Eating Disorders: They are common and can be deadly

By Toren Bakula

The theater is cold and slightly damp from the mix of rain and snow that occurred earlier in the day. The audience patiently wait while chattering amongst themselves. There is a sense of curiosity and anticipation in the air. The purple curtains on the stage began to go up and a group of young adolescent girls take the stage, wearing white baggy t-shirts, nude tights and black compression shorts, with black unitards underneath the t-shirts.

A woman’s voice is heard over the sound system and the girls began their dance as the woman narrates the struggles that girls face in society. She talks in a strained, pained voice, explaining to the audience the struggle to look and act perfect all the time, and that “even when they are dead, women are expected to look perfect for people.”

The young dancers perform a series of turns, leaps and bends. Halfway through, the woman changes from narration to singing, lyrics explaining how she does not feel pretty but longs to feel it and tries everything she can to be pretty. The dancers slow down their movement to match the slow, sad pace of the music. Each move matches each word the woman sings. It appears that they have experienced what she is singing. One can see anguish, and sadness in their faces.

The song begins to pick up as the woman realizes she is beautiful. Her voice becomes a powerful force. The dancers sense this change in the melody and match their movements to it. Their movements become stronger and more confident, their leaps higher, their turns faster.

The song ends with the woman singing that girls are all beautiful in unique ways. As she sings this the dancers remove their baggy white t-shirts to reveal their black unitards and black compression shorts. The dancers show genuine happiness and confidence in their faces once they shed the white shirts. The cloak has been lifted from their bodies. They are embracing their bodies for who they are, no longer hiding from the world. The audience erupts in applause.

The performance by the dancers was part of a program put on the by the Psychology Department at John Carroll University to raise awareness about eating disorders. What exactly are eating disorders? The National Eating Disorders Association, or NEDA, defines them as abnormal eating habits that affect an individual’s emotional and physical health while also being threatening to that individual’s life. A variety of eating disorders — including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and orthorexia nervosa — affect roughly 30 million people in the United States alone.

Sadly, according to NEDA, those numbers continue to rise. An ongoing study performed by Ancel Keys, Ph.D., and Josef Brozek, Ph.D., from Minnesota has found incidences of anorexia increasing over the last 50 years in females aged 15 to 24. Eating disorders now affect four times as many people as breast cancer. Anorexia, the most common of them, is the third most common chronic disease among young people, following asthma and Type 1 diabetes.

Furthermore, the National Eating Disorders Association states that the risk of dying from an eating disorder is 10 times more likely for those aged 15 to 24 than those of other ages.

Most people are not well informed about eating disorders or about the causes and consequences behind them, according to the NEDA website. Yet, having a general understanding of what eating disorders are and knowing the signs and symptoms that indicate when someone needs help can go a long way to reducing their toll. It can literally save lives.

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America’s website, the most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The root of the word anorexia means “appetite loss of nervous origins.” This appetite loss is not the same as those that come, from illness, emotional stress or even from overeating. Instead it comes from a deep fear of food and eating, according to the NEDA website. This fear of eating is as strong as common fears and phobias such as fear of heights and fear of flying.

Anorexia involves a distorted perception of one’s own body shape and size, coupled with anxiety over getting fat or gaining weight. Some common signs of the disorder, listed by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders on its website include, dramatic weight loss, excessive weighing where each time one sets lower weight goals, over- exercising, restricting food intake, refusal of certain foods that leads to eliminating food entire groups from one’s diet, and the use of diet aids such as laxatives and weight loss pills.

According to the association, a person diagnosed with anorexia will either have a very low body weight and have a body mass index, or BMI, of less than 17.5 percent, or will weigh 10 percent less than what would be expected at their age and size. As a result of the disorder, a person may experience an abnormally low heart rate and low blood pressure, reduction of their bone density, muscle loss, fatigue and overall weakness.

Sally* (whose name has been changed for confidentiality), a John Carroll University student who was diagnosed with anorexia, explained in an interview how her eating disorder went from trying to live a healthier lifestyle to eventually harming her body by starving it.

“I started by first just eliminating simple things from my diet such as, candy, soda, chips et cetera and I noticed that I started to lose a few pounds. So, I kept up with it. I then threw out other foods, such as carbs, because I read online that getting rid of them helps you lose weight faster. My weight loss got into a rut, so then I started working out. (I) started with only doing three days a week, for an hour. As the weight kept coming off, I increased the time of my workouts from an hour to three hours, and went seven days instead of three,” Sally recounted.

“I also cut more and more foods out of my diet,” Sally continued. “I made sure to count anything I ate, and I mean anything. I wanted to make sure that I knew exactly what was going in to my body whenever I ate something. I think I was eating between 500 and 1,000 calories each day,” she explained. “I loved the feeling of being in control and I guess starving myself somewhat put me at ease.”

The second most common type of eating disorders is bulimia nervosa. The National Eating Disorders Association estimates that about 1.5 percent of women and about 0.5 percent of men will suffer from bulimia at some point in their lifetime. A defining characteristic of this disorder is that the person suffering from it can be either of normal weight or overweight. According to the Mayo Clinic website this disorder involves episodes followed by “purging” — expelling the food.

Binge eating, means an individual consumes a large quantity of food in a short period of time. It is usually done in private and within a span of two hours or less. The person eats the food until the urge to eat is gone, which is sometimes to the point of pain, as described by the Mayo Clinic website. Following the binge, NEDA explains, there is an attempt to rid the body of those calories just eaten by techniques such as vomiting or taking laxatives. Some people suffering from bulimia try to get rid of calories by exercising excessively while incorporating starvation periods.

Eating disorders are very serious health problems that can affect a person both physically and emotionally, according to The National Institutes of Health website. The disorders can start out quite innocently, but then turn into something that is chronic, debilitating, and even life-threatening.

An alarming fact that not many people may know is that eating disorders have the highest mortality rates out of any other mental illness, at around 20 percent, according to the National Institutes of Health. Therefore, early diagnosis and intervention are very important in order to help increase the success of the treatments.

The most effective form of treatment for eating disorders, according to the National Eating Disorders Collaboration website, is a form of psychotherapy or counseling. Psychotherapy, also called “talk therapy,” involves talking with a psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health provider. The treatment helps a person learn how to take back control of their life and learn new ways to respond to difficult situations and problems that may arise in their life. Research has shown that people who participate in psychotherapy benefit immensely from it, according to the National Eating Disorders Collaboration website.

Further treatment for eating disorders also includes nutritional counseling to inform the patient about nutritional needs and monitoring the patient’s food intake while making meal plans for them. The treatment involves at least one health professional (more often a registered dietitian) who works with the patient or someone close to them to assess the patient’s normal food intake and identify areas that need work.

Other treatments for people with eating disorders include outpatient therapy and support groups. All in all, exact treatment for eating disorders will vary, but it is important that for the individual with struggling to get help according to the NEDC, or else the disorder will get worse.

An interview with Denise Ben-Porath from the Psychology Department at John Carroll University discusses how a person should approach someone who may be going through an eating disorder.

“You have to be very mindful of how you say things and what you say,” Ben-Porath advises. “It’s like there are these landmines that are all over the place to people that do not have an eating disorder and they are constantly stepping on them. I wouldn’t say to someone, ‘You’re too thin.’ I wouldn’t say ‘You’re getting skinny, you’ve lost too much weight.’ All of those things sound really good to the person with an eating disorder.”

Ben-Porath explains what is appropriate to say to that individual. “I would instead say ‘I am really worried about you’ or ‘You don’t look healthy.’ Things that aren’t focused on thinness.”

According to Ben-Porath, the best way to approach the person is to listen and communicate one’s worry and concerns to this individual.

An experiment performed by Brittani D. Wynn from Southern Illinois University focused on women aged between 18 to 25, in order to determine whether or not media — specifically magazines or television — have an effect on women and their body images as adolescents. The study also included a survey to determine if the women currently had problems with their body images and to study the extent of social media influences them from their adolescence to adulthood. The study found that only 33.1 percent of the women said they were “satisfied/somewhat satisfied” with their body shape and form.

In addition, over 60 percent of women in the study said they strongly agreed or agreed that they prefer to be thinner. Another 58 percent of women in the study said that they felt self-conscious after reading a magazine or watching a television show, while 51 percent of women in the survey admitted that they felt the need to alter their body after viewing the television show or reading the magazine.

It is important to keep in mind that people with eating disorders cannot be type-cast. Individuals struggling with a disorder show different signs and symptoms not always standard conditions. Furthermore, each individual’s experience with an eating disorder is different. As a result, it may be difficult to diagnose whether someone may be suffering from an eating disorder. Having some general understanding of what eating disorders are and knowing the signs and symptoms can go a long way. More importantly it may possibly save someone’s life.

References

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Denise Ben-Porath (psychology professor at John Carroll University), interview April 17, 2018.

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