Eating disorders and disorder eating

Eating disorder and disorder eating.

Since I graduated in 2001, I have seen teenagers, dancers and adults as well as children having eating disorder or a disorder eating. I have attended few B.e.a.t. workshops and worked in a clinic where dancers where dropping in from their dance classes with wanted to lose weight in already skinny body! I have read many books and journals related to the problem and witnessed many cases of eating disorders and disorder eating.

The disorder eating is mainly people that use their foods as an emotional excuse and therefore either they eat the food and drink that makes them feel worse or better according to their moods, instead of dealing with their own emotions first and what is going on around them.

According to the papers that I read and the workshops I attended the cause of the most serious eating disorders are either trauma from children or teenagers and or fears of being around in the world. Those fears can be from their parents or from hearing it all around them on the news.

If their parents never taught them how to cope with their own feelings as they were never taught themselves than the children and then teenagers, cannot recognise how they feel and if they either take it on eating too much or too little to cope with it, as that is within their control.

What I saw in my clinic and around with family and friends are few of the most serious eating disorders such as anorexia to the ones that are not as deadly but still affected the person and/or child the same.

Few years ago I saw a very competitive young woman who started not eating well when she was at University. She did that because of the pressure of the work and because it was the first time away from family and sincerely I think she did not know how to shop, cook and what food were healthy for her, as her mother did all that when she was at home. She also did not think that it was that important that she skipped meals!

When I saw her the first time, I felt warning bells everywhere and I did warn her from there. However she had to go back to her Country of origin for an emergency and I did not see her for 3 weeks after that. When I saw her again the warning bells were even louder! She told me that the past 3 weeks she lived on red bull!

Her body was started to give up, and her hair started to fall off. I send her to the doctor to have her checked out and I mentioned to her that she had the eating disorder, which she did not think she had. I asked her to talk to her GP about it and be send to counselling as well as dealing with the immediate nutritional emergency. The first doctor she saw did not get the seriousness of her condition and after a couple of weeks she told me she was not drinking water much either as she was throwing up.

At that point I asked her to change GP in her surgery and see if they would listen. The new doctor luckily recognise the signs and her condition and send her to have enteral feeding few times a week. That was just about enough to keep her alive, she needed blood transfusions and because she had to pay for them she would not have them. She still did not understand the seriousness of her condition herself and she was still worried about work, her debt for her University and even telling her mum!. After sitting her down as a mum I managed to make her understand how much her mum would have wanted to know her situation right now and that the rest of things were not as important.

With the support of her bosses who I knew and talked to, she finally booked her ticket to go back and get herself sorted as well as talking to her mum about her situation, which as I knew she told her to go back straight away.

The last I heard, she went into hospital for a while. All her hair fell out and then regrew and she started to receive counselling in her Country with the support of her family. That is one story of many, but the similarities of what she was going through are the same for everyone with disorder eating and eating disorder in some way. Pressure from outside, parents, relatives, school and trauma. Unable to express themselves and their emotions. She did not want to worry her mum or family and therefore she was not communicated her own worry and pressure.

I have seen also children not eating for the fear of getting fat or because they dealt with stress with the only thing that they could control.

I have also seen the daughter of a very good friend as well as my own son, being too sensitive to the world around and not coping well with changes and pressure from school and life in general.

With the latter the best thing was a combination of love and support from family and friends, a doctor and psychologist who worked on getting them less anxious about life in general and feel that they are safe to live!

I also would add that there was a lot of healing for their soul too so that they would be grounded and connected with their mind/body, which made them happier and more capable of listening to the people around them who loved them and expressing their own emotions and fears.

I have noticed that growing children and teenagers nowadays have much more attention and opportunities and with that they also have pressure to do well in everything.

Sometimes that pressure is put on by themselves and sometimes by their parents or peer pressure. And sincerely the majority of times it is something that is not that important!

The other essential thing that would make children, to adult cope with life is also communication. Being able to communicate with their feelings to their parents, friends, coach, any other family member is essential for their mental and social being. Even though parents or partners, boyfriends or girlfriend do not agree with what they say, it is important for them to have a voice and say what they have in their mind and heart!

I have also worked with other less serious eating disorders with nutritional advice and with Cranio-Sacral Sessions, which in combination connects the body/mind and soul health in a more positive way.

Reference:

1. Cockfield A and Philpot U. (2009). Feeding size 0: the challenges of anorexia nervosa. Managing anorexia from a dietitian’s perspective. Proc Nutr Soc. Aug;68(3):281-8. (Abstract)
2. Gander M. et al. (2015). Eating disorders in adolescence: attachment issues from a developmental perspective. Front Psychol. Aug 10;6:1136. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.
3. McElroy SL and Guerdjikova al. (2015). Understanding and coping with binge eating disorder: the patient’s perspective. J Clin Psychiatry. Aug;76(8):e1044 (abstract).
4. Sharan P. and Sundar AS. (2015). Eating disorders in women. Indian J. Psychiatry. Jul;57(Suppl 2):S286-95
5. White HJ et al (2015). How do parents of adolescent patients with anorexia nervosa interact with their child at mealtimes? A study of parental strategies used in the family meal session of family-based treatment. Int J Eat Disord. Jan;48(1):72-80 (abstract)