Posted by beardedlady on April 20, 2002, at 5:51:44
In reply to Re: What defines an ED? » Katt, posted by paxvox2000 on April 19, 2002, at 17:24:48
>An eating disorder would GENERALLY only exist when someone has weird ideas about their weight, and self-image related to it. To the degree that one, say purges after eating because he/she thinks he/she is fat, then you have a problem. Just being "aware" or "careful" about what you eat because you don't want, to be overweight, or because you want to lose weight is no big deal.
Worrying about being fat when you weigh between 85 and 95 pounds and are 5'1 is certainly as much a sign as purging meals. If she had said she weighed 110 pounds and was 5'1, I'd have thought she sounded healthy.
> Don't worry so much about what OTHERS say is an ED, think about what that means to you.
In the case of eating disorders, it is very much about what others think! The disorder presents itself as a distorted body image.
People with eating disorders generally think they are like everyone else. And most don't try to get help. It is their mothers or friends or doctors who finally get help. My sister's best friend almost died from anorexia and spent a long time in the hospital trying to live. (Instead she died of cancer two years later at the ripe old age of twenty-two.) My best friend in college had it, too. She wouldn't listen to me or her other friends when we told her she was losing too much weight. She said she didn't have a problem, but I told her that she should get help if she noticed hair loss and stopped getting her period. One morning after her shower, she called me crying. Hadn't had a period in months, lost a lot of hair.She got help pretty early, and she's never had a problem with it again.
beardy
poster:beardedlady
thread:22276
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020411/msgs/22297.html