Earlier this month Dr. David Herzog, Director of the Harris Center for Education and Advocacy in Eating Disorders, wrote a compelling yet heartbreaking article for the Huffington Post (Herzog, 2012 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-herzog/anorexia_b_1424487.html) about the public perception of anorexia nervosa. This important blog highlights the stigma commonly associated with anorexia, a disease often viewed as self-inflicted and ‘acquired’; a way of seeking attention and becoming thin. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The negativity that individuals who struggle with anorexia, and their families and friends are forced to endure is, as Dr. Herzog argues, unjustified. Sadly, as I’ve noted in my own research and work as a counsellor, such stigma does not end with anorexia: all eating disorders are viewed in much the same fashion. Many of us have a skewed perception of what eating disorders are, how they develop, and the impact they have. We think of the glamorous model, who we assume chooses to control her food or compensate for eating to be thin and attain the image of beauty we wish to attain. Many of us are unaware that eating disorders are more than just restriction, and overlook the pain and damaging long-term effects eating disorders cause. With the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric condition, and maintaining the third highest chronic illness rate among adolescents (www.nedic.ca, 2001), eating disorders are not a lifestyle choice. They are a group of illnesses that subject the sufferer and those most important to them to both social and personal hardships.

Regrettably, it is this lack of awareness and misunderstanding that leads to the stigmatization of eating disorders within the public. However, what is most concerning is the dangerous outcome stigma has: it often results in many choosing to keep their eating disorder secret, leading to isolation from support systems – which may include family, friends, and health professionals. Early intervention is key to fighting eating disorders (www.nationaleatingdisorders.org, 2012) yet many choose to remain isolated, fearful of the blame and lack of understanding they may receive. Simply stated, eating disorders are a secret struggle with hazardous outcomes. The physical, psychological, and social effects of eating disorders are widespread and potentially life-threatening: it is a battle no one would choose to fight, and certainly not alone.

Shame and blame will not lead to positive changes, and negativity will cause those challenged by eating disorders to become even more isolated and secretive. While rates of eating disorders are on the rise and the battle to fight against them seems impossible, there is something all of us can do to help. We can start talking. We can combat stigma by speaking against it, creating awareness and promoting education to reduce shame and blame. While much more needs to be done, beginning the conversation is a start in the right direction. If anything, it may encourage one person to end their silent struggle, in the hopes that one day no one will have to fight the battle alone.

“Does this dress make me look fat?” How many times have you uttered this phrase, or one similar? This, along with the knee-jerk reaction you can have to a friend decrying her big behind – which is often commiserated with, “Your big butt? Have you seen my muffin top?” – seems second nature. This “fat talk” is damaging to how we see and feel about ourselves, and yet it can be a daily occurrence.

How my children perceive themselves is very important to me. I want them to feel comfortable with what they see when they look in the mirror. I want them to know that how they look is not the sum of who they are. So, when my oldest was a tiny baby, I asked myself, “How can I expect her to be comfortable in her skin if I’m not comfortable in my own”?

I knew that I needed to make serious changes – the “fat talk” had to stop, the overly critical long stares in the mirror dissecting my body needed to end, and I had to seriously look at my own baggage. I needed to question why, based on how I thought about my weight or shape at any one moment, I believed that I wasn’t good enough. What changes could I make to feel better about myself, and to help my daughters understand that healthy self-esteem can’t be built on over-evaluation of appearance?

So why is this important? Well, firstly, I’d rather be stuck on a desert island with someone who knows how to find food, or keep my spirits up, than someone who is only concerned with looking good. Secondly, physical appearance is not stable, and our bodies are going to change over time, regardless of how hard we try to stop that. Also, what’s “in” today may not be desirable tomorrow. If we pin our hopes and aspirations in life on looking a certain way, we’re priming ourselves for dissatisfaction and failure, or a lifetime of soul-consuming manipulation of our bodies. Unless, of course, we’re one of the two in a million individuals who actually naturally fit the current ‘ideal’. Study after study shows that girls who have negative body-image are more likely to be depressed, and to avoid life-affirming experiences. They’re more likely to diet, hugely increasing their risk to develop an eating disorder or/and to be fatter than similar girls who didn’t diet.

I know that by the time my girls hit 14 what I think and say won’t be as important as what their peers think and say.

Scary? You bet.

So what to do? Mind-shaping. I took little steps to switch the focus from constantly comparing myself to others. I no longer weigh myself. My daughter sees me naked, sometimes matter-of-fact and sometimes joyfully. I want her to know that women’s bodies naturally come in all shapes and sizes. I try new things, especially those things that take me out of my comfort zone, and I encourage her to do the same. I celebrate my successes and try not to dwell on my failures. I regularly tell my daughter she’s beautiful, but I also talk up the things she excels at, and try my best to help her with the things that cause her to struggle.

Tough as it is, I deal with the “fat” talk head on. When your 5-year-old asks you if they are fat, your gut says soothe her and say “Of course not, darling; you’re beautiful.” But this would plant the seed that fat is the worst thing she could be, so after much deliberation and preparation for when the inevitable question was posed, I said “You are fatter than some people; you are skinnier than other people and the same as some others. You are you, which is perfect and wonderful. We’re all different and that’s what makes us who we are.”

I explore with her why all the princesses she reads of seem to do nothing more than wait for Prince Charming while he’s out riding his white horse (horse riding seems infinitely more fun than sitting around waiting, don’t you think?); I ask her if she finds its strange that all her Barbies look exactly the same (do her friends and family all look exactly the same?); when she points out a pretty woman in a magazine, or on television, I talk about how much “help” that person had to look that way. I like to think that when she too stands before a mirror and evaluates her own body, she’ll have a strong sense what’s real and what’s durable.

I won’t lie: it was – it is – a work in progress, and it’s not always easy. But changing my approach has helped to not only create resilience in my daughter to help her navigate through a world that places a premium on being thin and looking a certain way, it’s also helped me to really embrace who I am, exactly as I am. Sure, I still occasionally catch myself about to engage in fat talk, or over-scrutinizing myself in a fitting room mirror, but most of the time my positive body image kicks in and gives me back the freedom I deserve.

“Faith is closing your eyes, stepping off a ledge into darkness and trusting that either someone will be there to catch you, or you’ll learn to fly.”

The above quote, spoken from a man in end of life care due to a battle with AIDS was relayed to me at a conference in 2010 by Cindy Blackstock, a tireless advocate for First Nations human rights in Canada. So, what’s that got to do with body image, eating disorders and mental health more broadly? For me the answer seems obvious – mental health is all about hope.

Hope for self-acceptance.
Hope for belonging.
Hope for recovery.
Hope for connection.

Hope is something that we can cultivate for ourselves, but it is also something that we do together. We are all invested in each other’s wellbeing – we all have a role to play in maintaining hopeful contexts for each other. Sometimes the person who helps you to hang on might not even know their impact. At a recent taping of a Canada AM special on mental health, one of the panellists, a young woman who self-identified as coping with depression, was asked to talk about one experience she had when someone said or did something that made a difference for her. Her answer – a classmate in high school who asked her one day if she wanted to have lunch. For me, this was a powerful reminder that sometimes a simple act of kindness can go a long way.

But even thinking more broadly, how do greater social contexts help to create environments where it is either more or less easy to accept yourself? How do issues of race, class, gender and sexual orientation play into things? Why are some experiences deemed as somehow less worthy of taking up space and what are some of the implications of privileging certain narratives over others?

Hope is certainly connected to body image.  Related to hope and body image, what are some of my hopes?  I hope for a world where girls will be defined by the accomplishments and successes that have nothing to do with their physical appearance.  A world where girls will feel encouraged to take up space – both literally in terms of body size and metaphorically in terms of taking up space with their hopes and desires – and to recognize the power of their unexpressed and unrecognized feelings.  A world where we will all be encouraged not to run from our own power, but to remember instead the message in one of my favourite quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes, that “what lies before us and what lies beyond us is tiny compared to what lies within us”.  It is when we come to more fully accept ourselves and our bodies that it becomes easier to more fully inhabit our own space and connect with our own resources, which then makes it possible for us to share these with others.

I’ll close with another of my favourite quotes, this time by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, which is “what if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?”  Beneath this question lies hope, which in my experience is often sparked in quiet moments; moments when we are able to tune into the hope within ourselves.

What do Lady Gaga, Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse have in common?

Fame, fortune and the essence of gossip- sure you could say that, but right now the media is trying drunkorexia on them for size.

While at first a catchy term for online sources with images of “skeletal celebrities who appear to live only off of Grey Goose and cigarettes” (Mohammad) the name has stuck so well that it now gets coined along with similar slang terms like pregorexia and orthorexia as well as serious illnesses such as anorexia and bulimia.

‘Drunkorexia’, as it is referred to, is essentially a form of alcohol abuse whereby an individual restricts food intake as compensation for alcohol consumption. The result: intoxication with much less alcohol and fewer calories consumed by the individual.

There is no doubt that alcohol abuse and eating disorders are often co-occurring and this particular practice combining the two addictions has numerous immediate and long term consequences.

Unsurprisingly, the risks of passing out, becoming dependent on alcohol, and suffering physical or sexual abuse while intoxicated are all increased when the practice of drinking on empty is practiced.

Yes, there’s no reservation when it comes to calling this is a dangerous practice but whether or not its current name is appropriate is the question I have been pondering lately.

Does the term ‘drunkorexia’, with its trendy vibe coupled with the alcohol-infatuated college environment it thrives in, do anything to deter someone from partaking in this?

Would it be far off to suggest that in many instances certain perspectives offered on ‘drunkorexia’ even encourage certain individuals to test the forbidden waters?

I fail to comprehend how taking the name of a serious illness such as anorexia and throwing an ill-chosen prefix on it is a responsible vocabulary decision in any respect.

It has taken a great deal of work for society to fully acknowledge the severity of addiction and mental health disorders, in this case specifically, alcohol abuse and eating disorders. On the whole I find the term “drunkorexia” as a sort of ridicule to the gravity of these illness and all those affected by them.

Essentially this unhealthy behavior is disordered eating and alcohol abuse, so why not call it what it is? From this university student’s perspective, those labels would make the risky activities appear much less attractive, and from a recovered anorexic’s perspective it’s much less offensive.

I think it’s about time to rename this self-destructive behaviour – before it ends up in Webster’s for the long haul.

Sources:
Mohammad, Susan. “Drunkorexia – Topics – Macleans.ca.” Macleans.ca -
Canada News, World News, Politics, Business, Culture, Health, Environment, Education.
Macleans, 2 Oct. 2008. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www2.macleans.ca/tag/drunkorexia/>.