By EK Wills
Ever gone on a diet? Or looked at your reflection and wanted to change something? Well, who hasn’t, right?
Lately, I’ve been seeing people at work who come in to the Eating Disorders Clinic or present to the Emergency Department who have taken those thoughts to a whole added level of serious. These people have become obsessed with weight, in a clinical sense of the word.
It could be that they are depressed and feeling that they have no other form of control in their lives. It could be because they feel a sense of lack due to not measuring up to expectations and so attempt to fix what they perceive as addressable. But there are many causes.
And it becomes so consuming that their lives are dominated by calorie counting, ingredient checking, weighing and restricting intake. It also pervades other aspects of life when they can’t eat out because they can’t count the calories or there are no options that are strict enough to meet their criteria. And the day is spent entirely on getting the numbers right.
The other aspect that goes hand in hand is the need to exercise to counteract any indiscretions or to balance any intake of food. Exercise can literally wear out the body, resulting in stress fractures, bone infections, and long term complications such as osteoporosis at a very early age. I saw one previous elite athlete who couldn’t get off the training treadmill and had become so rigid in her thinking that she was unable to socialize because she couldn’t cope with the change to her routine. She had all of these complications and was still doing 120km/week.
There is also the compulsive eater. I saw one woman who says ‘it’s all or nothing with me’ and that is how she approaches food. When I saw her she had starved herself for 3 days and her blood sugar level dropped dangerously low. What she didn’t know was that if it gets too low, it can result in coma or worse.
Luckily her weight is within a healthy range but that is deceptive because she clearly has distortions around eating and how to lose weight or get fit safely.
She is taking ‘herbal’ weight loss products that are often sourced via the internet as they are not available in Australia or not approved for human consumption. She found out that taking those in combination with other drugs can lead to death, albeit rarely. She wasn’t one of them this time but the risk was there because she didn’t know what she was taking.
Ironically, when an eating disorder takes hold, it leads to a deterioration in appearance and the person may not realize how they appear to others because of their cognitive distortion around how they think they look. Some people look skeletal, others look out of proportion as their body wastes away. Then there are those that use fillers, enhancers plus other forms of surgery and make up. When you spend time with people like this, normal appearances seem surreal, so you can understand how it progresses insidiously.
And it can start as simply with the dabble in dieting as a teen but not for everyone.
If you have concerns about mental health with respect to eating for yourself or someone else, contact your local GP for further advice.
If you would like help following a holistic way to get fit and healthy in a community of other like-minded women, have a look at Wtribe.
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