Eating Disorder Awareness

Over the weekend, I accidentally ran across the blog of a woman who has lost a lot of weight (over 100 lbs) in a fairly short period of time and is now very thin. She's a rather compelling writer, so I read her complete blog from start to finish...almost 2 years worth. (Yeah, I know...I need to get a life.)

What fascinated me was her obsession with calories, exercise, etc. Her life revolved around what she ate, how many calories each food item had, how much exercise she could do. She'd often spend hours at the gym or running. Even when she was really sick, she’d obsess on how she “should” be out there exercising, and often she actually would go out and exercise when she probably shouldn’t have. She didn’t seem to have a life outside of her weight loss efforts, and she was terrified of gaining back the weight. Whenever she’d gain a pound or two, she’d beat up on herself and say the most abusive things to herself. She occasionally made some really scary statements about what she would do to herself if she gained back weight...and not just all the weight, even a little. I'm talking violent, suicidal thoughts. She hardly ever seemed “happy,” except when she could report a loss, and she rarely seemed to do things just for fun. She also had some truly horrific events happen in her personal life, but she seemed kind of detached from it. She’d mention the event, and the next post would be details of what she ate or how much she exercised that day.

At first, I admired her tenacity and single-mindedness, although I was a bit put off by her negative self-talk. But as I continued to read, her obsession with calories and excessive exercise increased, and her self talk got nastier and nastier…well, I’m no psychiatrist, but to me it sounded like she had developed an eating disorder.

But even more disturbing to me was the encouragement and positive comments she would get from other bloggers. When she would say something horrible about herself…“I ate too many calories, so I suck” or “I gained a pound, so I suck” or “I didn’t exercise enough today, so I suck”… people would tell her “You can do it!” or “Just get back on the wagon.” Conversely, when she would lose a pound or two, usually by watching what she ate and exercising for hours, folks would congratulate her… “You are an inspiration to me!” or “Wow, you’re amazing to exercise that much!” (Occasionally, someone would tell her to be kinder to herself, or maybe even that she needed counseling, but her responses to those comments were generally angry or terse.) Recently, when she posted pictures of her now-super skinny body, she’d get praise from other bloggers… “You are so HOT!”

I don’t mean to judge… I’m sure people were just trying to be nice and encouraging, but they obviously didn’t see what I see...a raging-out-of-control eating disorder. From experience, I know that "positive" comments such as she received just add fuel to an eating disorder. This woman has all of the indicators of exercise bulimia:

Exercise bulimia is a subset of the psychological disorder called bulimia in which a person is compelled to exercise in an effort aimed at burning the calories of food energy and fat reserves to an excessive level that negatively affects their health. The damage normally occurs through not giving the body adequate rest for athletic recovery compared to their exercise levels, leading to increasing levels of disrepair. If the person eats a normally healthy and adequate diet but exercises in levels they know require higher levels of nutrition, this can also be seen as a form of anorexia. Compulsive exercisers will often schedule their lives around exercise just as those with eating disorders schedule their lives around eating (or not eating). Other indications of compulsive exercise are:
• Missing work, parties or other appointments in order to work out
• Working out with an injury or while sick
• Becoming unusually depressed if unable to exercise
• Working out for hours at a time each day
• Not taking any rest or recovery days
• Defining self-worth in terms of performance
• Justifies excessive behavior by defining self as a "special" elite athlete

As a former bulimic, maybe I’m just overly sensitive to this issue, and I’m not sure what my point is about writing this post…but I really felt the need to write this down. Maybe it’s just to say this…the blogging community is full of wonderful people...I know you are just being encouraging or kind to people struggling to get healthy and improve their lives, but please...also be careful about giving positive strokes to someone for exhibiting obsessive or destructive behaviors. I think this woman started out with a true “weight loss” blog; unfortunately, none of her followers seemed to notice that over the course of many months, her healthy eating and exercising had transitioned into an eating disorder. Maybe I noticed it more because I read it all at once.

Anyway, I hope no one thinks I'm being critical of this woman or of her followers. I'm not...I just want people to be aware of what can happen.

Thanks for reading.