Expert: Joanne - 2/4/2009

Question
okay so i'm confused lately. all my life, ever since i can remember, i've been
calling myself fat. when i was little, i only had a little bit of a belly, and that
was fat to me. but i never did anything about it, continued eating whatever i
wanted, and now here i am at 15.
i'm not overweight at all, but i am definitely in a position where i could lose
weight. last year, i tried going on diets all the time, cutting out junk food,
trying to count calories, trying to take in less carbs, i tried a lot of things! but
nothing quite worked and my disgusting hunger got in the way. although this
was going on, i still had a remotely healthy view of myself.
this year (10th grade), i had less and less confidence by the day. i constantly
think about my weight! i feel that i don't deserve food, and that i shouldn't
eat at all. so, that's exactly what i've been doing. i've attempted to throw up
my food a few times before, but i never can bring myself to really do it, so i've
resolved to not eating. my mom says not to think like this, because that's
how people end up developing eating disorders.
but it feels good because i AM losing weight and i feel like i'm finally in
control of it! i've been legitimately doing this now for about 2 and a half
weeks, and i've gone from being 134.5 lbs. to 121.5 lbs. i strive to lose more
and more weight and i weigh myself on the scale waaaaaaay too many times a
day (but i don't have a set number).
my family made me eat some food (chicken, ham, grapes, 3 chocolate chip
cookies) on superbowl sunday this past weekend, and then the following day
my school went on a field trip and for lunch we ate moe's southwestern grill
and my friends think not eating is totally whack (which i guess it is, i don't
know) and so i had to eat.
so to put myself in check, i am not eating at all until friday, which is relatively
easy with my family.
normally, i try to eat under 200 calories a day, which i succeed to do.
however, i realize that as good as it feels to see that i'm a pound lighter on
the scale, and the fact that lately, everyone has been telling me that i've been
looking thinner, this is wrong. starving is certainly not the way to lose weight,
i understand, but it feels so good. i love the feeling of being dizzy to the
point of not being able to walk in the morning, which i also realize is wrong.
i tried to look back to see what started all this, and i honestly don't really
know. it could be that i have a mental disorder, that it's just my brain. it
could be my family, though, too. my uncle a few months ago (over the
summer) was buying my cousins burger king for lunch, and i said no thanks,
i'm trying to eat healthier. and he said "well, good!" and i was like "excuse
me?" because i don't know, it just offended me for some reason. and i said
"do you think i'm fat?" and he said "well, you DO have a few loose tires for a
young lady..." that broke me, and i cried right there on the spot.
another time, my stepdad's friend was over for dinner, and i was just wearing
a tanktop and jeans. the minute i came up to him to say hello, he said, "oh
no! you're getting chubby!" my dad all my life has been calling me things like
"girthy" and "chunky monkey" and i don't know what to do about it!

what should i do? please help.

-matilda

ps. i'm 5'4" if it makes any difference. thanks!

Answer
Matilda

Your mum is right, as much as I hate to admit that mums are sometimes right (lol!).  This is a way that some eating disorders will start.  An extreme diet that starts with just cutting out a few food groups, and eventually basically just not eating.  The praise that you are thriving on just now is just what feeds an eating disorder, but there is a line between when people think that you look thinner and you are complimented, and then you just go over that line and all of a sudden people are commenting on how thin you are, how ill you look.  It is easy to get so wrapped up in the weight loss though that even when people are commenting on how bad you look because you have lost too much weight, you convince yourself that it is praise and they are secretly jealous, and so the eating disorder continues.  Although you may believe that you have this under control just now and that you are choosing not to eat in order to lose weight, it can quickly turn so that it is controlling you!  Please don't let this happen to you!

The comments that have been made by relatives may be hurtful, but I would like to think that they are said more in jest than maliciously!  I remember when I used to get told that my backside was like a roundabout, it was hurtful, but now I realise that they were jokes that were never intended to get to me so badly!

Enjoying the feelings of being so weak from lack of food is not a good sign, in fact it scares me slightly as I do think that you are walking a very thin rope and at any time this is going to become all-consuming and you are going to be suffering severely from a life-threatening eating disorder!

I think that you need to sit and talk to your mum about how little you are eating and just how much this is taking over your life.  I think that you may need to get some professional help from someone with experience in eating disorders or at least body image to help you learn to accept your body and also to look at your eating behaviours.  I would suggest searching for the EAT-26 test online and filling that in honestly and see what score you get as it asks you a lot of questions about you physcially and mentally to try and help determine whether you are suffering from an eating disorder now.  I think that you should do this, and then show your mum your results and discuss where to go from there.  If you don't want to talk to your mum, then visit your doctor or a guidance teacher or counsellor at school and talk about this.

Eating disorders are deadly.  At least one anorexia sufferer will die out of every 10 sufferers due to the anorexia and its side effects!  Please don't let yourself become one of those people, and even worse than dying from an eating disorder, you may ruin your body and have to live in a body that has been so badly damaged by an eating disorder!  You are risking your heart, your bones, your liver, nothing is left unaffected if you starve your body enough!

Joanne