Katiie’s Beer

“It’s about what you can control, and I couldn’t control all the things that were going on in my life, but I could control what I ate and maybe if I looked like Teri Hatcher or whoever I would be happy and people would like me.” 

Guess the age of the woman who said the above?  16? 18? 24?  She is 46.  She is one of a supposedly new breed of women who are being treated for anorexia and are well over 40 years old.  Park Nicollet Clinic was recently interviewed by the Times of London regarding their treatment program for such women.  I was intrigued by the statements of the women interviewed, because a frequent theme is control.  This interested me because part of my own weight loss success is due to the fact that as I become older it is much easier for me to control my appetite and my weight.  It took me 46 years to realize I could control my weight.  I used to think that was sad, but I think it is probably a natural part of aging.  But for some, low self-esteem and other issues drive them to anorexia.

For any anorexic patient, and this includes older women, their illness is triggered by a genetic component and one or more socio-cultural components. The genetic component relates to personality type — anorexic patients are typically perfectionists, high achievers and have a strong need to control, combined with low self-esteem — but this is not sufficient to trigger anorexia on its own.

“With teenagers, the socio-cultural factor comes from problems with adolescence and peer pressure. They’re striving to look the best, to have the best boyfriend,” Jahraus says. “With older women we see a high divorce rate and women are out there trying to look good, trying to find a partner, and I think that has done something to influence these numbers of older anorexic women we are seeing.”

Of the mature women I spoke to who have been treated for anorexia, none wished to be identified, and some preferred not to be quoted. With some their sense of shame was palpable, and they were frightened that people who knew them might recognize them and then know that they were anorexic. It might seem logical that if you are tall and weigh six stone, your friends have probably worked this out, but it is common for chronic sufferers to become isolated not just from other people, but from their thought processes too.

The word they all used repeatedly was “control”. They felt that when they encountered problems, anorexia was a way of demonstrating a sense of control and gave them a sense that they were good at something. They recognized that society puts women under ridiculous pressure to be unhealthily thin, and this had contributed to the onset of their illness, but once it was entrenched their motivation to restrict their eating came from their need to maintain control in the midst of a chaotic or failing life, rather than a desire to look like Teri Hatcher.

Read the rest of this very interesting article here.

Tags: weight loss //