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Question of the Month:
Q. I’m afraid my younger sister is dieting too much – she is in her early 20s but she is as tiny as a pre-adolescent girl. She always talks about how many calories this and that has and how lucky she is she’s just never hungry (I never see her eat anything). Recently she said she’s stopped getting her period, which is very alarming. I know a little bit about eating disorders but I’m not sure if that’s what’s going on and how to approach this with her.
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A: Carefully. But before you confront your sister, try to educate yourself about the nature of her problem – if she is indeed suffering from an eating disorder, this is a serious issue and your best plan of action is to learn about it as much as you can. The most important thing is to talk to your doctor first. Anorexia nervosa (the term translates to “no appetite caused by nervousness”) was first identified as a medical disorder in the early 1800s and since then there have been many theories on what’s causing it. Today, eating disorders affect more than one percent of young American women and anorexia nervosa is one of the most common psychiatric disorders in young women. Between five and 10 percent of diagnosed anorexics die.
A person suffering from anorexia nervosa meets clinical diagnostic criteria if she weighs less than 85 percent of what is considered normal (Body Mass Index, BMI, equal or below 17.5 kg/m); has intense fear of gaining weight and suffers from distorted body image, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Amenorrhea – loss of menstrual cycle – which occurs due to unusually low levels of estrogen secretion, is another criterion, and it indicates actual physiological dysfunction as a result of weight loss. Anorexia nervosa is a complicated disorder – recent research suggests natural serotonin imbalance in the brains of anorexics – and, unfortunately, it is now affecting kids as young as nine years old. It is not an epidemic per se, but it is an issue that deserves everyone’s full attention. Thankfully, your sister has yours.
Some eating disorder sufferers go to painstaking distances to avoid confrontation about their disorder – they will wear baggy clothes to hide their thinness, hide or dispose of food in secret…and insist that everything is a-OK if their weight loss ever comes up. Try to talk to your sister in a casual way first: don’t bring out the whole artillery of arguments right away. See if you can suggest scheduling her next physical, using the loss of her period as a reason. Then tell your doctor that you have this concern and ask if she / he could bring it up with your sister – a professional’s concern may just do the trick for your sis. With luck, she will consider seeing her drastic weight loss as a problem. Then, hopefully, the channel to discussing possible solutions and taking specific actions will open.
And online, try these for more info:
• National Eating Disorders Association
http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
• The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness
http://www.eatingdisorderinfo.org
• Eating Disorder Referral and Information Center
http://www.edreferral.com
• Eating Disorders Association
http://www.edauk.com
• Raising awareness and providing support to people with Eating Disorders, and their loved-ones.
http://www.something-fishy.org
• The National Eating Disorder Information Centre (Canada)
http://www.nedic.ca
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ANSWERED BY:
Jowita Bydlowska
Senior Copy Editor,
Oxygen Magazine |
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