I'm in the beginning stages of putting together a presentation to give to staff at middle and high schools on eating disorders from the parent's perspective and especially anorexia. My goal is to a) create empathy for students and families dealing with an e.d., b) explain the severity of such e.d.s, c) offer specific practical information on how schools can support families dealing with e.d.s, and d) offer a list of things they shouldn't do, both in general ("anti-obesity" curricula, public weigh-ins, etc) and in specific when dealing with a child in crisis.
So I pose the question to my readers: What would YOU want your child's school to know/do differently when it comes to anorexia and e.d.s? Your input will help me create the most effective and compelling presentation.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
And the winners of the Mr. Wrong contest are . . .
I got some really great submissions about romance gone wrong in the Mr. Wrong contest. Who knew there were so many truly awful boyfriends out there? (Well, we all did.)
Two stood out, and I'm going to publish both of them here on my blog. Today's entry is by Cathy Prescott. It caught my eye initially because it takes place in the same part of Wisconsin where I live. Then again, it's just such a good story, I couldn't resist.
So congratulations to Cathy Prescott, my first winner, who will get a signed copy of the book and a T-shirt just as soon as she sends me her shirt size and address. Read her piece for yourself (and weep? laugh?). Tomorrow I'll bring you another installment of MR. WRONG: REAL-LIFE STORIES ABOUT THE MEN WE USED TO LOVE.
By the way, you can still enter (see the link above). The deadline was April 15 but, well, I'm easy about this stuff. And did you know that you, too, can have your very own MR. WRONG T-shirt? It's true. Send me an e-mail and I'll tell you how.
Crash Redpath
By Cathy Prescott
My former husband, James Redpath, was a flying nut. Maybe it stemmed from his days as a Green Beret, or maybe it was because he was a type T personality-fearless.
He bought his first airplane, an EAA Biplane, kit-built, one seater, with money saved to pay our real estate taxes. One seater’s do not allow the luxury of a flying instructor. “I’ll learn by practicing alone”, he said. He crashed it, uninsured, into a shoulder-high corn field near Lone Rock airport while trying to do a loop-the-loop, unable to pull out of a dive. He flattened 20 rows of corn. The emergency room physician called in the local surgeon to stitch-up James’s lacerated nose. After pulling out pieces of green cornstalk from the gaping edges, the surgeon commented that he was trying not to leave any “additional scars”, thus bestowing on James a dubious honor. James was not destined to gain reputation for his face.
His next plane fared better—a J3 Piper-Cub, yellow and black, two seater, with wing struts, and only three dials to read in the open cockpit: altimeter, speed indicator, and oil pressure gauge. The gas level was measured by a floating dipstick on top of the engine. When it quit floating, you were out of gas. He loved the freedom that plane gave him. He could skim the landscape at 1000 feet, come in at tree-top level to say “hi”, and land on his own grassy hillside, in Black Earth Valley. Even Jack McManus (a Madison high profile criminal trial attorney) owned a J3. James knew he flew in good company. Views were spectacular from the passenger-seat, as well. People lining up for a “bird’s eye view” flight were not disappointed. Riders, usually patrons thrilled by flying tales at Club 14, would drive down the hill to the farm, climb in on the strut, and seat-belt themselves in while he spun the prop, to start the engine. A half-hour later, the tinny-drone of the J3’s big radial engine could be heard, and soon the rider would be back on the ground, grinning, impressively awestruck after viewing a 30 mile radius of their own house, including power and phone lines, cows and pasture, and the hills and valleys lining the Wisconsin River.
One sunny June afternoon at three o’clock, James had picked up my 15 year old daughter as a passenger and they departed to do the usual sky-cruising. The sky was perfect, big blue fluffy clouds, visibility unimpaired. After the usual 30 minutes, he decided it was time to start for home as the gas float was dropping. Taking a new route this time, he flew through the neighbor’s North-South valley, which required a left-hand bank to line up for landing on his usual grassy strip below the hillside. This made him forget the whereabouts of the East-West high power-lines running through the valley, a bad mistake.
Into the turn, he clipped that high power line with his prop causing the line to stretch, then break, flinging one broken end into dry grass, starting a grass fire, and draping the other end over the roof of our nearby barn to leave it sparking into space. Remarkably, he was able to land the plane, although the plane had wires wrapped around the prop, and a strut was broken. Miraculously, he and my daughter were uninjured. He picked a most unfortunate time and place to cause this accident, however, as he put out the electricity between Black Earth and Mount Horeb just at milking time, a memorable event to farmers. And the local volunteer fire department had to be summoned to put out the grass fire. As a result, area farmers were most interested to hear who had caused their miserable loss of electricity at that particular time of day, on a beautiful sunny afternoon. They remembered his name.
I’ll bet, if Club 14 were still open, you could walk in there any evening, approach the bar, and ask any farmer sitting morosely, with a mug of draft beer at the bar, if they knew ever heard of a James Redpath? “Oh”, they would say, brightening up, you mean “Crash Redpath. Let me tell you a story about one sunny June afternoon. ”
Two stood out, and I'm going to publish both of them here on my blog. Today's entry is by Cathy Prescott. It caught my eye initially because it takes place in the same part of Wisconsin where I live. Then again, it's just such a good story, I couldn't resist.
So congratulations to Cathy Prescott, my first winner, who will get a signed copy of the book and a T-shirt just as soon as she sends me her shirt size and address. Read her piece for yourself (and weep? laugh?). Tomorrow I'll bring you another installment of MR. WRONG: REAL-LIFE STORIES ABOUT THE MEN WE USED TO LOVE.
By the way, you can still enter (see the link above). The deadline was April 15 but, well, I'm easy about this stuff. And did you know that you, too, can have your very own MR. WRONG T-shirt? It's true. Send me an e-mail and I'll tell you how.
Crash Redpath
By Cathy Prescott
My former husband, James Redpath, was a flying nut. Maybe it stemmed from his days as a Green Beret, or maybe it was because he was a type T personality-fearless.
He bought his first airplane, an EAA Biplane, kit-built, one seater, with money saved to pay our real estate taxes. One seater’s do not allow the luxury of a flying instructor. “I’ll learn by practicing alone”, he said. He crashed it, uninsured, into a shoulder-high corn field near Lone Rock airport while trying to do a loop-the-loop, unable to pull out of a dive. He flattened 20 rows of corn. The emergency room physician called in the local surgeon to stitch-up James’s lacerated nose. After pulling out pieces of green cornstalk from the gaping edges, the surgeon commented that he was trying not to leave any “additional scars”, thus bestowing on James a dubious honor. James was not destined to gain reputation for his face.
His next plane fared better—a J3 Piper-Cub, yellow and black, two seater, with wing struts, and only three dials to read in the open cockpit: altimeter, speed indicator, and oil pressure gauge. The gas level was measured by a floating dipstick on top of the engine. When it quit floating, you were out of gas. He loved the freedom that plane gave him. He could skim the landscape at 1000 feet, come in at tree-top level to say “hi”, and land on his own grassy hillside, in Black Earth Valley. Even Jack McManus (a Madison high profile criminal trial attorney) owned a J3. James knew he flew in good company. Views were spectacular from the passenger-seat, as well. People lining up for a “bird’s eye view” flight were not disappointed. Riders, usually patrons thrilled by flying tales at Club 14, would drive down the hill to the farm, climb in on the strut, and seat-belt themselves in while he spun the prop, to start the engine. A half-hour later, the tinny-drone of the J3’s big radial engine could be heard, and soon the rider would be back on the ground, grinning, impressively awestruck after viewing a 30 mile radius of their own house, including power and phone lines, cows and pasture, and the hills and valleys lining the Wisconsin River.
One sunny June afternoon at three o’clock, James had picked up my 15 year old daughter as a passenger and they departed to do the usual sky-cruising. The sky was perfect, big blue fluffy clouds, visibility unimpaired. After the usual 30 minutes, he decided it was time to start for home as the gas float was dropping. Taking a new route this time, he flew through the neighbor’s North-South valley, which required a left-hand bank to line up for landing on his usual grassy strip below the hillside. This made him forget the whereabouts of the East-West high power-lines running through the valley, a bad mistake.
Into the turn, he clipped that high power line with his prop causing the line to stretch, then break, flinging one broken end into dry grass, starting a grass fire, and draping the other end over the roof of our nearby barn to leave it sparking into space. Remarkably, he was able to land the plane, although the plane had wires wrapped around the prop, and a strut was broken. Miraculously, he and my daughter were uninjured. He picked a most unfortunate time and place to cause this accident, however, as he put out the electricity between Black Earth and Mount Horeb just at milking time, a memorable event to farmers. And the local volunteer fire department had to be summoned to put out the grass fire. As a result, area farmers were most interested to hear who had caused their miserable loss of electricity at that particular time of day, on a beautiful sunny afternoon. They remembered his name.
I’ll bet, if Club 14 were still open, you could walk in there any evening, approach the bar, and ask any farmer sitting morosely, with a mug of draft beer at the bar, if they knew ever heard of a James Redpath? “Oh”, they would say, brightening up, you mean “Crash Redpath. Let me tell you a story about one sunny June afternoon. ”
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
There is no way to prevent anorexia
As I wrote the title of this post, I felt a wave of despair. Until a couple of days ago, I had never put this thought into words, never articulated it to myself. But it's true.
Two years ago I would have said of course you can prevent anorexia. I certainly never believed my daughter would develop it.
She was smart. She was funny. She was self-aware. She was eminently rational, and had been since toddlerhood. She watched no commercial TV. Her videos were carefully screened. She was a feminist before she started kindergarten.
Every kid in her sixth-grade class had to do a research paper on a subject of interest. She did hers on eating disorders. Looking back, I understand that that right there was a clue. At the time, I thought it made her safer because she had knowledge, she understood, and she was warned.
I thought that years of modeling a healthy attitude toward my own body would protect her. (I was fooling myself there, too, but I tried hard.)
But here's the thing: Nothing that she did or I did protected her from anorexia. Because there is no way to prevent an eating disorder.
If anorexia could be prevented, we wouldn't need to be talking about treatment. We wouldn't need to watch children suffer or families unravel.
I know from my own daughter's experience that knowledge does not prevent anorexia. She knew more about anorexia in sixth grade than many doctors do. She understood the dangers. More, she knew she was--as a gymnast and perfectionist--at risk. But it didn't help.
I'm all for the studies now being done on treatments for anorexia. They're long overdue. But where are the studies on prevention? Why is no one even asking the question of how to prevent anorexia and bulimia? Cynthia Bulik has looked at anorexia and twins--this would seem to be a perfect area of research for her.
We know that genetic predisposition plays a huge role in eating disorders. We know that environment can be a catalyst. How does the famous saying go? Genes load the gun and environment pulls the trigger. What we don't know is how to put the safety back on the gun. We'll never know until we start the scientific process of figuring it out: coming up with hypotheses, testing them, recording the results, making connections.
I've watched half a dozen young women I know--all of them bright, funny, well-read, engaging--fall prey to anorexia. I can look around at the young teenagers I know and predict, now, who's at risk. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Treatment is crucial. God knows we need better treatments for anorexia. Maudsley treatment is the best we've got so far, and it saved my daughter's life. I'm grateful. But it's not enough. Enough is when we can keep kids from becoming anorexic in the first place.
I don't have the answers. Maybe it's a combination of things: a vaccine, education, behavior modification in those at risk. I don't know. But I do know that until we start asking the question, we'll never find an answer.
Two years ago I would have said of course you can prevent anorexia. I certainly never believed my daughter would develop it.
She was smart. She was funny. She was self-aware. She was eminently rational, and had been since toddlerhood. She watched no commercial TV. Her videos were carefully screened. She was a feminist before she started kindergarten.
Every kid in her sixth-grade class had to do a research paper on a subject of interest. She did hers on eating disorders. Looking back, I understand that that right there was a clue. At the time, I thought it made her safer because she had knowledge, she understood, and she was warned.
I thought that years of modeling a healthy attitude toward my own body would protect her. (I was fooling myself there, too, but I tried hard.)
But here's the thing: Nothing that she did or I did protected her from anorexia. Because there is no way to prevent an eating disorder.
If anorexia could be prevented, we wouldn't need to be talking about treatment. We wouldn't need to watch children suffer or families unravel.
I know from my own daughter's experience that knowledge does not prevent anorexia. She knew more about anorexia in sixth grade than many doctors do. She understood the dangers. More, she knew she was--as a gymnast and perfectionist--at risk. But it didn't help.
I'm all for the studies now being done on treatments for anorexia. They're long overdue. But where are the studies on prevention? Why is no one even asking the question of how to prevent anorexia and bulimia? Cynthia Bulik has looked at anorexia and twins--this would seem to be a perfect area of research for her.
We know that genetic predisposition plays a huge role in eating disorders. We know that environment can be a catalyst. How does the famous saying go? Genes load the gun and environment pulls the trigger. What we don't know is how to put the safety back on the gun. We'll never know until we start the scientific process of figuring it out: coming up with hypotheses, testing them, recording the results, making connections.
I've watched half a dozen young women I know--all of them bright, funny, well-read, engaging--fall prey to anorexia. I can look around at the young teenagers I know and predict, now, who's at risk. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Treatment is crucial. God knows we need better treatments for anorexia. Maudsley treatment is the best we've got so far, and it saved my daughter's life. I'm grateful. But it's not enough. Enough is when we can keep kids from becoming anorexic in the first place.
I don't have the answers. Maybe it's a combination of things: a vaccine, education, behavior modification in those at risk. I don't know. But I do know that until we start asking the question, we'll never find an answer.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Clinton's crusade
Bill Clinton's new crusade against obesity is making headlines and blogs around the world. The media just can't resist the image of a formerly fat former president calling for more ammo in the war against obesity.
If only Clinton would harness his power for good--imagine what he could accomplish!
Don't get me wrong--I'm an FOB (fan of Bill's) from way back. But I sure wish he'd take a stand for something truly meaningful, like national health insurance or truly meaningful mental health parity. Or how about pushing for an hour-long school lunch, like the French have? Or daily recess for all schoolkids?
And hey, Bill, as you wield your influence for the good of children everywhere, I hope you will take the time to educate yourself about eating disorders. I hope your efforts stay focused on supporting children's health in all ways rather than fat-bashing--which we all know is ineffective at best and cruelly destructive at worst. I would hate to see more of what helped trigger my daughter into food restricting and, ultimately, anorexia: mindless labeling of "good" foods and "bad" foods, fear-mongering at the table, and more prejudice against those who don't conform to cultural ideals.
If only Clinton would harness his power for good--imagine what he could accomplish!
Don't get me wrong--I'm an FOB (fan of Bill's) from way back. But I sure wish he'd take a stand for something truly meaningful, like national health insurance or truly meaningful mental health parity. Or how about pushing for an hour-long school lunch, like the French have? Or daily recess for all schoolkids?
And hey, Bill, as you wield your influence for the good of children everywhere, I hope you will take the time to educate yourself about eating disorders. I hope your efforts stay focused on supporting children's health in all ways rather than fat-bashing--which we all know is ineffective at best and cruelly destructive at worst. I would hate to see more of what helped trigger my daughter into food restricting and, ultimately, anorexia: mindless labeling of "good" foods and "bad" foods, fear-mongering at the table, and more prejudice against those who don't conform to cultural ideals.
Friday, April 13, 2007
The Missing Link
In the lexicon of sensationalized news stories, there are none quite as poignant as stories like this headline from the Times of London: "15st boy is taken from grandparents who lost their daughter to anorexia."
The story goes on to describe, in horrified tones, how a 10-year-old Spanish boy was removed from his grandparents' custody after they overfed him until he reached 200 pounds. The story goes on, predictably, to quote experts familiar with the case as well as those who were not about the dangers of obesity, how obesity is on the rise, etc. etc.
Buried up near the front of the piece is a crucial nugget of information, mentioned once and never referred to again. The grandparents had custody in the first place because the boy's mother had died of anorexia.
It's tragic that no one quoted in this story (and for all I know, in the boy's life) has made the connection between his mother's death from anorexia, his grandparents' feeding behavior, and his own eating. Imagine watching your daughter or your mother starve herself to death. Imagine the grief, the guilt, the disbelief and lack of understanding. Of course that has an effect on everyone's relationship to food.
Authorities took the boy away from his grandparents and put him on a diet. They report that he has now lost more than 20kg and that they'd like to return him to his grandparents' custody. The story goes on: "But they say the grandparent remain “in denial” that their feeding habits are a problem – health officials said that they even tried to smuggle chocolate biscuits to him during their weekly visits. “The problem is that the grandparents still don’t understand that they were harming the lad and seriously placing his life and future at risk,” Ms Fernández said."
What will it take for us to look at the relationship with food and eating as a whole package and not isolated bits of pathology? My heart goes out to this boy and his grandparents.
The story goes on to describe, in horrified tones, how a 10-year-old Spanish boy was removed from his grandparents' custody after they overfed him until he reached 200 pounds. The story goes on, predictably, to quote experts familiar with the case as well as those who were not about the dangers of obesity, how obesity is on the rise, etc. etc.
Buried up near the front of the piece is a crucial nugget of information, mentioned once and never referred to again. The grandparents had custody in the first place because the boy's mother had died of anorexia.
It's tragic that no one quoted in this story (and for all I know, in the boy's life) has made the connection between his mother's death from anorexia, his grandparents' feeding behavior, and his own eating. Imagine watching your daughter or your mother starve herself to death. Imagine the grief, the guilt, the disbelief and lack of understanding. Of course that has an effect on everyone's relationship to food.
Authorities took the boy away from his grandparents and put him on a diet. They report that he has now lost more than 20kg and that they'd like to return him to his grandparents' custody. The story goes on: "But they say the grandparent remain “in denial” that their feeding habits are a problem – health officials said that they even tried to smuggle chocolate biscuits to him during their weekly visits. “The problem is that the grandparents still don’t understand that they were harming the lad and seriously placing his life and future at risk,” Ms Fernández said."
What will it take for us to look at the relationship with food and eating as a whole package and not isolated bits of pathology? My heart goes out to this boy and his grandparents.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Listen to Mr. Wrong
Yesterday I was interviewed by Deborah Harper of Psychjourney about MR. WRONG: REAL-LIFE STORIES ABOUT THE MEN WE USED TO LOVE. She was one of the most thoughtful interviewers I've come across, and I'm pleased with how it turned out.
So just in case you're interested, I'm going to try to post the link to the interview here. You can always email me and I'll send you the MP3 file if this doesn't work.
So just in case you're interested, I'm going to try to post the link to the interview here. You can always email me and I'll send you the MP3 file if this doesn't work.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
To Diet or Not to Diet?
Just in case you were wondering, the answer is pretty clear: Diets don't work. But then we all know this already, don't we?
Part of my daughter's recovery from anorexia has been to reconnect with her own feelings of hunger and fullness. For a long while she never felt hungry--or at least, she never felt a physical sensation she could identify as hunger. I think she was very hungry underneath the anorexic mind that temporarily took over hers. The most emotional moment of her recovery was the day she called me at work to say, "Mom, I'm hungry!"
I've never been anorexic. But I, too, had to learn to feel hunger again after years of training myself not to. I had to experience the scary feeling of being hungry and reassure myself that I would eat, that I would feed myself--and that I would stop eating when I wasn't hungry anymore.
I grew up dieting and binging. That's what we Jersey girls did in the 1960s and 70s, especially if our mothers lectured here. And while I never unearthed a treasure like this one, I did effectively divorce myself from every feeling having to do with food.
Too bad I couldn't divorce myself from the self-loathing that dieting--and falling off the diet--regularly imposed.
Whichever end of the spectrum you approach it from, dieting looks pretty lame. It's a multi-billion-dollar industry, and that's why it still has street cred, despite the crummy statistics around its efficacy--only 2% of dieters keep their weight off, according to the UCLA researchers.
I feel the same about dieting as I do about using illegal drugs: I sure wish I hadn't done that when I was young and naive and ill-informed.
So those of you who might be on the fence about it: Just say no.
Part of my daughter's recovery from anorexia has been to reconnect with her own feelings of hunger and fullness. For a long while she never felt hungry--or at least, she never felt a physical sensation she could identify as hunger. I think she was very hungry underneath the anorexic mind that temporarily took over hers. The most emotional moment of her recovery was the day she called me at work to say, "Mom, I'm hungry!"
I've never been anorexic. But I, too, had to learn to feel hunger again after years of training myself not to. I had to experience the scary feeling of being hungry and reassure myself that I would eat, that I would feed myself--and that I would stop eating when I wasn't hungry anymore.
I grew up dieting and binging. That's what we Jersey girls did in the 1960s and 70s, especially if our mothers lectured here. And while I never unearthed a treasure like this one, I did effectively divorce myself from every feeling having to do with food.
Too bad I couldn't divorce myself from the self-loathing that dieting--and falling off the diet--regularly imposed.
Whichever end of the spectrum you approach it from, dieting looks pretty lame. It's a multi-billion-dollar industry, and that's why it still has street cred, despite the crummy statistics around its efficacy--only 2% of dieters keep their weight off, according to the UCLA researchers.
I feel the same about dieting as I do about using illegal drugs: I sure wish I hadn't done that when I was young and naive and ill-informed.
So those of you who might be on the fence about it: Just say no.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Of pregnancy and fat phobia
Another post from Sandy Szwarc highlights the peculiar and dare I say twisted mentality that comes from living in a culture that's fat phobic in the extreme. Szwarc's talking about the latest media anti-fat media blitz, this one focused on the relationship between weight gained in pregnancy and overweight toddlers. Specifically, according to the study's authors, women who gain even the accepted amount of weight during pregnancy run four times the risk of having a child who's overweight at age 3.
Scary, huh? Apparently much scarier than another finding buried in the study, which received neither headlines nor any media attention: the fact that women who didn't gain enough weight during pregnancy had double the risk of having a baby with intrauterine growth retardation. According to Szwarc, Babies with IUGR are at vastly higher risks of stillbirth and serious medical problems during infancy if they do survive.
This reminds me of the recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that being underweight or of "normal" weight (and let's not even go there for now) correlated with higher rates of mortality than being overweight. (Thanks to Paul Campos for writing about this!) This unpopular finding has been scrutinized and rationalized to death, because apparently it's unbelievable that having nutritional reserves (i.e., being fat) could possibly confer any health benefits.
This, in turn, reminds me of the way doctors and therapists who treat eating disorders sometimes fall inadvertently into the language and perspective of those eating disorders. How people with anorexia can walk around at weights that are dangerous, yet no one notices because we've been so conditioned to think that thin = healthy and good.
Apparently we live in a culture where death is preferable to being fat. Even for babies. Even for toddlers.
Some years ago I dealt with this in my own life, after a severe depression sent me into a tailspin (what would have no doubt been called a nervous breakdown 60 years ago). Antidepressants lifted the fog and gave me my life back. They also, over a period of 5 years, led to a 50-pound weight gain. To me it was no contest: I'd rather be sane and happy and fat than thinner and miserable.
I wonder how many people would agree with me?
Scary, huh? Apparently much scarier than another finding buried in the study, which received neither headlines nor any media attention: the fact that women who didn't gain enough weight during pregnancy had double the risk of having a baby with intrauterine growth retardation. According to Szwarc, Babies with IUGR are at vastly higher risks of stillbirth and serious medical problems during infancy if they do survive.
This reminds me of the recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that being underweight or of "normal" weight (and let's not even go there for now) correlated with higher rates of mortality than being overweight. (Thanks to Paul Campos for writing about this!) This unpopular finding has been scrutinized and rationalized to death, because apparently it's unbelievable that having nutritional reserves (i.e., being fat) could possibly confer any health benefits.
This, in turn, reminds me of the way doctors and therapists who treat eating disorders sometimes fall inadvertently into the language and perspective of those eating disorders. How people with anorexia can walk around at weights that are dangerous, yet no one notices because we've been so conditioned to think that thin = healthy and good.
Apparently we live in a culture where death is preferable to being fat. Even for babies. Even for toddlers.
Some years ago I dealt with this in my own life, after a severe depression sent me into a tailspin (what would have no doubt been called a nervous breakdown 60 years ago). Antidepressants lifted the fog and gave me my life back. They also, over a period of 5 years, led to a 50-pound weight gain. To me it was no contest: I'd rather be sane and happy and fat than thinner and miserable.
I wonder how many people would agree with me?
Thursday, April 05, 2007
The Big O
A quick post this morning because I couldn't resist linking to the blog of Sandy Szwarc, whose smart, thought-provoking blog I love. Recently she wrote about the so-called obesity "epidemic" in a way that had me cheering from the sidelines.
This follows on the heels of my pulling my sixth-grader out of her required "wellness" class, at least for the nutrition and "obesity" parts of the class. Because isn't it a great idea to take a bunch of impressionable 6th-graders and brainwash them into thinking that the only healthy food out there is a carrot stick or salad (hold the dressing!)? Given the fact that most eating disorders start between 11 and 17, this seems like a bad idea to me, especially the way such things are taught. But don't take my word for it--read Sandy Szwarc's blog. Great stuff.
This follows on the heels of my pulling my sixth-grader out of her required "wellness" class, at least for the nutrition and "obesity" parts of the class. Because isn't it a great idea to take a bunch of impressionable 6th-graders and brainwash them into thinking that the only healthy food out there is a carrot stick or salad (hold the dressing!)? Given the fact that most eating disorders start between 11 and 17, this seems like a bad idea to me, especially the way such things are taught. But don't take my word for it--read Sandy Szwarc's blog. Great stuff.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Mental health parity
Here in Wisconsin, we don't have mental health parity, a fact I often moan about. If only we had it, I often thought during my daughter's recovery, we would be able to get the treatment we need for anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders.
Parents in New Jersey, where there is mental health parity, found that insurers still discriminated against e.d. treatment, denying and disqualifying it in the face of medical advice. Dawn Beye is one parent who got sick and tired of waiting for her insurer to do the right thing and cover her daughter's treatment; she and other parents filed a class action lawsuit to have anorexia classified as a "biologically based illness." Apparently insurers in New Jersey differentiate between biologically based mental illnesses (depression, etc) and non-biologically based mental illnesses.
I guess they think anorexia is all in our heads. They ought to read NAMI's stance on this, not to mention the opinions of many other clinicians and professionals. But then we all know that health insurers know more than doctors when it comes treatment protocols and appropriateness. Right?
When I rule the world, we'll have national health insurance (which goes without saying). And that national health will cover evidence-based treatment for eating disorders, plus support families using the Maudsley method and other approaches yet to be discovered for helping their children recover from e.d.s.
Beye's daughter is still in-patient after 10 months. Beye and her husband still don't know how they're going to pay for her treatment. They could wind up owing several hundred thousand dollars if Aetna doesn't do the right thing and cover the IP treatment.
As my grandmother would have said, it's a shanda. And if you don't know what that means, look it up in Leo Rosten.
Parents in New Jersey, where there is mental health parity, found that insurers still discriminated against e.d. treatment, denying and disqualifying it in the face of medical advice. Dawn Beye is one parent who got sick and tired of waiting for her insurer to do the right thing and cover her daughter's treatment; she and other parents filed a class action lawsuit to have anorexia classified as a "biologically based illness." Apparently insurers in New Jersey differentiate between biologically based mental illnesses (depression, etc) and non-biologically based mental illnesses.
I guess they think anorexia is all in our heads. They ought to read NAMI's stance on this, not to mention the opinions of many other clinicians and professionals. But then we all know that health insurers know more than doctors when it comes treatment protocols and appropriateness. Right?
When I rule the world, we'll have national health insurance (which goes without saying). And that national health will cover evidence-based treatment for eating disorders, plus support families using the Maudsley method and other approaches yet to be discovered for helping their children recover from e.d.s.
Beye's daughter is still in-patient after 10 months. Beye and her husband still don't know how they're going to pay for her treatment. They could wind up owing several hundred thousand dollars if Aetna doesn't do the right thing and cover the IP treatment.
As my grandmother would have said, it's a shanda. And if you don't know what that means, look it up in Leo Rosten.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Anorexia and control
How many times have you read it or heard it: Anorexia is all about control. And its corollaries: People with anorexia have to choose to eat. Parents who try to make them eat have control issues.
Those of us who have used the Maudsley approach to help our children heal from eating disorders don't buy this. But the rest of the world still does.
I know a family that's had both kinds of treatment for their anorexic child. The mom put her finger on how each felt to her: "Anything less than Maudsley gets into really icky murky games. Maudsley is brutally hard but man it is all above board: parents want kids to eat. Period. What we've been doing instead is no less psychologically tense or painful."
That's exactly what I appreciate about the Maudsley approach: It's all right there out in the open. No hidden agendas, no submerged power struggles. Parents want their child to eat. They require it. They support it. Not out of a need to control, or boundary-crossing, or a wish to keep their child small, or any of the other accusations leveled at parents of anorexics.
We require our children to eat because we love them and want them to get better.
What could be wrong with that?
Those of us who have used the Maudsley approach to help our children heal from eating disorders don't buy this. But the rest of the world still does.
I know a family that's had both kinds of treatment for their anorexic child. The mom put her finger on how each felt to her: "Anything less than Maudsley gets into really icky murky games. Maudsley is brutally hard but man it is all above board: parents want kids to eat. Period. What we've been doing instead is no less psychologically tense or painful."
That's exactly what I appreciate about the Maudsley approach: It's all right there out in the open. No hidden agendas, no submerged power struggles. Parents want their child to eat. They require it. They support it. Not out of a need to control, or boundary-crossing, or a wish to keep their child small, or any of the other accusations leveled at parents of anorexics.
We require our children to eat because we love them and want them to get better.
What could be wrong with that?
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Eating disorders and self-esteem
The question I've been chewing on lately is this: What's the connection between eating disorders and self-esteem?
Does low self-esteem lead to, contribute to, or cause eating disorders? Conversely, does boosting self-esteem make one less susceptible to e.d.s?
I started thinking about this after following a link to an interview on Studio 2B, which bills itself as "a site for teens." The interview is with Scarlett Pomers, a 17-year-old actress who was treated for anorexia in 2005 and is now involved with the National Eating Disorders Association. In it, Pomers reinforces the link between positive body image, self-esteem, and health. She quotes some scary statistics--half of all girls between ages 12 and 14 say they're unhappy because they're too fat--and offers earnest suggestions for teens who may know someone with an e.d. or who may themselves be struggling with one.
All to the good. I do believe the more we talk about eating disorders, the less stigma is attached to them. But I'm not sure about the connection with self-esteem.
Before anorexia (and now again, as she's in recovery) I would have described my daughter as confident, smart, funny, outgoing, and emotionally astute. Her descent into anorexia did not seem connected with low self-esteem. On the contrary, she seemed to develop low self-esteem--along with a slew of other problems--only after becoming anorexic.
I don't want to knock efforts like NEDA's and others to try to boost girls' self-esteem. It's not a bad thing in this post-Reviving Ophelia culture. I'm wondering, though, if efforts like this are enough, or speak to the right point.
At the very least, shouldn't they be paired with education around nutrition--not the deluge of anti-obesity propaganda that now passes for "wellness education" but a clear, matter of fact explanation of what teens need to eat in order to be healthy? It wouldn't hurt to have a unit on, say, how and why diets don't work, too.
I don't know that this will prevent anorexia and bulimia in those who are susceptible. Maybe it would be a good start, though.
I would really like to hear what other people think on this subject.
Does low self-esteem lead to, contribute to, or cause eating disorders? Conversely, does boosting self-esteem make one less susceptible to e.d.s?
I started thinking about this after following a link to an interview on Studio 2B, which bills itself as "a site for teens." The interview is with Scarlett Pomers, a 17-year-old actress who was treated for anorexia in 2005 and is now involved with the National Eating Disorders Association. In it, Pomers reinforces the link between positive body image, self-esteem, and health. She quotes some scary statistics--half of all girls between ages 12 and 14 say they're unhappy because they're too fat--and offers earnest suggestions for teens who may know someone with an e.d. or who may themselves be struggling with one.
All to the good. I do believe the more we talk about eating disorders, the less stigma is attached to them. But I'm not sure about the connection with self-esteem.
Before anorexia (and now again, as she's in recovery) I would have described my daughter as confident, smart, funny, outgoing, and emotionally astute. Her descent into anorexia did not seem connected with low self-esteem. On the contrary, she seemed to develop low self-esteem--along with a slew of other problems--only after becoming anorexic.
I don't want to knock efforts like NEDA's and others to try to boost girls' self-esteem. It's not a bad thing in this post-Reviving Ophelia culture. I'm wondering, though, if efforts like this are enough, or speak to the right point.
At the very least, shouldn't they be paired with education around nutrition--not the deluge of anti-obesity propaganda that now passes for "wellness education" but a clear, matter of fact explanation of what teens need to eat in order to be healthy? It wouldn't hurt to have a unit on, say, how and why diets don't work, too.
I don't know that this will prevent anorexia and bulimia in those who are susceptible. Maybe it would be a good start, though.
I would really like to hear what other people think on this subject.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Book review: Take Charge of Your Child's Eating Disorder
I really wanted to like Take Charge of Your Child’s Eating Disorder, co-written by Pamela Carlton, M.D., who directs Stanford University’s Adolescent Eating Disorder Parent Education and Support Program. I’m a huge fan of the work being done at Stanford by James Lock and nearby at UC San Diego by Walt Kaye. But after reading this, I want to ask them both, “How could you have let this happen?”
Families with anorexic or bulimic children need all the information and help they can get. But for the most part, they’re not going to get it here.
If I’d read Carlton’s book when my daughter was newly diagnosed with anorexia, I would have wanted to shoot myself, mostly because of statements like this: “Full recovery from anorexia is not easy, and many people struggle with ongoing body image disturbances and disordered eating behaviors throughout their lives. Fortunately, with early treatment, your child’s chance for full recovery is likely to be increased.” (p. 9) This leads parents to believe that their child will be dealing with an eating disorder for the rest of her life—which in many cases is simply not true.
In reality, there’s lots of hope for full recovery, especially among adolescents who are treated early with family-based treatment, also known as Maudsley treatment. Nowhere does Carlton mention this as one of the treatment modalities for eating disorders. Instead, she recommends that parents put together a treatment team—a good idea, in and of itself—and says, “The most important thing to remember is you cannot do this alone.”
Actually, you can do this alone, and sometimes you should. A treatment team is great, so long as everyone is on the same page. My husband and I assembled a terrific treatment team, but there were times, inevitably, when they contradicted one another or said just the wrong thing to our daughter. It’s certainly better to have no therapist than a bad one—and the vast majority of eating disorders specialists out there are bad, make no mistake about it. A third of them have or had eating disorders themselves, which tells you something right there.
Throughout the book, Carlton pays lip service to the idea that parents should be involved in their child’s treatment. But she doesn’t actually seem to believe it. Take this example she offers about a 15-year-old, Jinny, in treatment for anorexia. She writes that because Jinny was fixated on her weight, she did not give the girl her weekly weight updates. Fair enough. Then she writes, “But after each appointment, her mother would follow me out of the room with her notebook, ready to write down a weight, promising, ‘It’s okay, I won’t tell Jinny.’ I finally told her this was not healthy for Jinny and her actions were undermining my efforts to help her stop focusing on her weight. We came up with a solution: since she really needed to know her weight progress, I would meet with her once a month to review her progress. Yes, I would share her weight with her, but she had to accept that it would only happen once a month and not at her daughter’s appointment.” (pp. 84-85)
Of course any parent who has watched their child starve themselves nearly to death is going to be fixated on weight. Each pound gained represents another step away from the awful abyss their child has fallen into. The notion that such interest is unhealthy or somehow undermining treatment is both wrong-headed and deeply offensive. I hope this mom fired Carlton and found a smarter, more compassionate therapist who would actually empower the family to help Jinny recover.
Carlton insists that families need to find experienced eating disorders therapists and specialists to make up the treatment team for their child. In my family's experience, the “specialists” were frequently so heavily invested in their own particular take on eating disorders—-and often this was an outmoded and ineffective one—-that they were not able to give my daughter what she needed. A good therapist can be helpful. A bad therapist can do a lot of damage. And you don’t need collateral damage when you’re dealing with an eating disorder.
Finally, Carlton seems to subscribe to the notion that eating disorders are caused at least in part by psychology: “Without appropriate psychiatric help and treatment, eating disorders can become lifelong illnesses. To regain a healthy relationship with her body and with food, your daughter may require long-term treatment, which may continue long after her body is considered medically healed. The average length of psychological treatment is two to three years.” (p. 88)
Actually studies on family-based treatment (the Maudsley approach) show that teens often recover without this kind of intensive psychological or psychiatric treatment, and the recovery "takes": 90 percent are still recovered five years later. Carlton’s perspective gives families the wrong message: that only the doctor can “take charge” of their child’s eating disorder and bring about recovery.
In my experience, and in the experiences of many families I know, the reverse is true: recovery happened when parents were empowered to "take charge" of their child's recovery, often with backing from a truly supportive team.
The best part of this book is the insurance section. Too bad Carlton didn't publish just that. Except for that one chapter, you’re better off reading Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder by James Lock and Daniel Le Grange or Eating With Your Anorexic by Laura Collins.
Families with anorexic or bulimic children need all the information and help they can get. But for the most part, they’re not going to get it here.
If I’d read Carlton’s book when my daughter was newly diagnosed with anorexia, I would have wanted to shoot myself, mostly because of statements like this: “Full recovery from anorexia is not easy, and many people struggle with ongoing body image disturbances and disordered eating behaviors throughout their lives. Fortunately, with early treatment, your child’s chance for full recovery is likely to be increased.” (p. 9) This leads parents to believe that their child will be dealing with an eating disorder for the rest of her life—which in many cases is simply not true.
In reality, there’s lots of hope for full recovery, especially among adolescents who are treated early with family-based treatment, also known as Maudsley treatment. Nowhere does Carlton mention this as one of the treatment modalities for eating disorders. Instead, she recommends that parents put together a treatment team—a good idea, in and of itself—and says, “The most important thing to remember is you cannot do this alone.”
Actually, you can do this alone, and sometimes you should. A treatment team is great, so long as everyone is on the same page. My husband and I assembled a terrific treatment team, but there were times, inevitably, when they contradicted one another or said just the wrong thing to our daughter. It’s certainly better to have no therapist than a bad one—and the vast majority of eating disorders specialists out there are bad, make no mistake about it. A third of them have or had eating disorders themselves, which tells you something right there.
Throughout the book, Carlton pays lip service to the idea that parents should be involved in their child’s treatment. But she doesn’t actually seem to believe it. Take this example she offers about a 15-year-old, Jinny, in treatment for anorexia. She writes that because Jinny was fixated on her weight, she did not give the girl her weekly weight updates. Fair enough. Then she writes, “But after each appointment, her mother would follow me out of the room with her notebook, ready to write down a weight, promising, ‘It’s okay, I won’t tell Jinny.’ I finally told her this was not healthy for Jinny and her actions were undermining my efforts to help her stop focusing on her weight. We came up with a solution: since she really needed to know her weight progress, I would meet with her once a month to review her progress. Yes, I would share her weight with her, but she had to accept that it would only happen once a month and not at her daughter’s appointment.” (pp. 84-85)
Of course any parent who has watched their child starve themselves nearly to death is going to be fixated on weight. Each pound gained represents another step away from the awful abyss their child has fallen into. The notion that such interest is unhealthy or somehow undermining treatment is both wrong-headed and deeply offensive. I hope this mom fired Carlton and found a smarter, more compassionate therapist who would actually empower the family to help Jinny recover.
Carlton insists that families need to find experienced eating disorders therapists and specialists to make up the treatment team for their child. In my family's experience, the “specialists” were frequently so heavily invested in their own particular take on eating disorders—-and often this was an outmoded and ineffective one—-that they were not able to give my daughter what she needed. A good therapist can be helpful. A bad therapist can do a lot of damage. And you don’t need collateral damage when you’re dealing with an eating disorder.
Finally, Carlton seems to subscribe to the notion that eating disorders are caused at least in part by psychology: “Without appropriate psychiatric help and treatment, eating disorders can become lifelong illnesses. To regain a healthy relationship with her body and with food, your daughter may require long-term treatment, which may continue long after her body is considered medically healed. The average length of psychological treatment is two to three years.” (p. 88)
Actually studies on family-based treatment (the Maudsley approach) show that teens often recover without this kind of intensive psychological or psychiatric treatment, and the recovery "takes": 90 percent are still recovered five years later. Carlton’s perspective gives families the wrong message: that only the doctor can “take charge” of their child’s eating disorder and bring about recovery.
In my experience, and in the experiences of many families I know, the reverse is true: recovery happened when parents were empowered to "take charge" of their child's recovery, often with backing from a truly supportive team.
The best part of this book is the insurance section. Too bad Carlton didn't publish just that. Except for that one chapter, you’re better off reading Help Your Teenager Beat an Eating Disorder by James Lock and Daniel Le Grange or Eating With Your Anorexic by Laura Collins.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Is anorexia like alcoholism?
The first question people ask after they read our family's story of helping our daughter Kitty recovery from anorexia: Is this like alcoholism, where she'll be dealing with it for the rest of her life?
It's a fair question, given the fact that traditional rates of relapse in anorexia are extraordinarily high--up to 50% of anorexia sufferers relapse within a year of treatment, according to one 2001 study. I know of several girls my daughter's age who are in the midst of relapses right now. My heart goes out to them.
The first few times people asked this question, it made me cry. The thought that my daughter might have to deal with anorexic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors for the rest of her life is awful and scary and beyond demoralizing.
But there's good reason to hope that for girls like Kitty, whose anorexia is treated relatively quickly (within 3 years of onset) and who become fully weight restored (not to 90 percent of their ideal body weight, as many clinicians are willing to settle for, but to 100 or 110 percent), relapse is far less likely. Preliminary studies of long-term outcomes for teens treated with the Maudsley approach, or family-based therapy, are very promising.
So now when people ask the question, I answer this way: We don't know what will happen for Kitty in the future. But we're hopeful that 10 years from now she will look back on anorexia as one of the trials of adolescence, not as a defining moment in her life. She'll remember it (actually I hope she doesn't remember many of the really bad moments) rather than still be experiencing it.
Our job will be to watch and protect her for the rest of her adolescence, especially when she goes to college, which is often a vulnerable time. Which, when you think of it, is what a parent's job is all about, anyway--to protect and take care of a child.
It's a fair question, given the fact that traditional rates of relapse in anorexia are extraordinarily high--up to 50% of anorexia sufferers relapse within a year of treatment, according to one 2001 study. I know of several girls my daughter's age who are in the midst of relapses right now. My heart goes out to them.
The first few times people asked this question, it made me cry. The thought that my daughter might have to deal with anorexic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors for the rest of her life is awful and scary and beyond demoralizing.
But there's good reason to hope that for girls like Kitty, whose anorexia is treated relatively quickly (within 3 years of onset) and who become fully weight restored (not to 90 percent of their ideal body weight, as many clinicians are willing to settle for, but to 100 or 110 percent), relapse is far less likely. Preliminary studies of long-term outcomes for teens treated with the Maudsley approach, or family-based therapy, are very promising.
So now when people ask the question, I answer this way: We don't know what will happen for Kitty in the future. But we're hopeful that 10 years from now she will look back on anorexia as one of the trials of adolescence, not as a defining moment in her life. She'll remember it (actually I hope she doesn't remember many of the really bad moments) rather than still be experiencing it.
Our job will be to watch and protect her for the rest of her adolescence, especially when she goes to college, which is often a vulnerable time. Which, when you think of it, is what a parent's job is all about, anyway--to protect and take care of a child.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The rest of the family
An incident that happened at my sixth-grader's school last fall prompted me to write a piece about the effects of eating disorders on the rest of the family, which appeared in yesterday's New York Times. (Sorry, I can't do links when I'm blogging remotely, and right now I'm sitting at the airport waiting for a flight that's been delayed 6 hours.) The URL is http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/health/06case.html?em&ex=1173416400&en=774d3d641fa1234b&ei=5087%0A.
But truly, this kind of fallout is true whenever one child in a family is desperately ill, particularly if the illness has a chronic or potentially lethal component. Having a sibling with cancer, diabetes, autism, developmental delays, and other conditions always creates a difficult situation for the other sibling.
I was an other sibling when I was growing up. Today, no doubt, our family would have wound up in family therapy, but back then my sister was the one who got the diagnosis "emotionally troubled," whatever that was supposed to mean. I now understand that she was most visibly acting out many of the feelings swirling around our little family. Even so, her behaviors and condition dominated the household.
I remember what it was like to have to stuff my feelings so as not to upset the teetering balance of our family dynamic; to resent the attention she got even though it was mostly negative attention, and clearly she was miserable; to wish that her problems, whatever they were, would just go away. This perspective was much on my mind last year and now as I watch my younger daughter struggle with the fallout from her sister's illness.
I have enormous respect for both my daughters, for the pain and difficulties they have both suffered, as well as for all children living with chronic illnesses, whatever they are. And I'm grateful that we now understand a lot more about how illnesses like these change the family, and what to do about it: Get the best medical care possible and then love the heck out of our children, and ourselves.
Maybe that's not so different from what our parents did.
But truly, this kind of fallout is true whenever one child in a family is desperately ill, particularly if the illness has a chronic or potentially lethal component. Having a sibling with cancer, diabetes, autism, developmental delays, and other conditions always creates a difficult situation for the other sibling.
I was an other sibling when I was growing up. Today, no doubt, our family would have wound up in family therapy, but back then my sister was the one who got the diagnosis "emotionally troubled," whatever that was supposed to mean. I now understand that she was most visibly acting out many of the feelings swirling around our little family. Even so, her behaviors and condition dominated the household.
I remember what it was like to have to stuff my feelings so as not to upset the teetering balance of our family dynamic; to resent the attention she got even though it was mostly negative attention, and clearly she was miserable; to wish that her problems, whatever they were, would just go away. This perspective was much on my mind last year and now as I watch my younger daughter struggle with the fallout from her sister's illness.
I have enormous respect for both my daughters, for the pain and difficulties they have both suffered, as well as for all children living with chronic illnesses, whatever they are. And I'm grateful that we now understand a lot more about how illnesses like these change the family, and what to do about it: Get the best medical care possible and then love the heck out of our children, and ourselves.
Maybe that's not so different from what our parents did.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Another Lead Fork award goes to . . .
the well-meaning but clueless youth director who recently sent home a flyer to parents in her church describing an upcoming activity for middle-schoolers titled "Hunger Feast!" This activity, which was described as "strongly encouraged," involves middle schoolers going without food for 30 hours in a lock-in at the church to "raise our awareness of hunger in the world and in our midst." The flyer goes on:
"Many of the activities we do during the lock-in focus on food (preparing food for and sharing it with others, doing volunteer tasks in the pantry, etc.); so we feel the ache of knowing that food is available to some, but—for this brief period of time—not to us. Experiences like this deepen our understanding of and increase empathy for the real human suffering that underlies the statistics.
There is, however, another aspect to this time of fasting. Fasting is a spiritual discipline, defined as “the voluntary abstention from an otherwise normal function—most often eating—for the sake of intense spiritual activity”. In addition to our hunger awareness activities, we also experience worship and prayer. It is always touching to observe the tender reactions of youth when they experience worship after having gone without food for a whole day. It is a powerful experience."
My recommendation: If you want your middle schoolers to develop empathy for those who are hungry, educate them--and yourself--about eating disorders. Celebrate food as part of life--a holy part of life, if you will--and have your kids volunteer at a food bank or soup kitchen. But for god's sake--and theirs--don't make self-starving holy or exalted.
"Many of the activities we do during the lock-in focus on food (preparing food for and sharing it with others, doing volunteer tasks in the pantry, etc.); so we feel the ache of knowing that food is available to some, but—for this brief period of time—not to us. Experiences like this deepen our understanding of and increase empathy for the real human suffering that underlies the statistics.
There is, however, another aspect to this time of fasting. Fasting is a spiritual discipline, defined as “the voluntary abstention from an otherwise normal function—most often eating—for the sake of intense spiritual activity”. In addition to our hunger awareness activities, we also experience worship and prayer. It is always touching to observe the tender reactions of youth when they experience worship after having gone without food for a whole day. It is a powerful experience."
My recommendation: If you want your middle schoolers to develop empathy for those who are hungry, educate them--and yourself--about eating disorders. Celebrate food as part of life--a holy part of life, if you will--and have your kids volunteer at a food bank or soup kitchen. But for god's sake--and theirs--don't make self-starving holy or exalted.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week
Today marks the start of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and our family marked the day by taking part in the Virtual Family Dinner sponsored by Maudsley Parents. We sat down to dinner at a friend's house and ate chicken curry, salad, and homemade pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.
The food was delicious. Even more delicious was the fact that we all ate, together, and ED was not at our table. Not tonight, anyway, and hardly at all for the last nine months.
Two years ago we were still ignorant about our daughter's anorexia. A year ago we were in the midst of Maudsley treatment. Tonight we ate with the memories of anorexia fresh but beginning to fade, and the hope that next year we will be that much further away from the nightmare.
My deepest wish for all of you, all of us, is that in the years to come we banish ED from all of our dinner tables. That we learn to feed ourselves and one another with joy and love and appreciation for what tastes good as well as for our selves, body and soul and mind and heart.
The food was delicious. Even more delicious was the fact that we all ate, together, and ED was not at our table. Not tonight, anyway, and hardly at all for the last nine months.
Two years ago we were still ignorant about our daughter's anorexia. A year ago we were in the midst of Maudsley treatment. Tonight we ate with the memories of anorexia fresh but beginning to fade, and the hope that next year we will be that much further away from the nightmare.
My deepest wish for all of you, all of us, is that in the years to come we banish ED from all of our dinner tables. That we learn to feed ourselves and one another with joy and love and appreciation for what tastes good as well as for our selves, body and soul and mind and heart.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Jane Brody on binge eating disorder
Jane Brody wrote a personal and very powerful column in yesterday's New York Times about her own experience with binge eating disorder. It's worth reading, whether you've had experience with BED or another eating disorder or not, for its description of the slow, inexorable descent into hell that eating disorders entail.
Defintely worth a read.
Defintely worth a read.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Anorexia as metaphor
Recently I've read seveal memoirs about being anorexic, or books by doctors about eating disorders, that emphasize the metaphoric context of anorexia and bulimia. They talk about anorexics craving emptiness and hunger, the politics of appetite, the power trip of self-starvation.
I can see that for those who suffer from anorexia for a long time--more than a year? more than two?--the natural human tendency to assign meaning and metaphor to biological reality kicks in. When you live with something for a long time, it becomes part of your self-image, a key element in how you see yourself.
Such writers tend to make an important and to my mind unsupported leap, though. They generalize backward from their own situation, years down the line with anorexia, and conclude that the metaphor is what causes girls and boys to become anorexicv. This is the classic pitfall in anorexia treatment, the conventional wisdom espoused by doctors and therapists. And it's wrong.
It's important for parents and therapists and doctors to not get sucked in to the persuasive world of the anorexia metaphor. To remember that the vast majority of anorecxics become sick accidentally, from a diet that takes on a life of its own, an illness, a natural propensity for losing weight that gets pushed too far in some way and takes over a child's physial and psychological life.
To buy in to the notion of anorexia as metaphor is, frankly, to fall under its sway. I think this is one reason why, as Daniel Le Grange told me, even doctors and therapists sometimes make bad decisions about anorexia. "It's as if the anorexia affects the thinking processes of those around the sufferer," he told me.
I think the mechanism he was talking about is metaphor. And that's why I think it's absolutely vital that we de-metaphorize anorexia. We can best help our children--and other people's children--by taking anorexia's power away, both literally and metaphorically. By remembering that anorexia is a biological disease and that its symptoms and consequences are larely the result of starvation. And that the first line of treatment for it is not psychological but physiological: food.
There is time later, after a child is weight restored and mentally restored, to discuss the metaphors of eating disorders, if they apply. But it's a dangerous trap to fall into that conversation right away.
I can see that for those who suffer from anorexia for a long time--more than a year? more than two?--the natural human tendency to assign meaning and metaphor to biological reality kicks in. When you live with something for a long time, it becomes part of your self-image, a key element in how you see yourself.
Such writers tend to make an important and to my mind unsupported leap, though. They generalize backward from their own situation, years down the line with anorexia, and conclude that the metaphor is what causes girls and boys to become anorexicv. This is the classic pitfall in anorexia treatment, the conventional wisdom espoused by doctors and therapists. And it's wrong.
It's important for parents and therapists and doctors to not get sucked in to the persuasive world of the anorexia metaphor. To remember that the vast majority of anorecxics become sick accidentally, from a diet that takes on a life of its own, an illness, a natural propensity for losing weight that gets pushed too far in some way and takes over a child's physial and psychological life.
To buy in to the notion of anorexia as metaphor is, frankly, to fall under its sway. I think this is one reason why, as Daniel Le Grange told me, even doctors and therapists sometimes make bad decisions about anorexia. "It's as if the anorexia affects the thinking processes of those around the sufferer," he told me.
I think the mechanism he was talking about is metaphor. And that's why I think it's absolutely vital that we de-metaphorize anorexia. We can best help our children--and other people's children--by taking anorexia's power away, both literally and metaphorically. By remembering that anorexia is a biological disease and that its symptoms and consequences are larely the result of starvation. And that the first line of treatment for it is not psychological but physiological: food.
There is time later, after a child is weight restored and mentally restored, to discuss the metaphors of eating disorders, if they apply. But it's a dangerous trap to fall into that conversation right away.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Why do we settle for treatment that doesn't work?
This morning I'm feeling so grateful for the Maudsley approach of treating anorexia, which I am sure saved my daughter's life. While there may be a better treatment out there yet to be discovered someday, for now Maudsley is so much better for teens than traditional treatment that it's hard for me to understand how and why professionals could recommend anything else.
Especially pediatricians. They're the ones on the front lines. They're the ones who presumably know a child, watch his or her growth from infancy on. Who have a chance to see the growth curve and know when a child is "just thin" or "too thin." When thinness becomes pathological.
Often pediatricians wait far too long to flag a problem--very likely because they're watching for the opposite problem, overweight in teens. Our society has such a strong fat phobia that all of us, myself included, have to struggle to take off our "thin-is-always-good" glasses and see reality sometimes.
Some pediatricians will notice a drop in weight or off the child's growth curve, but then stall when it comes to treatment, letting months or even years go by while a child starves and anorexia becomes more entrenched. Why? Could it be that many pediatricians--especially women--have eating or body or weight issues themselves?
If your intuition tells you that your child might have a problem, get another opinion. Follow your gut. The treatment you pursue might save your child's life. And you don't have to settle for treatment that doesn't work. There is hope for anorexia. The vast majority of teens treated with the Maudsley approach are weight restored, fully recovered, and back to normal life--and stay that way five years down the line.
Don't settle for anything less than your child's best life.
Especially pediatricians. They're the ones on the front lines. They're the ones who presumably know a child, watch his or her growth from infancy on. Who have a chance to see the growth curve and know when a child is "just thin" or "too thin." When thinness becomes pathological.
Often pediatricians wait far too long to flag a problem--very likely because they're watching for the opposite problem, overweight in teens. Our society has such a strong fat phobia that all of us, myself included, have to struggle to take off our "thin-is-always-good" glasses and see reality sometimes.
Some pediatricians will notice a drop in weight or off the child's growth curve, but then stall when it comes to treatment, letting months or even years go by while a child starves and anorexia becomes more entrenched. Why? Could it be that many pediatricians--especially women--have eating or body or weight issues themselves?
If your intuition tells you that your child might have a problem, get another opinion. Follow your gut. The treatment you pursue might save your child's life. And you don't have to settle for treatment that doesn't work. There is hope for anorexia. The vast majority of teens treated with the Maudsley approach are weight restored, fully recovered, and back to normal life--and stay that way five years down the line.
Don't settle for anything less than your child's best life.
Monday, February 05, 2007
If you've ever loved a Mr. Wrong . . .
I'm looking for a few brave readers to read MR. WRONG: REAL-LIFE STORIES ABOUT THE MEN WE USED TO LOVE and write a review for amazon.com. I'm going to NY this week (tomorrow, actually) to promote the book and a couple of reviews on amazon would help. And of course, I hope you like it and write a good review, but hey, you should tell the truth.
If you're up for a little book reviewing, click here.
Happy reading!
If you're up for a little book reviewing, click here.
Happy reading!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Ranking eating disorders
Last week a study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry (love the name! um, what other kind of psychiatry is there?) made the headlines by proclaiming that the most prevalent eating disorder in the U.S. is binge eating disorder. It said that 3.5% of women have episodes of "uncontrollable eating" at least twice a week for at least three months at a time. In classic sensationalist style, BED is now bring described as the "biggest" eating disorder in the U.S.
I had binge eating disorder for much of my teens, 20s, and 30s. It didn't have a name then, or at least I was unaware of it. It didn't seem unusual to me; other women in my familiy clearly had it too. It wasn't a good thing, and I wanted to change my eating patterns. I saw various therapists and finally landed with a good one in my late 30s. I signed up for 10 weeks of eating sessions and wound up with 8 years of intensive, fantastic therapy. Somewhere along the way I stopped eating compulsively, and while I still overeat on occasion, I have a healthier relationship with food now.
I hardly noticed when I "recovered" from compulsive eating. My weight dropped a whopping pounds. That's about it.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm worried that the hoo-ha over binge eating disorder will add fat (excuse the pun) to the anti-obesity fire. And that's bad news for all of us, whether we're fat, "normal," or suffer from anorexia or bulimia.
I don't want to play the "which is worse?" game. But as someone with personal experience of both B.E.D. and anorexia, I have to say there's no comparison. B.E.D. isn't a good thing, but it doesn't disrupt your life. Anorexia, the most deadly psychiatric disorder, kills. And while some people maintain a facsimile of ordinary life while they're anorexic, most do not.
I'm not saying it's OK to have an eating disorder. But I worry when I see all e.d.s lumped into the same category and discussed in the same terms. It simply isn't true. Anorexia is a life-and-death diagnosis. B.E.D. is not.
More anti-obesity rhetoric won't cause the prevalence of anorexia to rise, but it might trigger more people who are susceptible into active restricting and anorexia. And it certainly contributes to the culture of thinness that reflects our overall disordered relationship with food and eating.
It can and does affect treatment protocols, too. In my experiences (and the experiences of many families I've talked to), I've seen how the culture and bias toward thinness extends into the medical profession--sometimes quite deeply. One of the dirty little secrets well known among families with anorexic children is that doctors consistently set target weights that are far too low for true recovery. Not surprising, when you consider that a third of all eating disorders specialists have suffered (or still suffer) from an eating disorder themselves.
So my fear is that all this uproar over B.E.D., and how it's the "biggest" e.d., will cause more grief for families who are struggling with the ravages of anorexia.
I had binge eating disorder for much of my teens, 20s, and 30s. It didn't have a name then, or at least I was unaware of it. It didn't seem unusual to me; other women in my familiy clearly had it too. It wasn't a good thing, and I wanted to change my eating patterns. I saw various therapists and finally landed with a good one in my late 30s. I signed up for 10 weeks of eating sessions and wound up with 8 years of intensive, fantastic therapy. Somewhere along the way I stopped eating compulsively, and while I still overeat on occasion, I have a healthier relationship with food now.
I hardly noticed when I "recovered" from compulsive eating. My weight dropped a whopping pounds. That's about it.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm worried that the hoo-ha over binge eating disorder will add fat (excuse the pun) to the anti-obesity fire. And that's bad news for all of us, whether we're fat, "normal," or suffer from anorexia or bulimia.
I don't want to play the "which is worse?" game. But as someone with personal experience of both B.E.D. and anorexia, I have to say there's no comparison. B.E.D. isn't a good thing, but it doesn't disrupt your life. Anorexia, the most deadly psychiatric disorder, kills. And while some people maintain a facsimile of ordinary life while they're anorexic, most do not.
I'm not saying it's OK to have an eating disorder. But I worry when I see all e.d.s lumped into the same category and discussed in the same terms. It simply isn't true. Anorexia is a life-and-death diagnosis. B.E.D. is not.
More anti-obesity rhetoric won't cause the prevalence of anorexia to rise, but it might trigger more people who are susceptible into active restricting and anorexia. And it certainly contributes to the culture of thinness that reflects our overall disordered relationship with food and eating.
It can and does affect treatment protocols, too. In my experiences (and the experiences of many families I've talked to), I've seen how the culture and bias toward thinness extends into the medical profession--sometimes quite deeply. One of the dirty little secrets well known among families with anorexic children is that doctors consistently set target weights that are far too low for true recovery. Not surprising, when you consider that a third of all eating disorders specialists have suffered (or still suffer) from an eating disorder themselves.
So my fear is that all this uproar over B.E.D., and how it's the "biggest" e.d., will cause more grief for families who are struggling with the ravages of anorexia.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
New York City, here we come!
I'm always excited to be heading back to New York City. I lived there for 14 years, most recently here. Next Tuesday my friend Gale and I will be heading east for 4 days in the city I love most of all.
Tuesday night I go right from the airport to a midtown radio studio, where I'm a guest on the "Busted Halo Show" with Father Dave Dwyer. That should be interesting! Then it's uptown to 190th Street to stay with dear old friend (and ex-Mr. Wrong) and his really great wife. (It really is true--one woman's Mr. Wrong is another woman's dream come true!)
Wednesday night is The New York Reading. Come on out and have a good time! I'm bringing some of these with me, unless airplane security takes them away before we board. Some of my favorite writers are reading, too--Roxana Robinson, Catherine Texier, Dana Kinstler, Raphael Kadushin, and me. 7 o'clock, Barnes & Noble, 82nd & Broadway. I'm bringing my Mr. Wrong T-shirts, too--maybe you'll win one at the reading.
Oh, and along the way I plan to eat a lot of Japanese food. Yum. At my favorite restaurant, Natori, if it's still around.
Tuesday night I go right from the airport to a midtown radio studio, where I'm a guest on the "Busted Halo Show" with Father Dave Dwyer. That should be interesting! Then it's uptown to 190th Street to stay with dear old friend (and ex-Mr. Wrong) and his really great wife. (It really is true--one woman's Mr. Wrong is another woman's dream come true!)
Wednesday night is The New York Reading. Come on out and have a good time! I'm bringing some of these with me, unless airplane security takes them away before we board. Some of my favorite writers are reading, too--Roxana Robinson, Catherine Texier, Dana Kinstler, Raphael Kadushin, and me. 7 o'clock, Barnes & Noble, 82nd & Broadway. I'm bringing my Mr. Wrong T-shirts, too--maybe you'll win one at the reading.
Oh, and along the way I plan to eat a lot of Japanese food. Yum. At my favorite restaurant, Natori, if it's still around.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Valentine's string cheese?
In today's Wisconsin State Journal, columnist Susan Lampert Smith wrote about how parents at one school in southern Wisconsin have been asked not to send in the traditional Valentine's treats--cookies, cakes, and especially those little conversation hearts. Only slightly tongue in cheek, Smith suggests that parents send in string cheese for Valentine's Day treats, and writes, "This, sadly, is what Valentine's Day has become in schools where the federal wellness policy is being interpreted with revolutionary zeal."
You go, Susan. The zealots at this and other school districts obviously haven't read the studies on the effects of deprivation on eating habits. Restrained eating--in this case, telling kids they mustn't eat sweets for Valentine's Day--usually winds up making them eat more sweets, later on. If you've ever been on a diet, you're familiar with this paradigm. We're hard-wired to eat, and deprivation only triggers that urge, often leading to binging--often on the very thing you'd been deprived (or deprived yourself) of.
I saw this in my own children when they were young. Anxious to save them from the conflicted relationship I had with food, I enforced a stringent low- or no-sweets policy at home. The result? They became dessert hounds on playdates at other kids' houses.
A more sensible approach--and one I've applied to my own eating--would center around moderation rather than deprivation or binging, with plenty of opportunities for physical activity.
Of course, anyone who expects the school system to be sensible about anything is in for disappointment. But I hate the thought of all those federal dollars going toward food policies that actually cause some of the problems they're designed to help solve. I'll be sending a treat in my younger daughter's lunch bag on Valentine's Day. And I'll be glad to explain why to anyone who asks.
You go, Susan. The zealots at this and other school districts obviously haven't read the studies on the effects of deprivation on eating habits. Restrained eating--in this case, telling kids they mustn't eat sweets for Valentine's Day--usually winds up making them eat more sweets, later on. If you've ever been on a diet, you're familiar with this paradigm. We're hard-wired to eat, and deprivation only triggers that urge, often leading to binging--often on the very thing you'd been deprived (or deprived yourself) of.
I saw this in my own children when they were young. Anxious to save them from the conflicted relationship I had with food, I enforced a stringent low- or no-sweets policy at home. The result? They became dessert hounds on playdates at other kids' houses.
A more sensible approach--and one I've applied to my own eating--would center around moderation rather than deprivation or binging, with plenty of opportunities for physical activity.
Of course, anyone who expects the school system to be sensible about anything is in for disappointment. But I hate the thought of all those federal dollars going toward food policies that actually cause some of the problems they're designed to help solve. I'll be sending a treat in my younger daughter's lunch bag on Valentine's Day. And I'll be glad to explain why to anyone who asks.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Girlpower--or why I wish I lived in Sweden
A while back someone e-mailed me about a health campaign out of Sweden called Girlpower. Tonight I was looking for the link, and came across a program by the same name, but out of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Eventually I found the one I was looking for. It's worth looking at, especially if you've ever had any body image issues (which unfortunately covers the vast majority of westernized women).
Not that I think stuff like this causes eating disorders. But it sure can trigger them among kids who are susceptible. And I know for myself that if you look at enough of this kind of image, the face and body you see in the mirror are always going to look inferior.
That's why I'd rather live in Sweden. It's no perfect society, but at least they're doing something right.
Eventually I found the one I was looking for. It's worth looking at, especially if you've ever had any body image issues (which unfortunately covers the vast majority of westernized women).
Not that I think stuff like this causes eating disorders. But it sure can trigger them among kids who are susceptible. And I know for myself that if you look at enough of this kind of image, the face and body you see in the mirror are always going to look inferior.
That's why I'd rather live in Sweden. It's no perfect society, but at least they're doing something right.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Post-traumatic anorexia stress syndrome
I haven't posted in a few days, mostly because I'm feeling sad.
Sad about my daughter Kitty's illness, even though she is doing quite well now. Because she is doing well now, probably.
Last year at this time it wasn't safe to feel sad, or mad, or anxious. It really wasn't safe to feel much of anything. Last year at this time her father and I were relentless cheerleaders in the land of anorexia recovery.
This year, we are back to what passes in our house for normal life. Kitty is off to the state Latin convention tomorrow, where she will stay in a hotel with lots of other teenagers (and teachers), play Latin games, and generally have a swell time. Last night she came in 6th in a XC ski race. Go, Kitty!
You've heard of the 5 stages of grief--how about the 5 stages of anorexia: 1. Formless worry. 2. Emergency/crisis. 3. Battle with the demon. 4. Jubilation at recovery. 5. Post-traumatic anxiety.
I think I'll call this Post-Traumatic Anorexia Stress Syndrome. PTASS. It's a good thing, basically, because it means things are good.
I wonder how we'll all feel a year from now?
Sad about my daughter Kitty's illness, even though she is doing quite well now. Because she is doing well now, probably.
Last year at this time it wasn't safe to feel sad, or mad, or anxious. It really wasn't safe to feel much of anything. Last year at this time her father and I were relentless cheerleaders in the land of anorexia recovery.
This year, we are back to what passes in our house for normal life. Kitty is off to the state Latin convention tomorrow, where she will stay in a hotel with lots of other teenagers (and teachers), play Latin games, and generally have a swell time. Last night she came in 6th in a XC ski race. Go, Kitty!
You've heard of the 5 stages of grief--how about the 5 stages of anorexia: 1. Formless worry. 2. Emergency/crisis. 3. Battle with the demon. 4. Jubilation at recovery. 5. Post-traumatic anxiety.
I think I'll call this Post-Traumatic Anorexia Stress Syndrome. PTASS. It's a good thing, basically, because it means things are good.
I wonder how we'll all feel a year from now?
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Gisele Bundchen, educate yourself!
Supermodel Gisele Bundchen thinks she knows what causes anorexia: weak families.
Because she's not anorexic, and she comes from a strong family, she's deduced that anorexics must come from weak families.
This is what's known in philosophy as a tautology. Or something like that. It's faulty reasoning, circular logic, and a bunch of hooey.
It's also unfortunate that someone with as much power to draw media attention is saying things like this, because many families and professionals will listen to her uninformed words.
Gisele, I'm glad you're able to be a supermodel without falling prey to the awful disease of anorexia. But frankly, you don't know what you're talking about here.
Take a look at some of the very latest research on anorexia and genetics. Then how about coming out with a more useful pronouncement on the topic?
I dare you.
Because she's not anorexic, and she comes from a strong family, she's deduced that anorexics must come from weak families.
This is what's known in philosophy as a tautology. Or something like that. It's faulty reasoning, circular logic, and a bunch of hooey.
It's also unfortunate that someone with as much power to draw media attention is saying things like this, because many families and professionals will listen to her uninformed words.
Gisele, I'm glad you're able to be a supermodel without falling prey to the awful disease of anorexia. But frankly, you don't know what you're talking about here.
Take a look at some of the very latest research on anorexia and genetics. Then how about coming out with a more useful pronouncement on the topic?
I dare you.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Have dinner with your family on Feb. 25!
Just in case you needed a reason to make family dinners more of a priority, here are some fascinating statistics:
* Kids whose families eat dinner together more often eat better and show less eating-disordered behavior than kids whose families eat together less often
* Kids whose families eat dinner together three times a week or less are twice as likely to try marijuana and cigarettes and 1-1/2 times likelier to try alcohol than those whose families eat together 5-7 times a week
* A 2001 University of Michigan study found that family meals trumped most other predictive factors in kids’ lives, including amount of time spent in school, studying, church, playing sports, and in art activities. When the results were statistically controlled for gender, race, family structure and employment, income, social class, parents’ education and age, and family size, family meals were still the single strongest predictor of better achievement scores and fewer behavioral problems
http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
And what better way to honor National Eating Disorders Week this February than to schedule a family dinner?
To celebrate the role of family support in recovery from eating disorders, the Maudsley Parents group (of which I am proud to be a founding member) will sponsor a worldwide Family Dinner on February 25. Sign up to share a meal with your family that day, and you'll receive a Gold Fork pin and NEDAW materials on request.
My family's in--how about yours?
* Kids whose families eat dinner together more often eat better and show less eating-disordered behavior than kids whose families eat together less often
* Kids whose families eat dinner together three times a week or less are twice as likely to try marijuana and cigarettes and 1-1/2 times likelier to try alcohol than those whose families eat together 5-7 times a week
* A 2001 University of Michigan study found that family meals trumped most other predictive factors in kids’ lives, including amount of time spent in school, studying, church, playing sports, and in art activities. When the results were statistically controlled for gender, race, family structure and employment, income, social class, parents’ education and age, and family size, family meals were still the single strongest predictor of better achievement scores and fewer behavioral problems
http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
And what better way to honor National Eating Disorders Week this February than to schedule a family dinner?
To celebrate the role of family support in recovery from eating disorders, the Maudsley Parents group (of which I am proud to be a founding member) will sponsor a worldwide Family Dinner on February 25. Sign up to share a meal with your family that day, and you'll receive a Gold Fork pin and NEDAW materials on request.
My family's in--how about yours?
Monday, January 15, 2007
Support group forming
I'm thinking of starting a weekly support group for parents using the Maudsley approach to refeed their anorexic children. I've had a couple of parents say they would love such a group. If you're interested (I'm in Madison, Wisconsin), send an e-mail to hnbrown@tds.net.
Anorxia, culture, and a Golden Fork award
JG's thoughtful responses to my previous post included a link to an interesting article on eating disorders and culture. It's a good overview of the conventional wisdom on the role of culture in eating disorders, and I'm putting the link up here in case anyone wants to read it.
JG writes, "I'd give anything to spare a young woman today from going through what I did." That's how I feel--I'd give anything to spare a young woman from going through what my daughter did.
I think if we keep talking about this, keep questioning, raising the issues, that's a good thing. I wrote here months ago about the posters at my younger daughter's middle school--there were bulletin boards in the hallways promoting "healthy eating," exercise, and, yes, unbelievably, weight loss. I went in and talked with the assistant principal about it. The posters went away for a while, and have no, my daughter says, been replaced with posters saying something like "Losing weight is not healthy for children and adolescents."
Yay! Hamilton Middle School got it! I hereby award them a Golden Fork award for being responsive to the issue. One small step at the table, one giant step (I hope) for our understanding and treatment of eating disorders.
JG writes, "I'd give anything to spare a young woman today from going through what I did." That's how I feel--I'd give anything to spare a young woman from going through what my daughter did.
I think if we keep talking about this, keep questioning, raising the issues, that's a good thing. I wrote here months ago about the posters at my younger daughter's middle school--there were bulletin boards in the hallways promoting "healthy eating," exercise, and, yes, unbelievably, weight loss. I went in and talked with the assistant principal about it. The posters went away for a while, and have no, my daughter says, been replaced with posters saying something like "Losing weight is not healthy for children and adolescents."
Yay! Hamilton Middle School got it! I hereby award them a Golden Fork award for being responsive to the issue. One small step at the table, one giant step (I hope) for our understanding and treatment of eating disorders.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Fear of food
I was in the food co-op this afternoon, picking up a bunch of spinach, when another shopper spoke to me. She was a young mother, shopping with her preschooler, and she watched me put the spinach in my cart with frank shock. Then she shook her head. "Boy, you're brave," she said.
It took me a minute to understand what she was referring to. Once I got it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Here was fear of food in a different context from the one I'm used to seeing--the kind of fear of food anorexics feel--and it made me think. Our relationship to food is so primal, so necessary for survival, that to be afraid of it seems not just counterintuitive but, also, awful.
If I'm honest, I must admit that I have fears around food, too. I'm guessing many of us do. I spent years being afraid of fat because of the cultural hysteria around overweight. I grew up in the 1960s, eating a lot of packaged, chemically preserved food--Snowballs and Tastykakes, anyone?--and now try to eat organic when I can, partly from fear of what's in our food supply, partly because organic food tastes better, and partly because organic practices are better for the earth and animals.
And I got to wondering just how pathological my food fears are. I'm not afraid of spinach--in fact I cooked it up and ate it for dinner, and it was delicious--but I wouldn't willingly eat a hot dog (red meat, nitrates).
How sad to have fear enter into the essentially joyful relationship we should have with food. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I think I'll make that a priority on my list this year: to vanquish my own food fears and reestablish a healthier and happier relationship with food in 2007.
It took me a minute to understand what she was referring to. Once I got it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Here was fear of food in a different context from the one I'm used to seeing--the kind of fear of food anorexics feel--and it made me think. Our relationship to food is so primal, so necessary for survival, that to be afraid of it seems not just counterintuitive but, also, awful.
If I'm honest, I must admit that I have fears around food, too. I'm guessing many of us do. I spent years being afraid of fat because of the cultural hysteria around overweight. I grew up in the 1960s, eating a lot of packaged, chemically preserved food--Snowballs and Tastykakes, anyone?--and now try to eat organic when I can, partly from fear of what's in our food supply, partly because organic food tastes better, and partly because organic practices are better for the earth and animals.
And I got to wondering just how pathological my food fears are. I'm not afraid of spinach--in fact I cooked it up and ate it for dinner, and it was delicious--but I wouldn't willingly eat a hot dog (red meat, nitrates).
How sad to have fear enter into the essentially joyful relationship we should have with food. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I think I'll make that a priority on my list this year: to vanquish my own food fears and reestablish a healthier and happier relationship with food in 2007.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Mr. Wrong goes to New York!
The publication date for MR. WRONG: REAL-LIFE STORIES ABOUT THE MEN WE USED TO LOVE is getting close, and I'm thrilled to be traveling to New York City for a reading. Even better, I won't be standing up there alone, but will be in the company of some of the highly entertaining writers with essays in the collection--Roxana Robinson, Catherine Texier, Caroline Leavitt, Raphael Kadushin, and Dana Kinstler. The reading is at the Barnes & Noble at 82nd & Broadway, Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. It's going to be a lot of fun.
For those of you closer to (my) home, I'll be reading on Feb. 14 at Borders West in Madison, along with Jackie Mitchard and Raphael Kadushin.
Watch this space for news of the MR. WRONG contest--and to find out how you can win a chance to tell your story to the world, plus a signed copy of the book and a MR. WRONG T-shirt. Yes, I'm having T-shirts made up, and they're a hoot.
For those of you closer to (my) home, I'll be reading on Feb. 14 at Borders West in Madison, along with Jackie Mitchard and Raphael Kadushin.
Watch this space for news of the MR. WRONG contest--and to find out how you can win a chance to tell your story to the world, plus a signed copy of the book and a MR. WRONG T-shirt. Yes, I'm having T-shirts made up, and they're a hoot.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Anorexia treatment and mixed messages
Recently I talked to a mom whose daughter is struggling with anorexia, and she told me about an appointment they'd had with their pediatrician, who'd been quick to notice the issue and to push for early intervention. The doctor said to the girl, "You need to drink a milkshake every day." Then she added, "But of course, it's your choice."
I've heard this kind of story over and over again, and it makes me crazy. As this mom astutely commented, "Would a doctor ever prescribe an antibiotic for an infection, but then say it was your choice whether to take it or not?"
When it comes to anorexia, way too often the medical profession is willing to settle for inadequate treatment and mixed messages. Would a doctor tell a diabetic it was his choice to take insulin?
I've heard this kind of story over and over again, and it makes me crazy. As this mom astutely commented, "Would a doctor ever prescribe an antibiotic for an infection, but then say it was your choice whether to take it or not?"
When it comes to anorexia, way too often the medical profession is willing to settle for inadequate treatment and mixed messages. Would a doctor tell a diabetic it was his choice to take insulin?
Thursday, January 04, 2007
"Force-feeding" and anorexia
Recently I've been asked to speak about the Maudsley approach to healing anorexia on several radio shows. In every interview there is a question or comment about "force-feeding" anorexics, and it's always offered in a tone of mingled horror and contempt, as if there could be nothing worse than coercing someone into eating.
To which I usually respond something like, "Actually, there's nothing worse than watching someone compulsively starve herself to death."
Now an interesting paper published in the American Journal of Psychiatry takes on both the moral and legal issues around the idea of what the authors call coerced care for eating disorders. I love the analogy its author, Dr. Arnold Andersen, uses for how dieting can lead into anorexia: "The situation resembles that of a person boarding a canoe headed for Niagara Falls on a journey that begins voluntarily but ineluctably transforms into a nonvoluntary propulsion toward the Falls, with the person at times not recognizing that the upcoming Falls even exist."
That describes it so very well. Someone who is deep in anorexia cannot see the falls or even know they exist. They need the strong hand extended from the shore to pull them out of the current.
Far worse to watch the boat go merrily over the falls.
To which I usually respond something like, "Actually, there's nothing worse than watching someone compulsively starve herself to death."
Now an interesting paper published in the American Journal of Psychiatry takes on both the moral and legal issues around the idea of what the authors call coerced care for eating disorders. I love the analogy its author, Dr. Arnold Andersen, uses for how dieting can lead into anorexia: "The situation resembles that of a person boarding a canoe headed for Niagara Falls on a journey that begins voluntarily but ineluctably transforms into a nonvoluntary propulsion toward the Falls, with the person at times not recognizing that the upcoming Falls even exist."
That describes it so very well. Someone who is deep in anorexia cannot see the falls or even know they exist. They need the strong hand extended from the shore to pull them out of the current.
Far worse to watch the boat go merrily over the falls.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
More on culture and eating disorders
A new study released by the University of Minnesota shows that teenagers who read lots of magazine articles about dieting are five times as likely to practice "extreme dieting measures"--including fasting and intentional vomiting--than teens who don't.
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Harvard Med School researcher Alison Field commented, "The articles may be offering advice such as cutting out trans fats and soda, and those are good ideas for everybody. But the underlying messages these articles send are, `You should be concerned about your weight and you should be doing something.'"
This study will come as no surprise to any parent of an eating-disordered child. It describes perfectly the nexus between culture and eating disorders, which is not black and white, either/or. Do magazine articles cause anorexia and bulimia? No, but they clearly, clearly play a role in triggering adolescents who are vulnerable.
And it's not just teen magazines, either. Not long ago on an online forum for parents who are re-feeding their anorexic children, someone started a thread on what triggered each child's descent into anorexia. I was shocked by how many parents mentioned a school health class. And in fact, a 6th-grade "health" class that focused on the dangers of obesity and the virtue of cutting out fats, carbs, and other "bad" foods was the catalyst that led to my own daughter's full-blown anorexia a year and a half later.
As parents, we're used to thinking about all sorts of potentially risky behaviors: drugs, early sexual behavior, alcohol, etc. Now we can add another one to the list.
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Harvard Med School researcher Alison Field commented, "The articles may be offering advice such as cutting out trans fats and soda, and those are good ideas for everybody. But the underlying messages these articles send are, `You should be concerned about your weight and you should be doing something.'"
This study will come as no surprise to any parent of an eating-disordered child. It describes perfectly the nexus between culture and eating disorders, which is not black and white, either/or. Do magazine articles cause anorexia and bulimia? No, but they clearly, clearly play a role in triggering adolescents who are vulnerable.
And it's not just teen magazines, either. Not long ago on an online forum for parents who are re-feeding their anorexic children, someone started a thread on what triggered each child's descent into anorexia. I was shocked by how many parents mentioned a school health class. And in fact, a 6th-grade "health" class that focused on the dangers of obesity and the virtue of cutting out fats, carbs, and other "bad" foods was the catalyst that led to my own daughter's full-blown anorexia a year and a half later.
As parents, we're used to thinking about all sorts of potentially risky behaviors: drugs, early sexual behavior, alcohol, etc. Now we can add another one to the list.
Monday, January 01, 2007
And yet another Leaden Fork award goes to . . .
Reader's Digest, for its well-meaning but shamefully one-sided advice on how to avoid compulsive overeating. In fact, this could be a primer for how to induce an eating disorder.
Blog reader Deborah Lee brought this to my attention, and points out a couple of items on this top 10 list that really bugged her:
"3. Never, ever buy a snack at gas stations, drugstores, or discount chains.
4. Never, ever stop at a food store just to buy a snack."
Writes Lee, "While I understand the sentiment in these statements, and it may be sound advice in principle, this sort of black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking is what eating disorders thrive on, and is completely unnecessary."
I'm with you on this, Deborah. Of course Reader's Digest is just one of many media outlets that get this way wrong. Especially in this season, when the default assumption is that we're all trying to lose weight and need "tips" like these. Open just about any women's magazine right now and you'll see headlines like "How to Stick to Your Diet,""Want to lose weight? Be sure not to skip breakfast," and a host of other ridiculous headlines.
I'm looking forward to a year that started without a lot of advice on how to lose weight--and focused instead on creating a healthy and joyful relationship with food, exercise, love, work, and all the other pleasures of being a human being.
How about it?
Blog reader Deborah Lee brought this to my attention, and points out a couple of items on this top 10 list that really bugged her:
"3. Never, ever buy a snack at gas stations, drugstores, or discount chains.
4. Never, ever stop at a food store just to buy a snack."
Writes Lee, "While I understand the sentiment in these statements, and it may be sound advice in principle, this sort of black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking is what eating disorders thrive on, and is completely unnecessary."
I'm with you on this, Deborah. Of course Reader's Digest is just one of many media outlets that get this way wrong. Especially in this season, when the default assumption is that we're all trying to lose weight and need "tips" like these. Open just about any women's magazine right now and you'll see headlines like "How to Stick to Your Diet,""Want to lose weight? Be sure not to skip breakfast," and a host of other ridiculous headlines.
I'm looking forward to a year that started without a lot of advice on how to lose weight--and focused instead on creating a healthy and joyful relationship with food, exercise, love, work, and all the other pleasures of being a human being.
How about it?
Friday, December 29, 2006
Listen to the MPR show with Katharine Loeb
The host of the show did a fantastic job--one of the best interviews I've heard or participated in on the subject.
Here's a link to the show.
Here's a link to the show.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Talk to me live tomorrow!
I'll be doing a live call-in show tomorrow, Friday, December 29th, 2006, on "Midmorning," hosted by Kerri Miller and produced by Minnesota Public Radio. The other guest on the program will be Dr. Katharine Loeb, assistant professor of psychiatry at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and an avid supporter of the Maudsley approach. We'll be discussing anorexia research and treatments, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.
The show airs at 9 a.m. central time. You should be able to catch it online at http://news.mpr.org/programs/midmorning/. Call in with your questions at 651-290-1592.
Talk to you tomorrow!
The show airs at 9 a.m. central time. You should be able to catch it online at http://news.mpr.org/programs/midmorning/. Call in with your questions at 651-290-1592.
Talk to you tomorrow!
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Is Anorexia Cultural?
That's the $64,000 question. Folks in Brazil are wondering why so many women are dying of anorexia there. Is there something about the culture that is suddenly contributing to a surge of cases? Is the media reporting on anorexia more? What's going on?
More and more, researchers see a genetic component to anorexia and other eating disorders, including chromosomal abnormalities. A 2006 study that looked at anorexia and twins found that genetics accounted for more than half the cases of anorexia, suggesting that people are born with a susceptibility to anorexia and then get triggered during the vulnerable time of adolescence and young adulthood.
Makes sense to me. If culture were the sole culprit, anorexia would be far more prevalent than it is.
Brazil is a country where many people don't have enough to eat; anorexia is typically a disease of "starvation in the midst of abundance." Maybe the rise in prevalence--if there is one--is a symptom of widening gap between the very rich and the rest of the country in Brazil. Maybe it's a sign that the Brazilian economy is improving.
Whatever the statistical explanation, I know one thing for sure: Young women (and men) in Brazil and elsewhere don't have to die. Anorexia can be cured, especially if it's treated early, in adolescence. It's not a cultural metaphor; it's a disease with a tragic trajectory that inflicts a great deal of suffering on anorexics and their families.
More and more, researchers see a genetic component to anorexia and other eating disorders, including chromosomal abnormalities. A 2006 study that looked at anorexia and twins found that genetics accounted for more than half the cases of anorexia, suggesting that people are born with a susceptibility to anorexia and then get triggered during the vulnerable time of adolescence and young adulthood.
Makes sense to me. If culture were the sole culprit, anorexia would be far more prevalent than it is.
Brazil is a country where many people don't have enough to eat; anorexia is typically a disease of "starvation in the midst of abundance." Maybe the rise in prevalence--if there is one--is a symptom of widening gap between the very rich and the rest of the country in Brazil. Maybe it's a sign that the Brazilian economy is improving.
Whatever the statistical explanation, I know one thing for sure: Young women (and men) in Brazil and elsewhere don't have to die. Anorexia can be cured, especially if it's treated early, in adolescence. It's not a cultural metaphor; it's a disease with a tragic trajectory that inflicts a great deal of suffering on anorexics and their families.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Changing the culture, one heart and mind at a time
Last night a friend told me that since my daughter Kitty's illness, her daughter had become very outspoken on the subject of anorexia. She said that whenever other teenage girls joked about it, she "set them straight"--a commendable act of friendship.
But what really made me want to stand up and cheer was when she told me about the day her daughter--Kitty's friend--came home and headed straight for the refrigerator. Apparently someone had told Kitty's friend she looked like she'd lost some weight. "I can fix that," she said, reaching for the whipped cream.
Here's what blows my mind about that: In a culture where all of us are so conditioned to think that thin is always good (and thinner is always better), it's hard to go against the stream. We parents of anorexics are shoved right up against this cognitive dissonance when we re-feed our ill children. It took the gut-wrenching experience of watching my child nearly starve herself to death to open my eyes and change my reflexive thin=good, fat=bad mentality. But Kitty's friend, who is still in high school, is a much quicker study than I am. She's learned from Kitty's nightmare and is already applying the lesson in her own life.
Her insight and perspective give me hope that although change seems to come slowly, it does come, one heart and mind at a time.
But what really made me want to stand up and cheer was when she told me about the day her daughter--Kitty's friend--came home and headed straight for the refrigerator. Apparently someone had told Kitty's friend she looked like she'd lost some weight. "I can fix that," she said, reaching for the whipped cream.
Here's what blows my mind about that: In a culture where all of us are so conditioned to think that thin is always good (and thinner is always better), it's hard to go against the stream. We parents of anorexics are shoved right up against this cognitive dissonance when we re-feed our ill children. It took the gut-wrenching experience of watching my child nearly starve herself to death to open my eyes and change my reflexive thin=good, fat=bad mentality. But Kitty's friend, who is still in high school, is a much quicker study than I am. She's learned from Kitty's nightmare and is already applying the lesson in her own life.
Her insight and perspective give me hope that although change seems to come slowly, it does come, one heart and mind at a time.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Hand-On Parenting Gets a Rave
This morning's story in the New York Times titled "Parenting as Therapy for Child's Mental Disorders" is yet another acknowledgment by both the media and the medical community that sometimes parents can make all the difference for their children.
The article references how kids with ADD and other types of mental health issues often respond well to parents' efforts to modify their interactions with the world through changing their behavior. Writer Benedict Carey quotes one parent as saying, “If you are willing to take on the responsibility of extra parenting, you can make a big difference.”
This will sound familiar to anyone who's used the Maudsley approach to refeeding an anorexic. Kids with ADD often are prescribed Ritalin or other stimulants to "fix" their behavior; there's no such magic pill for anorexia. Maybe it's a good thing.
Just one more reason for parents to follow their instincts when it comes to what their children need.
The article references how kids with ADD and other types of mental health issues often respond well to parents' efforts to modify their interactions with the world through changing their behavior. Writer Benedict Carey quotes one parent as saying, “If you are willing to take on the responsibility of extra parenting, you can make a big difference.”
This will sound familiar to anyone who's used the Maudsley approach to refeeding an anorexic. Kids with ADD often are prescribed Ritalin or other stimulants to "fix" their behavior; there's no such magic pill for anorexia. Maybe it's a good thing.
Just one more reason for parents to follow their instincts when it comes to what their children need.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Our Bodies, Our Ideas of Our Bodies
I was fascinated to read in Women's Wear Daily that fashionistas are now having some models' photos retouched to make them look heavier. In the wake of the Madrid revolt, where models with BMIs under 18 were not allowed to walk the runway, this seems like more of a good thing. And I definitely applaud the demystification of anorexia chic.
There's certainly nothing chic about anorexia, as I have reason to know all too well.
Still, I can't help feeling like this misses the point on a number of levels. If these models are so thin that readers of Allure don't want to look at them, then they need food and professional help, not an airbrushed photo. The problem isn't in our perception--it's in their realities.
The current politically correct (and highly ironic) focus on too-thin models is just one more manifestation of our compulsion to make our bodies conform to a culturally defined weight, look, shape, or style. That, right there, is the problem--and it isn't going to be fixed with an airbrush, any more than it's going to be fixed with the next great diet or exercise regime.
The human body comes with a marvelous ability to regulate its own appetites. Then we muck it all up with our ideas of what it should look like.
In the ideal world, all kids would be raised to eat when they're hungry and stop eating when they're not hungry, just as wise woman and nutritionist Ellyn Satter writes in her books. We would learn from an early age to value our connection with our hunger and feelings of fullness.
Though we don't, alas, live in the ideal world, we can still nurture our own interior connection with our bodies, our hunger, and ourselves. We can begin to accept the fact that bodies come in all shapes and sizes, that while one person might be healthy at size 4, another might be just fine at size 16. We can learn to value health over faddish or slavish notions of appearance.
I'll lift a fork to that.
There's certainly nothing chic about anorexia, as I have reason to know all too well.
Still, I can't help feeling like this misses the point on a number of levels. If these models are so thin that readers of Allure don't want to look at them, then they need food and professional help, not an airbrushed photo. The problem isn't in our perception--it's in their realities.
The current politically correct (and highly ironic) focus on too-thin models is just one more manifestation of our compulsion to make our bodies conform to a culturally defined weight, look, shape, or style. That, right there, is the problem--and it isn't going to be fixed with an airbrush, any more than it's going to be fixed with the next great diet or exercise regime.
The human body comes with a marvelous ability to regulate its own appetites. Then we muck it all up with our ideas of what it should look like.
In the ideal world, all kids would be raised to eat when they're hungry and stop eating when they're not hungry, just as wise woman and nutritionist Ellyn Satter writes in her books. We would learn from an early age to value our connection with our hunger and feelings of fullness.
Though we don't, alas, live in the ideal world, we can still nurture our own interior connection with our bodies, our hunger, and ourselves. We can begin to accept the fact that bodies come in all shapes and sizes, that while one person might be healthy at size 4, another might be just fine at size 16. We can learn to value health over faddish or slavish notions of appearance.
I'll lift a fork to that.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
And another Leaden Fork award goes to . . .
economist Susan Lee, whose December 4 commentary on public radio's Marketplace show began like this: "How much you weighed used to be a private matter. If you wanted to look like a tub of lard, that was pretty much your business. But now fat is a public issue."
And included this line later on: "Why else would people be willing to pay extra to make sure that no kid looks like a tub of lard?"
Tub of lard? Is this how we really want to describe a child or adult who's overweight? Since when does this level of judgment belong in an economist's commentary on public radio?
I haven't heard anyone use that kind of language since 7th grade. Maybe 6th. Susan, in case you aren't aware of this, words are powerful. There's no call for that kind of demeaning, demoralizing, judgmental language from anyone in the media.
Read Lee's whole commentary here. Then tell the folks at Marketplace what you think of her choice of words here.
And included this line later on: "Why else would people be willing to pay extra to make sure that no kid looks like a tub of lard?"
Tub of lard? Is this how we really want to describe a child or adult who's overweight? Since when does this level of judgment belong in an economist's commentary on public radio?
I haven't heard anyone use that kind of language since 7th grade. Maybe 6th. Susan, in case you aren't aware of this, words are powerful. There's no call for that kind of demeaning, demoralizing, judgmental language from anyone in the media.
Read Lee's whole commentary here. Then tell the folks at Marketplace what you think of her choice of words here.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
The Leaden Fork Award
When our family started dealing with anorexia, one of the first things that happened was that we became highly sensitized to questions of weight and body image. And folks, once you tune in to what people are saying--about their own weight and bodies, about yours, about other people's--you'll be astonished and appalled.
The media, of course, is a huge offender. Several exposures recently have inspired me to highlight some of the most egregious offenders with a special Leaden Fork Award (kinda the opposite of Laura Collins' Golden Fork--for more on Laura Collins see her fabulous site).
My first Leaden Fork Award goes to the well-intentioned but way-off-base folks at braincake, a site meant to be all about empowering girls. (Thanks to Gale Petersen for bringing this to my attention.) The flash intro to their site shows the words "If I could change the world," and follows it with various wishes, apparently in the words of girls themselves. One of those wishes is: "If I could change the world, I'd . . . reengineer chocolate to have negative calorie. The more I ate, the skinnier I'd get!"
Congratulations, braincake! Your Leaden Fork award is well-deserved for the way you've bought in to the myth that when it comes to girls, thinner is always better. You've trivialized girls' dreams and wishes. And you've blithely ignored the very real and very destructive problem of eating disorders.
Want to be part of changing the world? Send the misguided folks at braincake an e-mail and tell them you want them to change their intro, pronto. The address is braincake@carnegiesciencecenter.org. Tell 'em I sent you.
Got any candidates for the Leaden Fork award? Send them my way at hnbrown@tds.net.
The media, of course, is a huge offender. Several exposures recently have inspired me to highlight some of the most egregious offenders with a special Leaden Fork Award (kinda the opposite of Laura Collins' Golden Fork--for more on Laura Collins see her fabulous site).
My first Leaden Fork Award goes to the well-intentioned but way-off-base folks at braincake, a site meant to be all about empowering girls. (Thanks to Gale Petersen for bringing this to my attention.) The flash intro to their site shows the words "If I could change the world," and follows it with various wishes, apparently in the words of girls themselves. One of those wishes is: "If I could change the world, I'd . . . reengineer chocolate to have negative calorie. The more I ate, the skinnier I'd get!"
Congratulations, braincake! Your Leaden Fork award is well-deserved for the way you've bought in to the myth that when it comes to girls, thinner is always better. You've trivialized girls' dreams and wishes. And you've blithely ignored the very real and very destructive problem of eating disorders.
Want to be part of changing the world? Send the misguided folks at braincake an e-mail and tell them you want them to change their intro, pronto. The address is braincake@carnegiesciencecenter.org. Tell 'em I sent you.
Got any candidates for the Leaden Fork award? Send them my way at hnbrown@tds.net.
Friday, December 15, 2006
In Memoriam: Vivian Langan, 1927-2006
My mother-in-law died last week. Aside from being a wonderful person in so many of the ways that count, she taught me to eat. I wanted to take a moment to remember and celebrate her for this.
I grew up in a household of dieting women. I think I understood that certain foods were good and certain foods were bad from the time I was one; in fact, one of my mother's favorite photos of me as a child shows me at about 16 months sneaking cookies from a tin in a kitchen cabinet. Hilarious, huh? In my family, the nicest thing you could possibly say to anyone is "You've lost weight!" Our family meals veered between the good stuff and Weight Watchers diet food, including possibly the worst "food" ever manufactured, diet chocolate mint soda.
My mother-in-law was thin. Not stick thin, not too thin, but thin in a healthy way. She was an athlete from before the days of Title IX, member of a curling team that won the national championships in the 1960s, tennis player, runner, and overall physically active person. And she loved both to cook and to eat.
At first her cooking appalled me. Real butter? We might all drop dead from eating that. Or at least gain 50 pounds. In my family quantity trumped quality any day.
But gradually I came to understand, from watching her cook and eat, that when you eat good food, real food, it's satisfying in a way that carrot sticks and artificial sweetener can never manage. That you don't need 20 cookies when they're made with real butter and chocolate; one or two suffices.
From my mother in law I began learning how to listen to my body's appetite and hunger, and satisfy it. I began the long process of learning to care for myself through eating, while stepping around the traps of obsession and guilt.
So as I mourn her passing, as I begin the long missing of her, I also want to celebrate her in this as well as so many other ways. Vivian, wherever you are, I'm raising a forkful of shrimp salad to you. Made with Hellman's mayonnaise, not the fake-o stuff, and served on good crackers. This one's for you.
I grew up in a household of dieting women. I think I understood that certain foods were good and certain foods were bad from the time I was one; in fact, one of my mother's favorite photos of me as a child shows me at about 16 months sneaking cookies from a tin in a kitchen cabinet. Hilarious, huh? In my family, the nicest thing you could possibly say to anyone is "You've lost weight!" Our family meals veered between the good stuff and Weight Watchers diet food, including possibly the worst "food" ever manufactured, diet chocolate mint soda.
My mother-in-law was thin. Not stick thin, not too thin, but thin in a healthy way. She was an athlete from before the days of Title IX, member of a curling team that won the national championships in the 1960s, tennis player, runner, and overall physically active person. And she loved both to cook and to eat.
At first her cooking appalled me. Real butter? We might all drop dead from eating that. Or at least gain 50 pounds. In my family quantity trumped quality any day.
But gradually I came to understand, from watching her cook and eat, that when you eat good food, real food, it's satisfying in a way that carrot sticks and artificial sweetener can never manage. That you don't need 20 cookies when they're made with real butter and chocolate; one or two suffices.
From my mother in law I began learning how to listen to my body's appetite and hunger, and satisfy it. I began the long process of learning to care for myself through eating, while stepping around the traps of obsession and guilt.
So as I mourn her passing, as I begin the long missing of her, I also want to celebrate her in this as well as so many other ways. Vivian, wherever you are, I'm raising a forkful of shrimp salad to you. Made with Hellman's mayonnaise, not the fake-o stuff, and served on good crackers. This one's for you.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Are We All Calorie Phobic?
What is it about calories that freaks everyone out?
In one of the recent radio interviews I've given about anorexia and refeeding, I was struck by what a big deal the interviewer made about the number of calories required for a recovering anorexic to gain and then maintain weight. She just couldn't get over the number I mentioned in the NYT Magazine article--between 3,000 and 5,000 calories per day--and made a point of interjecting with what she considered the "normal" number of calories required by a teenage girl.
It reminded me of that old Lenny Bruce routine about the word c***sucker, where first the prosecutor and then the judge kept saying the word over and over: "Your Honor, he said c***sucker!" "He really said c***sucker?" "Yes, your honor, he said c***sucker!" And so on.
I had the same feeling about this: as if talking about so many calories (let alone eating them) was somehow disgraceful or shocking or obscene. I think this is part of what makes it challenging for anorexics in this country to recover--that in this culture we are so phobic about calories that we can't bear to feed someone that much, even when they so clearly require it for recovery.
Myself, I'd much rather see a recovering anorexic eat a few too many calories (and what is "too many" in this context?) than not enough. Anyone who's lived with the firsthand experience of anorexia should be far more phobic about "not enough" than about "too much."
In one of the recent radio interviews I've given about anorexia and refeeding, I was struck by what a big deal the interviewer made about the number of calories required for a recovering anorexic to gain and then maintain weight. She just couldn't get over the number I mentioned in the NYT Magazine article--between 3,000 and 5,000 calories per day--and made a point of interjecting with what she considered the "normal" number of calories required by a teenage girl.
It reminded me of that old Lenny Bruce routine about the word c***sucker, where first the prosecutor and then the judge kept saying the word over and over: "Your Honor, he said c***sucker!" "He really said c***sucker?" "Yes, your honor, he said c***sucker!" And so on.
I had the same feeling about this: as if talking about so many calories (let alone eating them) was somehow disgraceful or shocking or obscene. I think this is part of what makes it challenging for anorexics in this country to recover--that in this culture we are so phobic about calories that we can't bear to feed someone that much, even when they so clearly require it for recovery.
Myself, I'd much rather see a recovering anorexic eat a few too many calories (and what is "too many" in this context?) than not enough. Anyone who's lived with the firsthand experience of anorexia should be far more phobic about "not enough" than about "too much."
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Update on Kitty
For everyone who has so lovingly asked about Kitty and how she's doing:
She's doing really well. She was apprehensive about the New York Times article coming out, nervous that people would say things to her in school. And they did say things, but they were pretty much all supportive. And I think that's helped her feel empowered.
She's busy with real life now, not trapped by what I think of as the red shoes of anorexia--which make you dance and dance even when you're so exhausted you just want to fall over.
The goal of Maudsley treatment is to get an anorexic back to normal adolescent development. She's there. At least for now. Which is all we can really know or ask for at the moment.
Thanks, all, for your messages of caring and support for her. I know they touched her.
She's doing really well. She was apprehensive about the New York Times article coming out, nervous that people would say things to her in school. And they did say things, but they were pretty much all supportive. And I think that's helped her feel empowered.
She's busy with real life now, not trapped by what I think of as the red shoes of anorexia--which make you dance and dance even when you're so exhausted you just want to fall over.
The goal of Maudsley treatment is to get an anorexic back to normal adolescent development. She's there. At least for now. Which is all we can really know or ask for at the moment.
Thanks, all, for your messages of caring and support for her. I know they touched her.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Why talk About Anorexia?
Last Sunday I published a first-person account of our family’s year-long efforts to refeed our 14-year-old anorexic daughter. Since then I’ve been taken to task in the blogosphere for publishing the personal and often harrowing essay.
I was accused of violating my daughter's privacy, of writing something that would haunt her for the rest of her life; every boyfriend and potential boss, goes the accusation, will now know intimate details of her life. How could I, or any parent, reveal such details? Maybe, she suggested, I was getting back at my daughter in a passive-aggressive way for the hell she'd put us through last year.
I considered the criticism honestly and thoughtfully. And I want to explain why I did what I did. Not just for me, because I'm just one mother telling one story. I want to explain this for all the mothers and fathers out there whose children struggle with mental illness, whether it's anorexia or schizophrenia or dyslexia or ADD or bipolar disorder or an as-yet unnamed malady that affects their child's brain, mind, thinking, and behavior.
What all of these have in common is that they come with a deep and abiding sense of shame and stigma. Every parent knows the feeling; it’s a question of degree. When you see or the world tells you that there's something wrong with your child, and that it's possibly, even probably, your fault, your instinct is to cover it up, hide it, put a lid on it and a hood over its face. Don't talk about it. Don't ask about it. Just accept the verdict and do the best you can.
But I believe with all my heart that if we are quiet about our children's illnesses, if we act as though there is something shameful about them, if we slink around and hang our heads and speak in hushed whispers about the agonies our children are going through, then we are not doing our job as parents. If we put Privacy with a capital P above the real true needs of not just our children but everyone's children, then we are failing them and we are failing the greater community that we inhabit.
As one eating disorders expert told me, "The reason there's not more research on anorexia is that there's no strong advocacy group pushing for it. Look at the autism parents—look what they've accomplished by putting it out there."
When we say yes to shame and stigma, we consign our children to years of suffering a kind of torture we can only imagine—we don’t want to imagine. We doom them to live terrible half-lives and to die of starvation or exposure or by their own hand. We send them to hell with our pious words and our respect for their Privacy.
I will not do this.
I wrote the article with the permission of my daughter. It is true that she was ambivalent about it. She worried about losing her privacy and feeling exposed. But she overcame those fears because she wanted to help others who were going through what she'd gone through. She wanted to save other lives. She is a generous and good and brave person, my daughter, much braver than anyone else can truly ever know. She was willing to put principle and habit and fear aside for the chance of participating in what we call tikkun olam, repair of the world, the opportunity to heal some small portion of the tear at the heart of the world. Her recovery is in large measure her own doing—with our support and love.
I call that heroism. And I honor it by telling her story and the story of thousands of others like her.
As long as the forces of shame and stigma and conformity press us to shut up, sit down, be embarrassed, we and our children will continue to suffer and, yes, to die, in silence and misery.
I call that stupid.
I was accused of violating my daughter's privacy, of writing something that would haunt her for the rest of her life; every boyfriend and potential boss, goes the accusation, will now know intimate details of her life. How could I, or any parent, reveal such details? Maybe, she suggested, I was getting back at my daughter in a passive-aggressive way for the hell she'd put us through last year.
I considered the criticism honestly and thoughtfully. And I want to explain why I did what I did. Not just for me, because I'm just one mother telling one story. I want to explain this for all the mothers and fathers out there whose children struggle with mental illness, whether it's anorexia or schizophrenia or dyslexia or ADD or bipolar disorder or an as-yet unnamed malady that affects their child's brain, mind, thinking, and behavior.
What all of these have in common is that they come with a deep and abiding sense of shame and stigma. Every parent knows the feeling; it’s a question of degree. When you see or the world tells you that there's something wrong with your child, and that it's possibly, even probably, your fault, your instinct is to cover it up, hide it, put a lid on it and a hood over its face. Don't talk about it. Don't ask about it. Just accept the verdict and do the best you can.
But I believe with all my heart that if we are quiet about our children's illnesses, if we act as though there is something shameful about them, if we slink around and hang our heads and speak in hushed whispers about the agonies our children are going through, then we are not doing our job as parents. If we put Privacy with a capital P above the real true needs of not just our children but everyone's children, then we are failing them and we are failing the greater community that we inhabit.
As one eating disorders expert told me, "The reason there's not more research on anorexia is that there's no strong advocacy group pushing for it. Look at the autism parents—look what they've accomplished by putting it out there."
When we say yes to shame and stigma, we consign our children to years of suffering a kind of torture we can only imagine—we don’t want to imagine. We doom them to live terrible half-lives and to die of starvation or exposure or by their own hand. We send them to hell with our pious words and our respect for their Privacy.
I will not do this.
I wrote the article with the permission of my daughter. It is true that she was ambivalent about it. She worried about losing her privacy and feeling exposed. But she overcame those fears because she wanted to help others who were going through what she'd gone through. She wanted to save other lives. She is a generous and good and brave person, my daughter, much braver than anyone else can truly ever know. She was willing to put principle and habit and fear aside for the chance of participating in what we call tikkun olam, repair of the world, the opportunity to heal some small portion of the tear at the heart of the world. Her recovery is in large measure her own doing—with our support and love.
I call that heroism. And I honor it by telling her story and the story of thousands of others like her.
As long as the forces of shame and stigma and conformity press us to shut up, sit down, be embarrassed, we and our children will continue to suffer and, yes, to die, in silence and misery.
I call that stupid.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Love as Part of Recovery from Anorexia
I've been completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of emails I've received since my New York Times Magazine article appeared yesterday ("One Spoonful at a Time," www.nytimes.com). Wow. It's an incredible feeling to be so connected with so many people who have shared the same awful and misunderstood experience.
I want to share one of those emails with you, because it moved me so much. The author has given me permission to excerpt it here. The notion that a parent or other close relation's love and caring are a vital part of recovery from anorexia feels absolutely true to our family's experience.
I'd love to hear what other people think about this.
--Harriet
Hi, Ms. Brown,
I’ve just read “One Spoonful at a Time,” your article in the NY Times about refeeding your daughter, and her long recovery from anorexia nervosa. As a teenager—also 14—I was anorectic, and the memory of the first milkshake my mother asked me to drink is still vivid, a full-body memory. I’m writing as a former sufferer of anorexia nervosa to provide a kind of confirmation of the wisdom of the Maudsley approach, which my parents had never heard of, but which mirrors their approach to helping me escape the grip of the “demon” you describe so well in your article.
Over the years, I’ve tried to figure out just how I escaped anorexia. Two things stand out, and I was amazed to find both addressed very clearly in your article. First, I was simply exhausted by what you’ve called the anorexia demon—the obsessive thoughts about food, about how fat I was, about how undisciplined and grotesque I would be if I gave in and allowed myself to gain weight. I ran three to four miles a day just to keep that demon at bay. I was never as open with my parents as your daughter has apparently been with you, but if I had been, I’d have said precisely the things that you report in your article. I knew what was going through my mind would seem absurd if I revealed it, so I kept it to myself, sometimes completely convinced that I alone knew how true it all was, sometimes not so sure, but always, always fatigued by it.
More importantly, I was deeply affected by my mother’s sense of urgency about my need to eat. Your description of the frustration, fear, and anxiety you’ve experienced as you’ve tried to help your daughter recover is very familiar—I’m sorry to say that my mother went through something very similar with me. The full-body memory I mentioned above is not so much of drinking the milkshake, but of the experience of taking it from my mother’s hands, her presence, her watchfulness, all of which were, in comparison to my masochistic inner voice, so gentle and nonjudgmental. Her concern, and the patient but steel-willed lovingness that went into each milkshake, did the demon in. If you’re ever tempted to believe that your daughter isn’t aware of and grateful for all you and her father have done and continue to do to help her, please think again. I’m not sure how else to put it. And now, over 20 years later, it’s easier for me to admit that on some level what I really needed most was for someone to show that she cared that much, and that her caring was stronger than my self-hatred. I’m not sure why—my parents were always loving people—but maybe it’s just that, once self-imposed starvation really sets in, an opposite and greater-than-equal reaction from a firm, compassionate outside force is required to overcome it. Showing your daughter that you care, that you’re concerned--so much so that you’re not going to back down until she’s regained her health and vitality--is what makes the difference. If that’s the core of the Maudsley approach, I’m sure further tests will continue to reveal its effectiveness.
I want to share one of those emails with you, because it moved me so much. The author has given me permission to excerpt it here. The notion that a parent or other close relation's love and caring are a vital part of recovery from anorexia feels absolutely true to our family's experience.
I'd love to hear what other people think about this.
--Harriet
Hi, Ms. Brown,
I’ve just read “One Spoonful at a Time,” your article in the NY Times about refeeding your daughter, and her long recovery from anorexia nervosa. As a teenager—also 14—I was anorectic, and the memory of the first milkshake my mother asked me to drink is still vivid, a full-body memory. I’m writing as a former sufferer of anorexia nervosa to provide a kind of confirmation of the wisdom of the Maudsley approach, which my parents had never heard of, but which mirrors their approach to helping me escape the grip of the “demon” you describe so well in your article.
Over the years, I’ve tried to figure out just how I escaped anorexia. Two things stand out, and I was amazed to find both addressed very clearly in your article. First, I was simply exhausted by what you’ve called the anorexia demon—the obsessive thoughts about food, about how fat I was, about how undisciplined and grotesque I would be if I gave in and allowed myself to gain weight. I ran three to four miles a day just to keep that demon at bay. I was never as open with my parents as your daughter has apparently been with you, but if I had been, I’d have said precisely the things that you report in your article. I knew what was going through my mind would seem absurd if I revealed it, so I kept it to myself, sometimes completely convinced that I alone knew how true it all was, sometimes not so sure, but always, always fatigued by it.
More importantly, I was deeply affected by my mother’s sense of urgency about my need to eat. Your description of the frustration, fear, and anxiety you’ve experienced as you’ve tried to help your daughter recover is very familiar—I’m sorry to say that my mother went through something very similar with me. The full-body memory I mentioned above is not so much of drinking the milkshake, but of the experience of taking it from my mother’s hands, her presence, her watchfulness, all of which were, in comparison to my masochistic inner voice, so gentle and nonjudgmental. Her concern, and the patient but steel-willed lovingness that went into each milkshake, did the demon in. If you’re ever tempted to believe that your daughter isn’t aware of and grateful for all you and her father have done and continue to do to help her, please think again. I’m not sure how else to put it. And now, over 20 years later, it’s easier for me to admit that on some level what I really needed most was for someone to show that she cared that much, and that her caring was stronger than my self-hatred. I’m not sure why—my parents were always loving people—but maybe it’s just that, once self-imposed starvation really sets in, an opposite and greater-than-equal reaction from a firm, compassionate outside force is required to overcome it. Showing your daughter that you care, that you’re concerned--so much so that you’re not going to back down until she’s regained her health and vitality--is what makes the difference. If that’s the core of the Maudsley approach, I’m sure further tests will continue to reveal its effectiveness.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
The Maudsley Approach to Anorexia
Last year my husband and I spent most of a year refeeding our older daughter, who was diagnosed with anorexia. I wrote an essay about our experiences, which will be published in the New York Times Magazine tomorrow, 11/26/06.
The approach we used is called the Maudsley approach. It was developed at the Maudsley Hospital in London in the 1980s, and is very successful at helping teens with anorexia (though I know of families who have used it to help young adults in their 20s too) recover. It's not easy, but then nothing about this disease is easy, especially for the person who suffers from it.
If you're interested in finding out more about the Maudsley approach, visit www.maudsleyparents.org, a website run by parent volunteers. There's a lot of great information on the site, including a basic introduction to Maudsley and a couple of personal stories from families who have used it. There's also a link to an online parents forum, which has been invaluable to me and my family as we have gone through this experience.
Another great site is www.eatingwithyouranorexic.com, which is run by Laura Collins. Collins wrote a book about how her family helped their daughter recover through Maudsley; I recommend it highly. Her book of the same name is available on Amazon.
I've begun to do some coaching and guidance for families who are going through this re-feeding process. If you're interested in finding out more about coaching, or just want to get in touch for whatever reason, please e-mail me at hnbrown@tds.net.
The approach we used is called the Maudsley approach. It was developed at the Maudsley Hospital in London in the 1980s, and is very successful at helping teens with anorexia (though I know of families who have used it to help young adults in their 20s too) recover. It's not easy, but then nothing about this disease is easy, especially for the person who suffers from it.
If you're interested in finding out more about the Maudsley approach, visit www.maudsleyparents.org, a website run by parent volunteers. There's a lot of great information on the site, including a basic introduction to Maudsley and a couple of personal stories from families who have used it. There's also a link to an online parents forum, which has been invaluable to me and my family as we have gone through this experience.
Another great site is www.eatingwithyouranorexic.com, which is run by Laura Collins. Collins wrote a book about how her family helped their daughter recover through Maudsley; I recommend it highly. Her book of the same name is available on Amazon.
I've begun to do some coaching and guidance for families who are going through this re-feeding process. If you're interested in finding out more about coaching, or just want to get in touch for whatever reason, please e-mail me at hnbrown@tds.net.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Anorexia Study Volunteers Wanted
It seems appropriate on Thanksgiving Day to post about anorexia, a disease that's all about starvation in the face of plenty.
One of the most astonishing facts about the disease is that there's been very little research done on how to cure it. As in almost no studies. As in, anyone can call themselves an eating disorders therapist, and offer his or her own concoction of treatments, with predictable resuls.
If you've seen the movie THIN, you know what I mean.
There's only one way to make sure that compassionate, practical, and good treatments are developed--and that's with well-designed, controlled studies.
If you're a parent reading this because your daughter or son (yes, boys get anorexia too) is anorexic, you have the chance to enroll your child in one of the biggest studies that's ever been done on anorexia. It's being run by researchers at the University of Chicago, academic home of Dr. Daniel Le Grange, one of the leading practitioners of the Maudsley approach. The five-year study compares the Maudsley approach with another treatment approach. It's designed for teens ages 12 to 18 and their families, and involves either 24 or 32 treatment sessions over a year, with follow-ups down the road.
Treatment is FREE if your family is in the study. Of course you have to live within driving distance of Chicago.
For more info on the study, see http://psychiatry.uchicago.edu/research/volunteers/anorexia.html, or call 773-834-5677, or email anorexia@yoda.bsd.uchicago.edu.
I know it's hard for parents to make the choice to enroll a child in a study. I know you don't want your child to be a guinea pig. The great thing about this study is no matter which half your child gets randomized into, parents and families are involved with the treatment--which is a huge and important difference from most other treatments out there right now. To my mind that's crucial. I wouldn't post about the study if that weren't true.
I also like the fact that treatment is free if you're in the study. God knows most health insurers don't cover much (if any) treatment for anorexia. Ours certainly didn't. If you live in a state without mental health parity (as we do), you'll be stuck footing most of the treatment bills because insurers seem to consider treatments to be a frivolous luxury. They seem to think kids can somehow think themselves out of anorexia without all that expensive treatment.
If you're a parent of a child with anorexia, my heart goes out to you. You're not alone.
One of the most astonishing facts about the disease is that there's been very little research done on how to cure it. As in almost no studies. As in, anyone can call themselves an eating disorders therapist, and offer his or her own concoction of treatments, with predictable resuls.
If you've seen the movie THIN, you know what I mean.
There's only one way to make sure that compassionate, practical, and good treatments are developed--and that's with well-designed, controlled studies.
If you're a parent reading this because your daughter or son (yes, boys get anorexia too) is anorexic, you have the chance to enroll your child in one of the biggest studies that's ever been done on anorexia. It's being run by researchers at the University of Chicago, academic home of Dr. Daniel Le Grange, one of the leading practitioners of the Maudsley approach. The five-year study compares the Maudsley approach with another treatment approach. It's designed for teens ages 12 to 18 and their families, and involves either 24 or 32 treatment sessions over a year, with follow-ups down the road.
Treatment is FREE if your family is in the study. Of course you have to live within driving distance of Chicago.
For more info on the study, see http://psychiatry.uchicago.edu/research/volunteers/anorexia.html, or call 773-834-5677, or email anorexia@yoda.bsd.uchicago.edu.
I know it's hard for parents to make the choice to enroll a child in a study. I know you don't want your child to be a guinea pig. The great thing about this study is no matter which half your child gets randomized into, parents and families are involved with the treatment--which is a huge and important difference from most other treatments out there right now. To my mind that's crucial. I wouldn't post about the study if that weren't true.
I also like the fact that treatment is free if you're in the study. God knows most health insurers don't cover much (if any) treatment for anorexia. Ours certainly didn't. If you live in a state without mental health parity (as we do), you'll be stuck footing most of the treatment bills because insurers seem to consider treatments to be a frivolous luxury. They seem to think kids can somehow think themselves out of anorexia without all that expensive treatment.
If you're a parent of a child with anorexia, my heart goes out to you. You're not alone.
Friday, November 10, 2006
News Flash: Anorexia Is a Brain Disease, Says NIMH
The press release below will hardly be news to those of us who have had personal experience with anorexia. But to the rest of the world, it's a news flash, all right.
And to families who are struggling to get sleazy insurers to cover the cost of their children's life-saving treatment, this could make all the difference. Note to insurers: All the recent research on eating disorders shows a strong genetic and biological component to the disease. The suffering of those with anorexia is real and based in biology. Pay up--or have the suffering and deaths of children on your corporate conscience.
_____
NIMH Director States Anorexia is a "Brain Disease"
Today NEDA released a letter received from Thomas R. Insel, MD, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Insel wrote the letter in response to a request made by participants at the 2006 NEDA Conference. The landmark statement issued in the letter that anorexia is a “brain disease” may well help thousands of families struggling with insurance companies to pay for their loved one’s treatment. For details or to link to today’s NY Times article, visit: http://www.NationalEatingDisorders.org. Please thank Dr. Insel for taking the time to assist us in our efforts to improve access to quality treatment! He can be reached c/o nimhinfo@nih.gov.
And to families who are struggling to get sleazy insurers to cover the cost of their children's life-saving treatment, this could make all the difference. Note to insurers: All the recent research on eating disorders shows a strong genetic and biological component to the disease. The suffering of those with anorexia is real and based in biology. Pay up--or have the suffering and deaths of children on your corporate conscience.
_____
NIMH Director States Anorexia is a "Brain Disease"
Today NEDA released a letter received from Thomas R. Insel, MD, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Insel wrote the letter in response to a request made by participants at the 2006 NEDA Conference. The landmark statement issued in the letter that anorexia is a “brain disease” may well help thousands of families struggling with insurance companies to pay for their loved one’s treatment. For details or to link to today’s NY Times article, visit: http://www.NationalEatingDisorders.org. Please thank Dr. Insel for taking the time to assist us in our efforts to improve access to quality treatment! He can be reached c/o nimhinfo@nih.gov.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Wise Words from Fair Wisconsin
This speech was posted by Fair Wisconsin, the group leading the charge to defeat the so-called marriage amendment.
Wise words, though I'm still ashamed of living here.
------
My friends, tonight we came up short in our struggle.
So many of you gave everything you had.
You pounded the pavements.
You emptied your wallets.
You forced yourselves to go up to the doors of strangers and ask them how they feel about something many of them had never discussed so openly before.
Many of you came out to more people than you wanted to because you knew telling your personal story was one of the best ways to change people’s minds.
Some of you have been giving this your all for almost three entire years. And many of us have made many personal sacrifices to make this campaign a top priority.
What I am most proud of most of all is how all of us dared to hope.
And we must not lose this hope and we cannot ignore what we have accomplished.
Because despite the results I still believe in a fair Wisconsin. I refuse to stop believing.
This debate was forced on us at a time and a place not of our choosing.
This fight against the amendment was never just about what happened today. All of us committed to a long-term struggle for equality and fairness for everyone. We cannot give up on Wisconsin, and there’s good reason not to.
We know for certain that many of the same people who voted for this amendment today are the very same people who will support equality for gay families within the next 5 or 10 years. That change might not have been on the timeline forced on us by our opponents, but we cannot ignore the fact that we have laid the foundation for long-term change in Wisconsin. Because of our work, more people in this state than ever before understand that gay families exist in this state and discrimination hurts them.
We may not have won the election, but there were so many victories along the way. We achieved many things that have drastically altered attitudes about gay people, gay families, and the way we do politics around this issue. We transformed a “gay rights” issue and made it a Wisconsin issue.
Our accomplishments are not in vain.
Two and a half years ago, it was unfathomable to most people, including myself, that we could wage a strong fight against the ban.
People said we couldn’t raise enough money. But we raised over $5 million from over 12,000 people to help us communicate with the people of this state.
People said we couldn’t recruit the volunteers necessary, but over 10,000 of you exploded that myth from day one.
They said elected leaders wouldn’t stand with us, and if they did, voters would reject them. But our leaders challenged that notion in fact, leaders like Gov. Doyle never wavered in his opposition to the amendment whether at a UAW rally or editorial board meetings in Baraboo.
Again and again, we proved the cynics wrong.
I know we have changed something fundamental because I saw it unfold in our offices every week of this campaign.
When I saw a standing-room only crowd of Fair Wisconsin supporters sitting in a church basement in Wausau back in March, I knew we were making change.
When I saw an ironworker stop by our office to take literature back to his local labor union because they had taken a position against the amendment, I knew we were making change.
When I saw clergy in their collars in Appleton explaining why the teachings of Jesus compel them to speak out, I knew were making change.
When I saw business leaders move from expressing private concerns to issuing press releases, I knew we were making change.
We set a high bar for ourselves and met it. This changed our campaign but it also changed the way people view gay families and gay issues in this state.
We transformed this so-called wedge issue into an issue that united Wisconsinites of all backrounds. We have made equality and fairness for gay Wisconsinites something that is embraced by many organizations, leaders, and average citizens.
Thank you to the thousands of gay and lesbian people who did not ask for this fight, who did not want to become poster children. You chose to interrupt your lives so that one day our children will know a world without discrimination.
You bravely stepped up to put your lives on display.
Thank you to all of you who like me aren’t gay but made this issue your own. Thousands of you refused to stand by silently while your friends, families, and citizens we will never meet were attacked with this amendment.
Together, all of us stood shoulder to shoulder—grandmothers, farmers, ministers, school teachers, and many, many more of us from all walks of life.
And although we didn’t win we ran a historic effort that changed Wisconsin.
Wise words, though I'm still ashamed of living here.
------
My friends, tonight we came up short in our struggle.
So many of you gave everything you had.
You pounded the pavements.
You emptied your wallets.
You forced yourselves to go up to the doors of strangers and ask them how they feel about something many of them had never discussed so openly before.
Many of you came out to more people than you wanted to because you knew telling your personal story was one of the best ways to change people’s minds.
Some of you have been giving this your all for almost three entire years. And many of us have made many personal sacrifices to make this campaign a top priority.
What I am most proud of most of all is how all of us dared to hope.
And we must not lose this hope and we cannot ignore what we have accomplished.
Because despite the results I still believe in a fair Wisconsin. I refuse to stop believing.
This debate was forced on us at a time and a place not of our choosing.
This fight against the amendment was never just about what happened today. All of us committed to a long-term struggle for equality and fairness for everyone. We cannot give up on Wisconsin, and there’s good reason not to.
We know for certain that many of the same people who voted for this amendment today are the very same people who will support equality for gay families within the next 5 or 10 years. That change might not have been on the timeline forced on us by our opponents, but we cannot ignore the fact that we have laid the foundation for long-term change in Wisconsin. Because of our work, more people in this state than ever before understand that gay families exist in this state and discrimination hurts them.
We may not have won the election, but there were so many victories along the way. We achieved many things that have drastically altered attitudes about gay people, gay families, and the way we do politics around this issue. We transformed a “gay rights” issue and made it a Wisconsin issue.
Our accomplishments are not in vain.
Two and a half years ago, it was unfathomable to most people, including myself, that we could wage a strong fight against the ban.
People said we couldn’t raise enough money. But we raised over $5 million from over 12,000 people to help us communicate with the people of this state.
People said we couldn’t recruit the volunteers necessary, but over 10,000 of you exploded that myth from day one.
They said elected leaders wouldn’t stand with us, and if they did, voters would reject them. But our leaders challenged that notion in fact, leaders like Gov. Doyle never wavered in his opposition to the amendment whether at a UAW rally or editorial board meetings in Baraboo.
Again and again, we proved the cynics wrong.
I know we have changed something fundamental because I saw it unfold in our offices every week of this campaign.
When I saw a standing-room only crowd of Fair Wisconsin supporters sitting in a church basement in Wausau back in March, I knew we were making change.
When I saw an ironworker stop by our office to take literature back to his local labor union because they had taken a position against the amendment, I knew we were making change.
When I saw clergy in their collars in Appleton explaining why the teachings of Jesus compel them to speak out, I knew were making change.
When I saw business leaders move from expressing private concerns to issuing press releases, I knew we were making change.
We set a high bar for ourselves and met it. This changed our campaign but it also changed the way people view gay families and gay issues in this state.
We transformed this so-called wedge issue into an issue that united Wisconsinites of all backrounds. We have made equality and fairness for gay Wisconsinites something that is embraced by many organizations, leaders, and average citizens.
Thank you to the thousands of gay and lesbian people who did not ask for this fight, who did not want to become poster children. You chose to interrupt your lives so that one day our children will know a world without discrimination.
You bravely stepped up to put your lives on display.
Thank you to all of you who like me aren’t gay but made this issue your own. Thousands of you refused to stand by silently while your friends, families, and citizens we will never meet were attacked with this amendment.
Together, all of us stood shoulder to shoulder—grandmothers, farmers, ministers, school teachers, and many, many more of us from all walks of life.
And although we didn’t win we ran a historic effort that changed Wisconsin.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Ashamed to Live in Wisconsin
Love, Food, and Money
Tonight I am ashamed to live in the state of Wisconsin.
We've joined the ranks of states that have now written into their constitutions prejudice. We've institutionalized discrimination--not just made it legal but mandatory.
It's a sad, sad day for Wisconsin, which has a long and rich history of progressivism, of valuing all people equally.
Our so-called marriage amendment may have passed, but they can't make us believe it. They can't make us believe that people who are gay deserve fewer rights than the rest of the population. We'll fight this. We'll overturn this amendment.
Next time.
Tonight I am ashamed to live in the state of Wisconsin.
We've joined the ranks of states that have now written into their constitutions prejudice. We've institutionalized discrimination--not just made it legal but mandatory.
It's a sad, sad day for Wisconsin, which has a long and rich history of progressivism, of valuing all people equally.
Our so-called marriage amendment may have passed, but they can't make us believe it. They can't make us believe that people who are gay deserve fewer rights than the rest of the population. We'll fight this. We'll overturn this amendment.
Next time.
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