Phoebe’s journal: I wish my father would understand. I wish he could love me and tell
me how wonderful I am. Maybe I’ll try those Dexatrim things.Eve Eliot, Insatiable: The compelling story of four teens, food, and its powers
In Understanding Women, Luise Eichenbaum and Susie Orbach define the fears and needs
that compulsive eaters and bulimic and anorexic women fail to address:
Compulsive eaters fear nobody will give lovingly to them and that their desires are
denied. Compulsive eating is an attempt at self-nurturing.Anorexic women experience their emotional life as an attack against themselves. They
attempt to gain control over their body and mind by creating an altogether new person
within themselves. They want to be admirable women with no needs or appetite.Bulimic women are trapped in the tension of wanting and not being allowed to have.
Nikki Goldman tells us in Success for the Diet Dropout, that anorexic and bulimic
women are at war with themselves. Diets do not solve emotional problems nor make the
world a better place in which to live. Diets can only change the appearance. The
emotional values of these changes are entirely subjective.
A study published in a 2005 edition of The Journal of Advanced Nursing portrays
bulimia as a constant state of self-loathing and fear. Women involved in this study
embodied four traits that characterize the bulimic experience: isolation, fear,
internal conflicts, and self-deception.
A bulimic woman vomits in private and fears revelation of this practice to and
judgment from the outside world. The idea of gaining weight or becoming fat terrifies
most bulimics. Overeating and the compulsion to eat and leads to feelings of guilt.
The guilt leaves with the vomiting.
Samantha is an anorexic: She wouldn’t even think of eating pizza anymore; that was
out of the question. She thought about her plump friend, Alexa, with fear and
disgust: that double chin, those puffy cheeks, that soft, billowy body. She couldn’t
imagine letting herself get that fat—ever.Eve Eliot, Insatiable: The Compelling Story of Four Teens, Food, and Its Powers
The problem with eating disorders is not with the food, but rather with a woman’s
need to use food as a tranquilizer rather than as a fuel, as Jane Hirshchmann and
Carol Munter explain in When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies.
Diets are not a means for emotional, relational or social change. Diets fail because
women expect the world to respond dramatically different to them once they diet. If a
woman does not experience these changes as anticipated, she blames the diet.
Consequently, she will abandon dieting as a useless means for change or subject
herself to more extreme dieting in an effort to garner more attention.
Some women say that if only there was a magic pill that allowed them to eat and eat
incessantly while remaining at their ideal size, they would be quite happy.Susie Orbach, Fat Is a Feminist Issue
Diet pills are an illusion. They work temporarily and are sold by models who actually
adhere to a sound diet and exercise program.
To abandon the practice of desperate dieting, laxatives, bulimia and anorexia, a
woman must acknowledge why she initiated these habits. What were her motives and
expectations? Are these motives and expectations realistic?
What is missing from your life that you are trying to replace with grandiose images
of losing weight? What pain does the bulimia and anorexia momentarily take away? What
fears are you protecting yourself from?