Eating Disorders.

                                      I am forever engaged in a silent battle in my head
                                      Over whether or not to lift the fork to my mouth,
                                      And when I talk myself into doing so, I taste only shame.
                                      I have an eating disorder.
                                      - Jena Morrow.

In many of my posts I have talked about the increasing problems we have in society due to overeating, I have never written about the opposite end of the spectrum, anorexia nervosa.

As a child I grew up to the strains of the Carpenters, an American brother and sister duo, I loved karen Carpenter's voice, she had a contralto vocal range which sent shivers down my spine, I still love her to this day. In 1983 when I was nineteen years old Karen Carpenter died, she was thirty two. Carpenter died due to anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder which was little known and even less understood at the time. I certainly didn't really understand it or recognise that her skeletal appearance was due to a disorder known as anorexia, when I look at footage of Carpenter now I see a classic anoretic, emaciated body swathed in layers of clothes and a skeletal face which was all eyes.

In the final years of her life, Carpenter revealed to her therapist that she had been taking 80-90 laxatives a night. She also took drugs to speed up her metabolism and a medicine normally taken by people who have accidentally ingested poison to make them vomit. Carpenter, like many anoretics, was psychotic about her weight, her denial ran very deep, even when her weight had dropped to just over 5st she considered herself fat.

Anorexia is a complex, mental illness. Experts say that sufferers see it as a means of seeking self-authority. Whilst the anoretic feels she may not be able to control anything else, she will, by God, control every morsel that goes in her mouth. They also say the trigger can be that many sufferers are seeking attention. In Carpenter's case it is well documented that she craved affection from her mother who was known within the singers circle as the dragon lady. Never forthcoming with love for her daughter, when Carpenter over dieted there was a rush of attention from her mother, and she liked it.

Once the illness takes hold, anoretics will use different strategies to cover their tracks and deceive those closest to them, these include food rituals and purging. Among psychiatric disorders, anorexia nervosa has one of the highest mortality rates.

There are cultural factors at play, the promotion of thinness as the ideal female form in western industrialised nations has a lot to answer for. Poignantly, anorexia is more likely to occur in populations in which obesity is more prevalent.

The UK (where obesity is prevalent) has the highest rate of eating disorders in Europe. Figures suggest that 1 in 100 women has a clinically diagnosed eating disorder. However, due to the denial and secrecy that surrounds anorexia, many women won't even come into those statistics. It is averaged that between 11-13 million people in the UK have psychological issues or problems connected with food!

My passion regarding writing a food blog has always been above and beyond just producing endless recipes. My interest lies in our psychological relationship with food. In the space of one week I have witnessed the excesses of an 'all you can eat' culture, where young girls were eating gigantic meals in spite of being morbidly obese, to imploring a friend who, like karen Carpenter, is wasting away because she thinks the very act of eating is shameful.

I suppose the moral of the story is that here in the UK education regarding food is at an all time low. We tend to be circumspect in making a connection between food and the inner person. I'm not talking about cooking lessons, my son took food technology as an 'option' and spent a whole term doing the practical and theory of how to make a white sauce! Food is at the heart of our society, we are universally connected to each other through food, yet we aren't teaching our children the story behind the food we eat.

The sheer novelty and glamour of the processed western diet has overwhelmed the force of tradition. The sinister side of this is that educating our children about food would be seriously unprofitable to food companies, we now rely on journalism, government and marketing to influence us regarding what to eat and how we perceive food.

And so we find ourselves where we are now, an educated, modern, western society with up to 13 million people in the UK with issues and health problems connected with food! Isn't it about time we re-evaluated the situation?

'Eating disorders are like a gun that's formed by genetics, loaded by a culture and family ideals, and triggered by unbearable distress.'
- Aimee Liu

Love Donna xxxxxxxxx