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I have at least 3 friends, who after graduating high school have been diagnosed with severe eating disorders (amongst other things). In high school, one of my classmates confided in me that she hadnt eaten for three days. I used to have her eat something during break after that. One day she passed out during class. I approached my teacher and told her i was worried about this classmate, giving her details of her eating habits. The teacher responded by saying “You’re doing the wrong thing. You need to ignore her because all she wants is attention.”
Thankfully, she found a mentor after high school, and was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. She is getting treatment now- treatment she would have gotten years earlier had a teacher payed a little bit of attention…
What is our community doing to help people with eating disorders and other mental illness??
What is our community doing to help people with eating disorders and other mental illness??
Do you have any suggestions?
How ironic, this thread appears just after the “shidduchim and size zero” thread.
Want to know the primary cause of eating disorders? Its called “what will the neighbors say”!
We need to stop judging people by appearances!
Missing from this discussion is an eating disorder of eating too much. More people are affected by obesity than any other disease. Unfortunately, our Heimshe Oilum is not immune from this illness either.
BP Totty- I agree!
(and enjoy your comments in general)
I would agree that what we need is more awareness and understanding of the disease (and eating disorders are indeed DISEASES and should be treated as such). That story about the teacher accusing the girl of “looking for attention”- that can only stem from ignorance. The teacher is not a bad person, she simply does not understand that anorexia is not just “acting out” and it’s not going to stop or go away because of tough love, reward/punishment or any other general educational tool; it is a disease and needs to be dealt with by experienced professionals (another important point brought up is the need for more frum experts in this area). No parent or teacher should try to take care of it alone.
The other big misconception is that there is some ’cause’ behind it that we can address. While there are FACTORS that can push someone over the edge (such as the need to be a certain size for shidduch purposes), there is no one cause. Every girl is pressured to be skinny, but very few actually develop eating disorders (I know it doesn’t seem that way, but the numbers really are pretty low). Just like eating disorders won’t go away with coaxing and cajoling, they won’t go away even if we did stop focusing on appearances.
May HKBH send a refuah shelaima to to all those suffering from this terrible disease!
I’m sorry to say it, but it’s not AWARENESS that lacking, it’s DENIAL that we live in. It’s unfortunate but yes the AWARENESS is out there, yes especially in our frum community – all we need to do is ACCEPT the reality and continue to cover this up and blame whatever it is that is around us!
It’s quiet unfortunate what has happened to this girl in high school which her teacher just brushed it off! We have to stop brushing off things, these things may seem to some as a small minor issue that a person can grow out of, but no we start accepting that things need to be checked out and not be taken lightly. They can be traeated when it’s early enough but if left without being treated it can become a huge problem. What this girl did was 100% right, giving it over to who she thought would be proper help only for the benifit of her friend that is so badly suffering. A true friend will encourage her friend to get it checked out, once properly diagnosed will push her to get into therapy and treatment while it’s early. And once shes in therapy, a good friend will encourage her friend to continue her treatment by giving her chizuk, these little words of encouragement can make a world of a difference to someone finishing an intense day of sessions!
As for the comment before there are very few frum therapist/facilities in our community, maybe there is not enough but there are definitely quiet a number out there. There are actually at least two leading Rabbanim that are trained specifically to treat eating disorders. There are some very frum therapists out there who specialize in all sort of things. If one is looking to get help the resources and help is available but one really needs to know and want to help themselves.
The primary cause of ED in MANY GIRLS might be body image. But for many others (and 10% of people with anorexia are men) the primary cause is a feeling of not having control over anything in one’s life.
Anorexia is a CONTROL issue. The person feels like the only thing in life he/she can control is the food they put in their mouth.
I think one should refrain from commenting on serious, life threating issues that you have no first-hand experience with.
I do.
EDITED
There’s an organization in brooklyn that’s set up to help eating disorders specifically.
I don’t remember the name but they help so many people every day. They constantly have new people calling them/showing up at their door in desperation.
i had a best friend in 5th grade who was bluemic, i was so scared to say anything, only cuz i was afraid it wud be a ‘breach’ on our loyalty.
i think B”H in 8th grade her mom found out and she got help. i switched school in 6th and lost track.
don’t get me wrong, i never forgot about it, i always wanted to write letters to her mother, or tell the nurse in camp but i never got the guts to do it.
that was the biggest mistake, looking back, that i ever made.
I work for a school. There was a boy who was over weight and one day he stopped eating. He started losing a lot of weight, using the bathroom very infrequently, and his skin started turning pale. Boruch Hashem, we have a loving, caring staff who realized something was wrong and did something about it. We worked with the student, his therapist, counslers, doctors, parents ect. and got him out of his disorder. Now, this boy is in good shape, eats healthy and is doing well in school!
In previous blogs, I called on the frum schools to have in house therapists/ psychologists. This would be another very good reason to have them. There have been many news stories of deaths due to eating disorders. Let’s do what we can to prevent tragedies due to these diseases.
Many times it’s also overeating disorders. I am actually close to someone who used to have an overeating disorder. She was constantly being told off about her weight and she one day decided to diet. She started dieting to the extent that we all thought she was anorexic. We referred her to a special doctor who recommended a certain food plan for people with disorders. B”H she is now loosing weight in a healthy way. That’s all the girls need. They don’t need to be starving themselves “for shidduchim”. Some girls are lucky and can eat whatever they want but girls who do need to watch shouldn’t be starving themselves.
I know another girl who I just came to realize on my own that she probably has anorexia. Someone pointed out to me that the girl will go a day without eating lunch or snacks. Maybe she’ll eat a tiny breakfast and some supper but for the rest of the day eats nothing. Once in a while she’ll eat a bag of junk because of a lack of energy. I doubt she herself even realizes that she’s so skinny that you’d think by looking at her she’ll crumble. I don’t think her parents know about this either.
mischeif maker- be VERY careful before assuming someone is anorexic. An anorexic person has problems with body image and will not eat junk even if they are hungry. Most anorexic girls will refuse to eat at all in front of other people. That girl is not anorexic, it could be she has some digestive problem or forgets to eat but anorexia has to do with body image, not just not eating.
If she eats junk when she’s hungry, she is definitely NOT anorexic. She is just on the opposite extreme of those who always feel hungry, she probably doesn’t naturally feel hungry. (I’m like this too, sometimes I don’t realize I need to eat until I start to feel weak.)
the 3 A’s…. awareness,action, ability to change it!
As with every issue: Awareness, Acceptance, & Action ~RYML
why cant people realize tht a major reason grls have eating disorders is becouse no one would pay attention to them becouse they might be 3 sizes bigger then them instead of focosing too much on how to treat it get to the cause of it
JG- You are correct in saying that you have to get to the cause of it, but you only list one cause -I’m sure there are many. The best persons to get to the root of this problem are mental health professionals. Go to ones that specialize in eating disorders.
I believe that SOME people suffer from an eating disorder that is a disease. But I think a large number of girls who apepar to
have the disorder, don’t have the disease of anorexia, but the emotional need to be a size zero, beause that’s what shidduchim
and our society presently demand of them. That is a cause and effect that can be remedied by our society looking at healthy weights for girls, and teaching them from a very young age to respect and protect their bodies.
Rabbonim should give a mussar shmuz to their bochurim and tell them it is OSSUR to look for a girl who is so thin that if she stood sideways she could pass through a closed doorframe. Tell the shadchanim NOT to redt shidduchim with girls who are deliberately making themselves be at such an unhealthy weight. Stress healthy eating habits from day one. Watch out for mothers of boys and girls who are themselves stick thin, lest they impart unhealthy expectations of what a normal healthy person should look like and weigh, to their children. Many mothers of this type bully their daughters into dieting when the girls are perfectly normal looking.
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