Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 5, 1994 TAG: 9412290001
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Learning how to handle teasing is part of growing up. Most kids don't let it bother them. They know that people come in all shapes and sizes, and that each of us is a little bit different from everyone else. They know there is no right weight or height, it varies from person to person.
But sometimes kids and adults take a comment about their weight too seriously. Instead of learning about healthy ways to eat and exercise, they decide to starve themselves to lose weight. They lose weight, all right, but they also injure their bodies, and sometimes they die.
Others decide that eating a lot of food makes them feel good, and they can become dangerously overweight. People who have these kinds of problems are said to have an eating disorder.
Your mind can get sick just like your body can. A sickness of the mind is called a mental illness. An eating disorder is a mental illness.
Dr. Marleen Boskind-White is a psychologist. She is not a medical doctor, which means she can't give people medicine or tell them what is wrong with their bodies, but she is specially trained to deal with mental illnesses.
Boskind-White was one of the first doctors to try to help people with eating disorders. She wrote a book about them, and she knows so much that she was asked to work with athletes on the U.S. Olympic team. They need her because sometimes athletes do the wrong things to keep their bodies in shape.
People who have the starving kind of eating disorder are afraid of food, Boskind-White said. If being afraid of food sounds silly, think about how your parents probably limit how much candy and soft drinks you can have. They do it because, although these kinds of food are OK to have once in a while, if you have them too often, they can ruin your teeth and spoil your appetite for foods that are better for you.
Imagine how it would be if your parents were actually afraid of these foods. What if they never let you have any sweets at all, and they believed that if you ate even a little bit, it would hurt you?
This is how people with eating disorders feel about all kinds of food.
The three most common eating disorders are overeating, bulimia and anorexia nervosa. People who overeat often choose the wrong foods or they eat when they feel bad, instead of when they're hungry. Sometimes they don't exercise enough.
Occasionally, said Dr. Clifford Nottingham, a medical doctor who treats people of all ages, a child who is very shy will stay at home and do nothing but eat, which makes the shyness even worse when the child begins to feel bad about his or her body.
Years ago, Nottingham said, most doctors would not do much for an overweight child. They would wait for him or her to "grow into" the extra pounds. Now, he said, we know that an overweight child often becomes an overweight adult. So children now are put on sensible diets, taught to eat the right foods and encouraged to exercise.
Anorexia and bulimia are diseases that make people want to starve themselves. Some people have just one disease, but others have both. People with bulimia make themselves throw up after every meal so the food is not in the stomach long enough to make them gain weight.
People who have anorexia simply refuse to eat. At first they choose not to, but later on, Boskind-White said, they can't help themselves. They are so afraid of food, they can't eat even when they want to.
"At a certain point, the body takes over the mind," she said.
When that happens, the consequences can be terrible. People can die from eating disorders, Boskind-White said. Children with eating disorders often stop growing and have weak bones for the rest of their lives.
Bulimics can throw their body chemistry off, Nottingham said. Bringing up acids from the stomach also can damage the internal organs and the teeth, he said.
No one knows what causes eating disorders. Boskind-White said there are as many different reasons as there are people.
"There is so much variety," said Deborah Miller, a counselor who specializes in talking to people with eating disorders. Many people who have them "have a problem with trying to be perfect." They don't feel very good about themselves, she said, and they think that if they can just lose 10 pounds or have smaller thighs, everything will be all right.
But they are just taking their unhappiness about something else out on their bodies, she said.
Part of what causes eating disorders is our culture, Boskind-White said.
Did you know that for thousands of years being fat was considered good? If you were fat, it meant that you had plenty of food and plenty of money and were very successful. Skinny people were looked down upon.
But about 30 years ago, there were more young people in the United States than ever before. Twenty years before that, World War II had ended, and everyone started having big families.
When the children in these families grew up, all of a sudden, being young, acting young and looking young was the fashion. And because young people usually are thinner than older people, being skinny was in style, said Boskind-White.
Nowadays, all of those skinny young people are older and heavier, but the fashion models haven't changed, and neither have our tastes.
Boskind-White said that many models have eating disorders. The way they look is not natural, and some of them even abuse drugs to stay thin.
The number of people with eating disorders is growing, and most of them are women and girls.
In our society, "it's so hard to feel good about yourself as a woman," Boskind-White said. And women and girls are under too much pressure to look a certain way.
Luckily, eating disorders usually can be cured. "A lot of it is education," Boskind-White said, and "learning to love your body."
by CNB