Eating Disorders Are Not Always Obvious to Parents

Kelsey's Story ~

Kelsey's suicide attempt almost succeeded. In 8th grade she weighed 220 pounds at 5'2". As a teenager she lost some weight, but her negative self-image remained. She said during those dark days, "When I looked in the mirror, all I saw was trash." She believed she had no value. Kelsey struggled with unexpressed pain and soon began masking it with food. In her mind, food became both her comfort and her enemy. She found herself buying massive amounts of food, stuffing herself for hours, and then purging (self-inflicted vomiting). The bingeing numbed her feelings, but tormented her with shame. She soon found herself purging after every meal - bulimia had taken control of her life.

Recognizing that their daughter was in danger, her frightened parents tried everything they knew to get help...multi-step programs, psychiatrists, medication and group homes. They spent thousands of dollars -- all of their savings. Nothing had a lasting impact. The psychiatrists said her situation was hopeless - she was "too damaged to be fixed".

With no love for themselves, girls like Kelsey believe they are trash and not worthy of love. Thankfully, Kelsey found help at Mercy Ministries, a center committed to recovery through faith in God. Today Kelsey says, "Now I know I am not trash -- God saw a treasure in me! I have renewed confidence and God provides the strength I need to face my battles."

How Does This Happen?

Insights for parents from the scientific community.

Sometimes the demands of a sport, or pressure from peers and family members feed the disorder. Other times, teens don't know how to react to the physical changes that come with adolescence and they panic, desperately trying to stop this natural, healthy weight gain. Other teens use food and weight-control to get attention or bring stability to a world that's in chaos (a need for love and attention).

No matter how it starts, eating disorders (ED) are dangerous, can be fatal, and hurt not only the physical body, but emotions and relationships. If your daughter, son, or friend is struggling with an ED, keep reading, and find them help. People who develop ED come from every race, religion and economic background. Whether it's ED, alcohol, drugs, self-mutilation, all of these issues that plague our society represent counterfeit solutions for dealing with pain. They are symptoms of a deeper crisis than what lies on the surface.

Many teens with ED have the desperate feeling that no one loves or even notices them. They feel abused and neglected, and food becomes a way to bring control back to their lives. Sometimes, it's a traumatic experience. Others start losing weight to look good, then discover the rapid weight loss gets them a lot of attention. Most teens with ED feel that if they can just reach a certain size and weight, they'll be accepted by those around them.

Sara said, "Frequently I would compare myself to others, longing to know that I was accepted. I battled low self-esteem daily. Because I believed my personal worth was determined by my accomplishments and appearance, I tried to develop an identity of significance through external means. I thought that if I met my own high standards I would be valuable to others."

Tiffany said, "Hunger reflected and expressed my needs. Food became much more than a means for survival, or a way to maintain control in my life; it became a symbol for love."

Truth: A female who diets before age 14 is 8X more likely to develop an ED

Factors That Can Lead to an ED:

• Low self esteem
• Feelings of inadequacy
• Anxiety
• Defining yourself in terms of appearance
• Actually being overweight
• Helplessness and a need for control
• Difficulty in managing emotions
• Social anxiety and lack of social skills
• Tendency toward perfectionism

A High Pressure Society ~

In a society where thinness is equated with success and happiness, nearly every American woman, man and child has suffered at one time or other from issues of weight, body shape and self-image. We live in a world that places excessive value on looking good, being thin and staying in style.

The messages from the diet, fitness and cosmetic industries are clear ~
Perfection is possible . . . if we use their products. Cosmetic surgery is the fastest growing medical profession. From 1981 to 1991 there was a 69 percent increase in the number of cosmetic surgery procedures. It is a $300 million-a-year industry with an annual growth rate of 10 percent. A survey of 10 and 11-year old girls in California indicated that 80 percent of them had already dieted. Drugs which are addictive (amphetamines) and steroids are being used by both men and women in their attempts to have the "perfect" body.

Our society is narcissistically obsessed with physical perfection as the road to ultimate fulfillment ~
Our culture has declared war on fat and the slightest physical flaws and its most susceptible members are our precious youngsters. Television advertisements show very young children "hip" to the dangers of fat and the awful consequence of becoming a "fat person." The unfortunate truth is that parents and responsible adults reinforce and model this thinking.

When Diets Become Dangerous

Many people with eating disorders start out by dieting in hopes of changing their bodies so they can be happier. In fact, the vast majority of patients at Remuda Ranch (a Christian treatment program for eating disorders) reveal that their eating disorder was triggered simply because they went on a diet, decided to reduce fat in their diet or wanted to eat healthier foods.

The diet industry spends $33 billion-a-year in advertising which contributes to the following destructive behaviors and thinking patterns:

• Exercise (which is supposed to be enjoyable and lead to good health) has become a compulsive activity for many.
• Many people focus on eating low fat. This often leads people to eat no fat, which can lead to the thinking that all fat is bad—or even that fat people are lazy and bad.
• The idea that some foods are "good" and some are "bad" – when the focus should be eating in moderation.
• Weight gain is normal during adolescence. Girls grow 10 inches and gain 40 to 50 pounds from age 12 to 14. Boys grow 12 inches and gain 50 to 60 pounds.
• Is it any wonder that prepubescent children—whose bodies may become chubby as a natural part of maturing—fail to see their value in any other terms apart from physical appearance?
• The weight gain and height growth are not always perfectly synchronized and many adolescents experience periods of "chubbiness."
• The family's reaction to having a "chubby child" can be crucial in how adolescents view their worth for many years to come.
• Since 90 to 98 percent of diets fail, you can imagine that dieters often end up feeling like failures. Many children are trophies in their parents lives—not the treasures that God designed them to be.
• Children who are valued for their performance and looks rather than for who they are, often struggle with eating disorders.
• Women and girls with eating disorders have historically outnumbered men and boys 9 to 1.
• However, it is now reported that the largest emerging group affected by these devastating diseases is young boys. Young athletes often practice unhealthy dieting habits in order to meet the standards for their sports.
• Sixty percent of all models and ballerinas have an eating disorder. -- Source: Focus on The Family, 2000

The family was set up up by God to be a spiritual system, to impart to children the spiritual laws of the universe. The family is where we are supposed to learn God's ways of loving attachment, freedom of choice, forgiveness, and growing in skills and talents. However, we do not live in perfect families, and many families' rules are much different than God's. God is saying (Mark 3:31-35) that we need to get our family support from the ones who do His will. -- "Changes the Heal" by Dr. Henry Cloud

Warning Signs

Early detection of an eating disorder may prevent a teenager from years of significant misery and disruption in his or her life. Take a moment and think about your teenager's behavior and the following signs of a possible eating disorder:

Preoccupation with weight, food, calories and dieting
Exercise is an excessive, rigid activity despite fatigue, illness, injury or weather
Constant complaints about being fat in spite of normal or thin appearance
Frequent comparison of body image/diet with others
Unnatural facial hair growth in girls due to malnutrition
Withdrawal from activities because of weight and shape concerns
Anxiety about being fat which does not diminish with weight loss
Evidence of self-induced vomiting
Messes and smells in the bathroom
Disappearing to the bathroom after meals
Swelling of the glands near the ear which creates a "chipmunk" appearance (caused by inflammation of the saliva glands)
Evidence (wrappers, coupons, advertisements, etc.) of the use of laxatives, diuretics, diet pills, enemas
Consumption of large amounts of food inconsistent with the person's weight, or hoarding/stealing food
Alternating periods of restrictive dieting and overeating sometimes accompanied by dramatic weight gain or loss
Cessation or erratic menstrual cycles
Obsession with appearance as a definition of self which is often accompanied by perfectionist thinking
Fainting, lightheadedness or dizziness not explained by any other medical problem
Unusual redness and puffiness around the eyes caused by purging, binge eating and overeating
Poor dental hygiene, bad breath, dryness of the mouth area and cracked lips, caused by purging and dehydration
Abnormal sleeping patterns
Hyperactivity
Refusal to eat meals with family
Food rituals (such as eating food in rigid sequence, foods cannot touch each other, eating a very limited variety of foods, cutting food into small pieces, blotting foods with napkins to remove fat)

These are some of the warning signs of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. Severe medical complications may accompany these diseases. Some of the complications are deadly.

Information For Parents - What Can You Do?

1. Pray and ask God to give you wisdom in handling the situation. Don't condemn your child, but encourage her/him. Jesus never condemned. Love her/him.
2. Search for outside help. Find a good Christian counselor to guide the healing process. However remember that Jesus is the answer to our problems, not the counselor.
3. You may need the resources of a medical doctor, nutritionist or psychologist. Make sure they understand and work with eating disorders, instead of 'any' disorder
4. The goal is for a heart and mind change, not simply good behavior. You want her/him to be free, accepting and loving themselves the way she/he is, rather than living under self-imposed rules and regulations.
5. Almost every family dealing with ED has one or more of the following: enmeshment (blurring of parent/child boundaries, where personal information is shared), rigidity (controlling and demanding, no room for questions, everything is black and white), overprotection (may not allow child to experience failure, and jump into their child's situation to protect them thereby keeping them from experiencing consequences), conflict avoidance (living in denial, or simply choosing to ignore any obvious problems that may 'rock the boat'), and an atmosphere of inconsistency (creates unpredictability, with parents not following through on promises) and/or high expectations (like setting high standards for athletic, artistic, and academic performance,leading the child to feel they cannot meet these standards).
6. Many of these families often include a passive, uninvolved, overworking father and a controlling, overly involved mother, or the reverse. It is important for the whole to seek help together. One of the worst approaches is to be uninvolved in your child's life. As a parent of a child who has an ED, balance is the key in handling the situation. A parent must be careful to act quickly and decisively, yet not rush in and take control. If this balance is reached quickly and help is arranged, the chances of healing are greatly increased. -- Source: Mercy For Eating Disorders

Parental Encouragement and Communication

Cindy's Story: Parents often are afraid to give out too many complimentary words for fear that their child may get a conceited head. Remember that old saying, "Be careful or you'll get a conceited head." Cindy knew she was cute because many people told her so. But her mother never did. "She never gave me a compliment that I can remember. In fact she used to tell me I was stupid and lazy", said Cindy.

Now 40 years old, Cindy intellectually knows that she's pretty and not stupid or lazy, but she still struggles with that inbred belief. She said her mother's words still overshadow much of what she does and says. She said, "I have believed deep down that I was ugly, though the feedback is that I am rather attractive." Cindy is a mother today and works hard to give her husband and son words of encouragement that she never got.

Communication: Many people who suffer from eating disorders feel alone and think by telling their parents, or someone else, it will bring more rejections and disappointment.

Examples:

1. When two celebrity young women were hospitalized for anorexia, two mothers told their daughters that they would "kill them" if they ever did that (became anorexic).
2. A college girl told her parents she needed money for counseling for bulimia. She gave up on the counseling but told her parents she had stopped. That summer when she was at home, she left signs around the toilet bowl that she had vomited, and her mother yelled up to her in her room "Are you making yourself sick again!" She said she was so humiliated that she lied and said "no". And it was never talked about again (until she brought it up 20 years later).
3. My dad used to love to tease me as a teenager. He teased me about my first bra, when I began menstruating, and about gaining weight in high school. He'd tell me that "I didn't need that second portion of potatoes" and dared me to get on a scale and weigh myself. So if my dad thinks I'm fat and ugly, then so must everyone else. 'I need to diet, I need to be thin and pretty, and I will do whatever it takes at whatever the cost'.
4. "I'm too afraid that if I tell my family they will not understand or think it is "real" and that I will be more of a hindrance than going it alone."

Am I saying this now to win the approval of people or God? Am I trying to please people? -- Galatians 1:10

A Concerned Mom Asks ~

I have an 18 year old daughter who just finished her first semester at college. She has had anorexia since 8th grade. She was hospitalized in an outpatient program during her sophomore year of high school. She maintained her weight until she left home this fall. She is now severely underweight and all of her old eating patterns have reemerged. What can I do to help her now that she is legally an adult? She refuses to go to a doctor.

Answered by a recovered anorexic: First, of all you cannot tell your daughter how to run her life. All you can do is be there for her and let her know that you care. Having an eating disorder is a hard time for anyone to understand exactly how an anorexic feels. She is in a lonely world where all that matters is dealing with her weight and her struggle to become thin. I have experienced this myself and let me tell you that I could not believe the hell that I put my family through. I have been dealing with anorexia for two and a half years and I have gained weigh but I still go through the times were I want to purge and become extremely thin again, to deal with all the hurt that angers me. I know that it is highly frustrating and hard for you as her parent, but please do understand that you cannot give up on her. She needs all the emotional support that you can give her.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. -- Ps. 139:23-24

A Parents Prayer ~

Dear Father, Please make me a discerning and alert parent so that I can protect my children from evil influences, even if it means being different than others. Give my children a desire for what is holy, true, and good. Help me to model right choices for them. I pray my children will grow up to love You with all their hearts and bring You glory in this world. Father, give me the wisdom to lead them, and help me communicate Your ways to them and how to rely on You. I pray that You will open their hearts to the Truth, and their wills be brought into submission to Yours, and that You protect them from choices they will come to regret. In Jesus name, Amen.

 Guidelines For Prayer ~ Who is God?
Statistical content selected from Focus on the Family