Actually, anorexia does none of that. Malnutrition does that.
Malnutrition is curable. The physical manifestations of anorexia, and the ravages of bulimia can be stopped and reversed immediately if the environment around the sufferer changes, even if the patient isn't ready. And with physical health, mental health also improves.
The mental symptoms of malnutrition abate with full nutrition over a long period of time even if the patient does it involuntarily.
It isn't the illness that is the problem. We are the problem, and we should know better.
We ask, beg, and demand that eating disordered patients stop what is an involuntary compulsion. We watch eating disordered people continue the behaviors of the illness even when we know their prognosis worsens every day they are not fully fed. Asking for insight and cognitive change of a person who is underfed - even a little underfed - is like demanding a commitment to quit heroin while the person is still high. It is like asking a drowning person to learn to swim while they are still in the water: it is futile and cruel.
None of the physical symptoms of eating disorders are inevitable or necessary. What must change is us: our attitudes, our boundaries, our treatment professionals, our laws, our media, and our insurance policies. The disease isn't going to change, but we can.
You know what? I'm tired of hearing anorexia described by what it does to the body: emaciation, slow heart rate, muscle wasting, bone loss, low temperature .
Actually, anorexia does none of that. Malnutrition does that.
Malnutrition is curable. The physical manifestations of anorexia, and the ravages of bulimia can be stopped and reversed immediately if the environment around the sufferer changes, even if the patient isn't ready. And with physical health, mental health also improves.
The mental symptoms of malnutrition abate with full nutrition over a long period of time even if the patient does it involuntarily.
It isn't the illness that is the problem. We are the problem, and we should know better.
We ask, beg, and demand that eating disordered patients stop what is an involuntary compulsion. We watch eating disordered people continue the behaviors of the illness even when we know their prognosis worsens every day they are not fully fed. Asking for insight and cognitive change of a person who is underfed - even a little underfed - is like demanding a commitment to quit heroin while the person is still high. It is like asking a drowning person to learn to swim while they are still in the water: it is futile and cruel.
None of the physical symptoms of eating disorders are inevitable or necessary. What must change is us: our attitudes, our boundaries, our treatment professionals, our laws, our media, and our insurance policies. The disease isn't going to change, but we can.