Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 12, 1994 TAG: 9501190002
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Some people, especially women and girls, worry far too much about their weight. They aren't fat, but they think they are, so they stop eating and starve themselves. They have what is called an eating disorder. People who have bulimia throw up on purpose to get food out of their stomachs. People who have anorexia refuse to eat, and after a while, they can't, even if they want to.
Eating disorders are fairly new illnesses, so there are not many doctors around to treat them. But one doctor, Marlene Boskind-White, who sees many women and girls with this problem, asked one of her patients, 16-year-old Hope, to talk to Newsfun about her eating disorder.
("Hope" is not the girl's real name. She and her parents are worried that other kids would make fun of her if her real name were used.)
When Hope was 14, she moved to a new house in the country where there were no other kids around. She also started going to a new school and didn't know anyone there. For some reason, she said, she thought that if she lost a few pounds, she would be popular immediately.
"I thought I was fat," she said.
At first, she said, her mother thought losing weight was a good idea. Although Hope was not fat (she was 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed 115 pounds), she was the same height as her mother, who weighs 98 pounds, and they thought they should weigh the same.
What they didn't realize at first, Hope said, was that she has bigger bones than her mother and had been putting on more muscle (which weighs more than fat) because she had such a long walk from her bus stop.
Hope began exercising and working out with the track team. She also started cutting fatty foods from her diet, and then began to count calories. Soon, she was eating barely enough to stay alive.
Her weight began to drop, but instead of becoming more popular, she started to avoid her friends, especially when they asked her out to eat with them. Like many people with anorexia, she had become afraid of food.
It's hard to imagine life without chocolate or pizza or french fries, isn't it? Hope said that at first it was hard to resist those kinds of foods, but each time she did it, the next time was easier. By the end of the school year, she was eating just fruit and bread and other low-calorie foods. She weighed just 100 pounds and her body was going into shock, which means that her organs were beginning to quit working. Some people die when this happens.
Hope's mother became worried and took her to see Boskind-White. Hope said that made her really angry. She thought she looked fine and her mother was just worrying too much.
Her friends didn't realize she was sick either, she said. "They thought it was pretty cool" that she had lost so much weight.
But when Boskind-White told Hope she might have to go to a hospital because she was so sick, she understood that something was wrong.
Boskind-White explained all the bad things Hope was doing to her body, and then urged her to go on a diet - a sensible one - to make sure she gets all the nutrients she needed. She also talks to Hope once every two weeks about her weight and about any other problems she might have.
"It's good to have someone to talk to," Hope said.
Besides that, Hope also attends group therapy sessions, where she meets with other girls and women like her. It's easier to get along knowing that she isn't the only one with her problem, Hope said.
Most people with eating disorders are like Hope, said Deborah Miller, a counselor who works with people with eating disorders. They are angry. It is difficult to win their trust, and they feel really sick while they're trying to learn to eat again.
But when she can tell them what they are going to feel before it happens, they start to believe in her, she said. If eating disorders are caught early, she said, they can often be cured in one year.
Unfortunately, kids who have eating disorders often miss all the fun of growing up, and it makes life hard for them later. Many of them have other problems, too.
Hope is not well yet. Although she weighed 115 pounds in October, her body has not recovered, and she is still several sizes smaller than she used to be because her muscles are very small. Her stomach has been damaged, too. Although she wants to eat, her stomach is not used to digesting food anymore and it often hurts.
It still takes a major effort to eat foods such as pizza, ice cream and tacos, and she is still exercising more than she ought to, but Hope is trying hard. She knows she will get better one day, and is looking forward to going to college and someday becoming a writer.
She also has some advice for kids who think, as she did, that being thin will make them more popular.
"Get out more and do things," rather than sitting around worrying about your weight, she said.
by CNB