Anorexia, Bulimia, and Other Eating Disorders
Eating disorders — anorexia nervosa, bulimia, binge eating, and other types of eating disorders — can be among the most difficult problems your daughter could develop. Because these disorders deal with what girls should have a good relationship with — daily nourishment — and can appear in so many different and scary forms, parents are often in denial. By the time a parent wakes up, the problems a girl has can be deeply ingrained and even harder to eradicate.
Essential
The two most frequent eating disorders are anorexia, meaning loss of appetite, and bulimia, meaning having the appetite of an ox. Anorexia was once called the “slimming disease.” Bulimia was part of the ancient Roman orgies in which people binged on food, and then purged themselves to make room for more food.
No Blame Game
Parents are hardly to blame. Some come from an era when food was less abundant than it is now, so they grew up wanting more food, not less. Others have never heard of these eating disorders whose exact and precise diagnoses and cures are relatively new.
Furthermore, most girls with eating disorders cloak themselves in secrecy — at least at the beginning. Additionally, some girls who are perfectly normal can suddenly develop one of these disorders and leave their families dumbfounded. All these diseases are thought to occur because of a teenage girl's problem with her body image. But the answers are not as clear-cut as they may seem. There are now boys with eating disorders, and older adults have come out of the closet, admitting they have had them for years.
Eating Disorder Prevention
Preventing eating disorders sounds easy but is hard. By the time your daughter is an adolescent, you do not have much control over her body, exercise, or eating. Of course you should criticize her little, avoid counting her calories, encourage her to exercise appropriately, serve healthful foods, and not compare her to other girls. But there is also a strong hereditary component involved that you can do nothing about. Do not ignore these warning signs:
Losing weight at an alarming rate
Losing and gaining weight like a yo-yo
Talking a lot about being fat
Barely eating anything or eating secretly
Exercising to excess
Spending much time in the bathroom after meals, or always running to the restroom during dinner
This is only a partial list. Should you have any concerns about your daughter's weight — either being too little or too much — talk to her doctor at once. When dealing with eating disorders, every hour counts. So do not wait until the following occurs:
Your girl eats only crumbs, develops a vomiting habit, chews laxatives like candy, and spins out of control with overactivity.
Your girl is tired and weak all the time, stops having periods, develops baby hair all over her body and thinning hair on her head.
Your girl ends up in the emergency room with heart problems, looking like nothing but skin and bones, and just barely clinging to life.
You are too strong and too smart and too alert a parent to let this happen. A recent report states that the average bulimic waits five and a half years before seeking help. The girls are often too ashamed to tell their doctors. But that is not going to happen at your house. You will put an end to whatever derailment in relationship to eating your daughter has developed, and you will be watchful in other areas of her growth as well.
