By work like this, from a psychologist at the University of Missouri.
If you've got a minute, hop over to the site, read the story, and leave a comment. I don't waste my time arguing with people online, but maybe Bardone-Cone can learn something from a different perspective.
5 comments:
Harriet, a few comments.
First, I ordered and read Feed Me, devoured it one night and loved it. I will write a review of it on my blog once I feel better and can post a review on Amazon too.
After reading Feed Me, some of the realizations I've been coming to as I become slightly wiser came together in an understanding that the complicated relationship with food and our bodies is part of being a woman in this society and at this time (and not only this society and time, but not inevitably).
Rare is the woman who doesn't hate her body some of the time, and believe that if her body were different her life would be different. But a life-threatening disease is different from these common thoughts and beliefs.
It's helpful to know that I didn't ask for these hateful thoughts about my body and myself, and that being fat didn't cause them either. They are like the (polluted) air. I like to think cleaning up the air will help, but even doing that won't eliminate eating disorders, only make them more identifiable as disorders.
In Feed Me, hearing how often women who became extremely thin due to illness (eating disorder or otherwise) were praised, and how that praise stopped once a woman had a healthy body, was really painful for me. That seems like something we could have an impact on. We could change what we say to each other about weight and appearance.
Thank you for Feed Me. Thank you for the work you do. Thank you for educating all of us about the roots of eating disorders, and providing hope to their treatment.
Thank YOU for your wonderful comment, WR. Working on this book was cathartic and enlightening for me. I agree that it's nearly impossible to be a woman in this culture and not hate your body sometimes. And of course this is different from a full-blown eating disorder. But there's more overlap than I like.
You're not to blame for hating your body any more than my daughter is to blame for having anorexia. In our case, though, we have some measure of power. We can at the very least give ourselves other words and other things to think about.
In Feed Me, hearing how often women who became extremely thin due to illness (eating disorder or otherwise) were praised, and how that praise stopped once a woman had a healthy body, was really painful for me. That seems like something we could have an impact on. We could change what we say to each other about weight and appearance.
Thank you for Feed Me. Thank you for the work you do. Thank you for educating all of us about the roots of eating disorders, and providing hope to their treatment.
This.
I was pleasantly surprised to see my library has ordered Feed Me! You will be happy to know there is already a waiting list! I look forward to reading it!
Harriet, I wanted to leave a comment. I really did. But I think I blew my Sanity Watchers points allotment for the day reading the article and the comments posted after yours.
I'll try again!
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