New Zealand Eating Disorder Specialists

Hi Sheryl,

You are not alone.

I understand completely how you feel. I was anorexic at age 12-14 and then became bulimic and have lived with this ‘controlling’ disease for over 24 years. I, like you, am intelligent and energetic, once with a strong willpower but completely helpless to this disease. For years and years I have wanted to overcome it and have continued down the same shameful path. My family have been aware of my situation for years, and I continue to (try to) deceive them but I am sure they know what I am still doing. I feel so ashamed of myself and any meal I have with them I feel I have to be on my best behaviour and pretend I am ‘normal’. I often think about being granted three wishes and I would use all three on turning my life around as I can’t seem to do it myself. I also feel so lonely trying to deal with a constant and obsessive battle. I just wish it was as simple as turning off a switch to change things but I realise it is a very difficult journey, especially when I have !
been doing it for so long. I also suffer from depression which I think was triggered by my anorexia. Like you, I also believe there will be a turning point for me. It will be like winning lotto!

Kindest regards, M

Hi I have been bulimic for over 14 years. I have tried counseling. I have been to group therapist. I have been in hospital twice. Once I almost lost my life. I know I have a serous problem but I can’t stop. I am a solo mum. I have suffered from clincal depresson and PTSD post traumatic stress desorder. My family knew I had had bulimia but think that I have stopped. I did for a month when I came out of hospital. I have worn all my teeth and the more that goes wrong with me, the more I do it. Help me please

Perhaps this is the dieting breakthrough you’ve been waiting for?

This diet is designed to help you cope with the stress that builds up during the day.

BREAKFAST
Half of a grapefruit
1 slice whole wheat toast, dry
8 oz. skim milk

LUNCH
4 oz. Lean boiled chicken breast
1 cup steamed spinach
1 cup herb tea
1 Oreo cookie

MID-AFTERNOON SNACK
Rest of the Oreos in the package
2 pints of Rocky Road ice cream
1 jar hot fudge sauce
Nuts, cherries, whipped cream

DINNER
2 loaves garlic bread with cheese
Large sausage, mushroom and cheese pizza
4 cans or 1 large pitcher of beer
3 Milky way candy bars

LATE EVENING NEWS
Entire frozen cheesecake eaten directly from the freezer

RULES FOR THIS DIET

1. If you eat something and no one sees you do it, it has no calories.

2. If you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are canceled out by the diet soda.

3. When you eat with someone else, calories don’t count if you don’t eat more than they do.

4. Food used for medicinal purposes NEVER counts, such as hot chocolate, brandy, toast and Sara Lee cheesecake.

5. If you fatten everyone else around you, then you look thinner.

6. Movie related foods do not have additional calories because they are part of the entire entertainment package and not part of one’s personal fuel, such as Milk Duds, buttered popcorn, Jr. Mints, Red Hots, and Tootsie Rolls.

7. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking causes calory leakage.

8. Things licked off knives and spoons have no calories if you are in the process of preparing something. Examples are peanut butter on a knife making a sandwich and ice cream on a spoon making a sundae.

9. Foods that have the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are spinach and pistachio ice cream, mushrooms and white chocolate. NOTE: Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other food color.

Dr Fishman comments:

These are silly dieting suggestions. But food control, even with real diets, is not key to eating disorders.

Eating disorders have to do with relationships and, importantly, how relationships are handled.

Our treatment of Compulsive Overeating, Bulima and Anorexia Nervosa emphases how relationships play a central part; suffers must strive to have relationships where they have a voice, to be equal and, very importantly, where conflicts are effectively addressed. To the extent that conflicts are not addressed, this smoldering antagonism can lead to compulsive overeating and other eating disorders.

In our culture, individuals especially women can be pressured to have a certain weight, to be thin, to be “stylish.” If someone in a relationship is making them feel bad about themselves, it is understandable to internalize it and think there’s wrong with them—it must be their weight.

This leads to tunnel vision—focusing only on the eating and the food. Instead, if the conflict the relationship is addressed, it’s much easier to control one’s eating.

One of the issues in Social Sciences that is often utilised is whether a problem is necessary and sufficient. While it is easy to confuse the two, one is a necessary condition and the other, given the necessary condition, is sufficient to make it happen. For example, it’s necessary to have food available if someone is going to survive. What’s sufficient, however is the conditions that connect the person and lead to the person over-eating. One stage is necessary; the other one makes the event happen.

Getting away from the intellectual to the practical – eating disorders are relevant to the world of eating disorders. While it is necessary in many situations, especially for women, that there be a culture of thinness, women should be thin, that’s not sufficient to cause the eating disorder. If it were sufficient, anorexia would not be a rare disease.

The number of women in New Zealand and America with anorexia is tiny. So what makes the difference? One concept we use with our clients is the idea that when the woman feels bad about herself, something is going on in her life that is making her feel bad. She says to herself, “I would feel better if I weighed less or dieted and got down to a size 6”. Of course, this becomes dangerous, as anorexia as well as other eating disorders, have their own tyranny – that is, if someone gets thin enough, they can’t force themselves to eat.

To coin a phrase – they are looking for love in all the wrong places. It’s not women’s eyes that are smaller than their waistline they are transformed what is making them unhappy. What’s really making the difference is their relationships and those paradigms and people that are making them unhappy.

In my experience, when I have asked people ‘what makes you unhappy?’ they reply ‘themselves’. But that won’t lead to change. We are all unhappy with ourselves at various points. What will lead to change is looking around and seeing what are the relationships that are making you unhappy.

For example, a young woman who I am working with had a very bad week. She doesn’t understand people who are making progress with her weight control (in terms of her compulsive over-eating), just couldn’t understand why suddenly she had the worst week in 3 months. In therapy, I asked her ‘what was happening in her relationships that were making her so happy?’ Suddenly it dawned on her that the child she was caring for was going to be leaving her. Her mother had lost her job and wanted to care for her baby full-time. This young lady and her mother was devastated. Again, the focus is on the stress and out-of-control behaviour. She was so miserable and felt that food addressed the sadness that now surrounded her.

Introduction:
What follows is a letter written by Joy (not her real name), three years after treatment. Eating disorders at times present with a number of associated symptoms. A nine year follow-up of this case will be published in an upcoming guide for families and sufferers.

I had been given many diagnoses and opinions from many well-meaning specialists in the mental health field. They included manic-depressive with rapid mood swings, severe anxiety disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression, bulimia, and anorexia. (more…)

In this space, we welcome letters such as this:

I have been suffering from bulimia since I was 14. I got treatment for it but a year later it began again and has been on-going since then. I just want to be better. I hate the way I am, and I can feel my body is taking the affects. Please advise me on how can go about getting help.” (more…)

I recently received an e-mail from a concerned stepmother. She was concerned that her 3-year-old may have an eating disorder due to genetic factors such as anorexia nervosa. Her stepdaughter was having some resistance to eating certain foods – especially healthy foods. (more…)

Slim chance by Linley Boniface
This story in the NZ Listener (May 17-23 2008) on male sufferers of eating disorders begins by noting the negative media reaction to the revelation that British politician John Prescott was bulimic.

Dr Fishman was asked to contribute:
(more…)

By Cathrin Schaer of the New Zealand Herald

The organisers of New Zealand’s Fashion Week are taking an independent stand in the international debate over which models are too thin to do their jobs. Various international fashion weeks have issued guidelines and rules about how skinny is too skinny for the catwalk. (more…)

This article by Dr Charles Fishman was published in Healthy Options Magazine, May ‘07.

In New Zealand, one in three children is overweight or obese, a fact which has instigated a $76 million campaign by the government to fight the epidemic. While this action is to be applauded, kids are increasingly being exposed to ‘perfect bodies’ as portrayed on TV, in films, in magazines … just about everywhere. Younger and younger children are dangerously dieting in an attempt to lose or avoid gaining weight. (more…)