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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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Em left us her story and her fight against anorexia, thanks Em

I’m an 18 year old girl and I suffered from anorexia for 2 years from age 15-17yrs and I’m still recovering- its a slow process. Anyone who encourages anorexia in anyone is disugusting, its one of the most horrible, painful, troubling times in my life! I’ll tell you what anorexia is like first-hand: Imagine the only thing you think about all day is food- that’s it- when you can eat it, how much of it you can eat, what you are going to eat I was so obssessed with food that if someone asked me what I was going to eat that week I would be able to tell them exactly what I would be eating each day that’s how sad it is. You stop trusting anyone else who makes your food paranoid they are secretly putting in “extra” food. I used to eat hardly anything a day. My day was waiting for assigned times where I could eat I was so hungry that I just couldn’t wait until I allowed myself to eat. It makes you stop socialising with your friends cause you don’t want to have lunch with them because then you have to eat resturant food which is higher in calories. I would a strict food plan as I knew exactly what I was eating like a comfort zone- I am serious I ate the same thing everyday 95% of the time. I would exercise 14 hours a week, my exercise instructor cried after class one time seeing how thin I had become- that hit me hard.

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Without their parents’ knowledge, many adolescents with diagnosed eating disorders are visiting Web sites that encourage anorexia and bulimia, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics last month.

“Parents of pro-eating-disorder Web site users were more likely to know about these sites” – which provide “thinspiration” (images of extremely thin women) and reinforce disordered eating habits – than other parents, said Rebecka Peebles, one of the study’s authors and an instructor in adolescent medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “Still, over half the parents of these pro-eating-disorder Web site users didn’t know their own kids were on these sites.”

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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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PepsiCo (PEP) plans to introduce an energized version of Diet Pepsi that includes more caffeine, as well as ginseng, a PepsiCo spokesman confirmed.

The drink, Diet Pepsi Max, is geared toward consumers age 25 to 34 who like the buzz of drinks like PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew, but are starting to become concerned about their weight, the spokesman said.

Diet Pepsi Max will have about one-third more caffeine than Diet Mountain Dew, the spokesman said, confirming a story on the website of Beverage Digest, a magazine that follows the beverage industry.

The drink is scheduled to be launched in June, the PepsiCo spokesman said.

After the failure of Enviga from Coca-Cola, Pepsi tries to win that market

Via Reuters

An indication of what’s on the minds of America’s Internet surfers - celebrities, talented or not - was revealed Wednesday when AOL and Lycos announced the results of the top searches carried out by visitors to their websites in 2006.

AOL users picked Paris Hilton, a professional celebrity, as their most searched-for celebrity while singer Clay Aiken was the top choice at Lycos.

Among Lycos searchers, their favorite search wasn’t a person this year, but a new phenomenon: poker. “Search activity for poker has been steadily climbing since it made its first appearance on the 2004 year-end list at number 10,” Lycos reported, noting that searches for poker had climbed 434 percent in the last year.

Celebrities nevertheless had their day in the sun at Lycos as Pamela Anderson finished fourth and Paris Hilton was in fifth place. Britney Spears was tenth.

Aiken was the most-searched-for male of the year on Lycos while Pamela Anderson, already noted, garnered the most votes for a female personality.

“This annual list of top searches is always a fun way to look back at the year and see what sparked interest,” said Timothy Tuttle, AOL Video VP, in a statement. The top searched word on AOL was “weather.”

The top news story at AOL was gas prices. At Lycos it was the Iraq war.

Computer and high-tech searches were conspicuous by their absence. The closest Web surfers came to showing interest in the field were searches for Apple Computer’s iPod - it was the most searched-for gadget on AOL Search; at Lycos, the iPod was the fourth most-searched “fad” of 2006, ranking behind poker, MySpace, and RuneScape.

When you’re hungry, take a nap. Shower, drink tea, numb your taste buds with teething gel, give yourself a manicure. Do anything but eat. These are some of the tips that “pro-ana,” or pro-anorexia Web sites offer to those who choose to restrict their eating.

These Web sites gained popularity the last few years as a kind of support group and community for those who have accepted anorexia as a lifestyle rather than a disorder. They have also become a source of national concern as those with eating disorders reinforce self-destructive habits and ideals through the Web sites.

Before this year, there was no actual study on the effects of viewing the Web sites, but two MU researchers, Anna Bardone-Cone and Kamila Cass, have published a pilot study in “European Eating Disorders Review.” Their larger study about the topic is being considered for publication in an eating disorder journal.

There is a format that comes with a pro-ana, mia (bulimia) or pro-ED (eating disorder) Web site. There’s the “thinspiration” section filled with pictures of rail-thin runway models and celebrities, sometimes accompanied with their measurements, “to set better goals for yourself and to keep on track,” as displayed on “Shophisticated,” a pro-ana Web site. There’s also the “reverse trigger” section, composed of pictures of morbidly obese people, greasy food and “fat” celebrities.
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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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