experts in Britain say.

- Eating disorders are generally more prevalent in industrialized countries, among young women or adolescent girls.

- An estimated three percent of young women experience eating disorders. In Britain, about five to ten percent of women aged 14 to 24 suffer from some form of eating disorder.

- Eating disorders are more common among competitive athletes than the general population. Female gymnasts, ballerinas, figure skaters, and distance runners are at high risk, as are male bodybuilders and wrestlers.
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