it's not widely known, but while june is pride month, june 2nd is World Eating Disorders Action Day.
and i know, i've been talking about it a lot lately; about eating, small victories and our disordered society. and it's because during the small breaks when i've been at the lab, i've read so much about eating disorders, just to make sense of it; my own behaviors as well as others'. and i've learned a few things.
first and foremost: it's the mental illness with the second highest morality rate (opoid addiction being the first, at least in the us) and yet, it's attributed to something spoiled, rich, white girls do; it's a women's disease born out of vanity and you should be ashamed. especially if you purge.
it couldn't be farther from the truth.
so today i wanted to share a few things that i've learned these past three months; facts that have helped me a lot, and that i think i should alert more people to.
1. restrictive eating disorders have a biological/genetic component; it's a response to famine and can be induced in laboratory mice with the responding genes.
this is called the migration theory. and basically, it poses this: going into prolonged energy deficit -- either from a diet, a long period of illness or of stress, such as after a trauma -- makes your cave man brain believe you're in a famine. most people deal fine with this. they eat and rest a little more because they're tired and thus keep themselves in a (relative) energy balance. however, if you have the genetic predisposition for an eating disorder, your brain thinks the best way to adapt is to migrate; you have got to move away from the environment you're in because food is scarce. so, you gotta move a lot and if you stop to eat, you'll fall behind your tribe and die. that's why people with restrictive eating disorders often have an excerise compulsion and why food induces anxiety.
2. when you're malnourished, you go a bit insane.
you get depressed, slow, numb, mean and obsessive. especially with food; you get hyper-aware of what and how others eat and even more so with what (and if) you're eating. this has been observed in the famous Minnesota Starvation Study, where healthy people were put on a semi-starvation diet for six months and observed. and they all became odd; several collected recipe books and read them obsessively. food porn, if you'd like.
3. people with anorexia nervosa are 57 times more likely to commit suicide than their age and sex-matched peers.
the physical symptoms can be deadly, such as electrolyte imbalance, rupturing of the eosaphagus from purging, and heart attacks even at a healthy weight. but it's the mental torture of the illness that is the most common cause of death. the genetic locus involved in anorexia nervosa is very close to the locus responsible for OCD. for some, this might mean that their OCD gets infinitely worse when they restrict (aka starve) or if you don't have OCD when you're healthy, you get the similar symptoms anyways, especially around food.
4. bulimia/anorexia athletica is a very real thing.
not as a clinical diagnosis, but purging not through vomiting, but through excessive exercise is a sign often missed by clinicians. exercise is so hyped up as a Good Thing™ in our society that compensatory overexercise flies under the radar. it's getting better, but too often people get a green light for exercise too early and end up relapsing.
5. the majority of people with restrictive eating disorders are of a normal weight.
they are anxiety disorders with serious physical consequences. not the other way around. and no matter your weight, you can still be malnourished and suffering a great deal. don't let anyone invalidate your experience, and fight until you get the help and support that you need to recover ♡
