Eating Disorders

I watched something on television about eating disorders that really showed me what it was all about. I think it was on HBO and it showed the ups and downs of some women who were in treatment. Most of them were bulimic and anorexic, but I didn’t see any of them that were over eaters. I guess when most people think of eating disorders they don’t think of the ones that don’t stop eating. That’s ok though, because there was something eerie about watching those who were wasting away to nothing who thought they were ‘fat’.

I can’t say I understand eating disorders, and I guess that would be because you have to go through it to understand it. It’s like having a disease or perhaps being a minority. You can’t truly understand what it is like unless you know first hand. That doesn’t mean I don’t try to understand all of these things, and when something like the subject of eating disorders comes up, I try to learn all that I can. One big reason for this is because I have a young daughter and I think that having knowledge about the subject might allow me to know what it going on earlier if she were to ever develop a problem.

The biggest thing I learned about eating disorders is that they are not really about food. They are mostly about control. Their self-image seems to be warped. A healthy, even thin woman with an eating disorder looks in the mirror and sees something there that no one else can see. You can’t discount this as something that it is not. If they have a problem, they aren’t going to just snap out of it. They have to find out why they are doing it, and then find a way to work through it. This program showed me that many can’t work through it, even if they try. They may be ok for a while, but they tend to go right back into it once they are on their own.

If you have daughters, you might want to learn about eating disorders. You should know the signs, and what to watch out for. You may not understand what they are going through, but the sooner you figure out what is going on, the sooner you can get treatment. Eating disorders kill. If a person continues without treatment, they are very likely to die. Some who get treatment don’t make it through, so you can imagine how bad it is for someone who is left unchecked in their misery.

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