To be really,really worried about this little girl

[Finallygotaroundtoit]

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2058761/Anorexic-mother-Rebecca-Jones-weighs-daughter-Maisy-7.html

I know her mum is very ill and deserves sympathy and understanding but , poor little Maisie

Stranded the concern is not only that the child SEES her Mother avoiding food but preening in a childs dress....how is that good for her {the DD}??

Porca....she is abusing her child

I think the photo was most defintiely staged. The little girl would not really look overweight if she did not have her head tilted to one side and tucked in to give herself the appearance of , or to accentuate, a double chin.

At 5,1 8 stone is perfectly fine. I was about 7.5 to 8 stone all my adult life and I am not skinny but a bit taller than her. It is ridiculous I agree with whoever already said your periods would stop at that weight/height. However it seems since breaking up with her partner, she is down to 5 stone which is a serious problem.

I have the child BMI charts for part of my uni course. I know they are not entirely accurate, but based on the information given in the article, the child is overweight. Just really sad, and I have no idea why the mother would want the story all over the papers.

Porca - No-one is suggesting that the child be taken away. Social Services get involved in families in many other ways to ensure that the correct support is provided. As it is, this mother is extremely ill and her child is suffering as a result, both directly and indirectly.

I am the child of an anorexic mother. It continues to affect me to this day (I am 40+) and has led to my long term issues with food, plus depressive tendencies.

Like another poster said, anorexia aside, it's the dressing the same!!! The article says she feels proud to dress identical! Now how does that leave the child feeling?

I battled anorexia for 10 years. It is a very complex illness. I hate the term "dieter's disease" because it is much, much more than that.

Quite often there can be a (deep underlying) fear of growing up, becoming a woman. Not wanting the curves, wanting to remain pre-pubescent.

I wonder whether that is what we are seeing here

littlefish, I respect your opnion

but alarmist threads based on a Daily Mail article, I do not!

I don't know whether the child is overweight or not - it can be hard to tell from one photo. But feeding others is classic anorexic behaviour. I know, I've been there: one Christmas I forced my dp out of bed at 7am to eat an 8 course breakfast including satay and creme brulee

I feel very sorry for them both and hope they get some effective help. I can't see how appearing in the daily papers can help - the Sun and the Mail should be ashamed of themselves.

They are in closer magazine as well!

i agree Hester, if it IS child neglect what the fuck are they publishing it for, fuckers

As anorexics go she's relatively plump (sigh).

Assuming my maths (and the site I just used) are correct (if not then )but the little girl, is the weight of an average 11 year old. However, she is also the height of an average 11 year old, so in actual fact she is fine?

OH god don't, ragged, she may be reading this.

Actually, she is quite typical of adult anorexics, who often incorporate and manage anorexia within a quasi-functioning life for years on end. Which you can't do if you're like teenagers, ricocheting down to 4-5 stone at the rate of knots. I was anorexic for many, many years, and never stopped eating and never got down to a visibly dramatic level. No, I kept to 1000 calories a day for several years, which kept me at a weight of just over 6 stone (I'm 5'9"). I was just about able to keep working, and just about able to keep out of hospital.

The very fact that I didn't get dramatically thin meant that I could go on for years (some people stay this way for life). It put my organs under incredible strain. Also, the longer anorexia goes on the harder it is to cure. A teenager who spends several months at a shockingly low weight has far better prospects than an adult who has been anorexic for years.

Hester: all the lady would have to do is post her pic on any number of pro-Anny websites to get validation for her distorted thinking. Or rather, support to let her disease think for her. Anything we say here has trivial impact in comparison to the pro-Anny thinking anybody can find on the Internet, if they want to :(.

Sounds like she's in competition with her daughter and the fact that her daughter is "fatter" than her makes her feel better about herself and that she's beter than her daughter. They both need counselling, and someone should be looking out for her daughter especially.

I feel sorry for the poor DD

It seems to me the Mum is trying to make her daughter fat and dressing her in the same clothes...so the Mum looks even slimmer.

I hope the authorities have an eye on them

I thought rapisd weight loss could stop your periods, even if you are not a dangerously low weight?

For those who are saying her periods wouldn't have stopped at 8 stone - they very well could have if she was not giving her body the daily nutrients it needed. Amenorrhea is not just brought on by low weight, that is a very common misconception and one of the reasons a lot of people with eating disorders, who badly need help are over looked.

It did cross my mind that she's feeding her daughter up so that she has to wear bigger sized clothes that she can copy. She's proud to be able to say that she wears the same size as her 7 yo but she wouldn't be able to do it if said 7 yo was herself a petite little thing would she? It's probably horrible of me to think that and I don't suppose for one moment she sat down and decided to use her daughter in that way, but subconsciously maybe?

It did read very much like the DM were saying 'she was 8 stone so her periods stopped because 8 stone is far too light' At least to me.

I was just pointing out that for her height, 8 stone is actually very healthy.

5 stone and her relationship with food and her daughter are not though.

Pixel it's a trait of Anorexics to cook and feed others. They enjoy it and it's another thing abut food that they can control.

Agree with Mumbling.

Not always Mumbling. Plenty of people with anorexia don't "feed" others.

Not always no, but it's one of the things I still struggle with personally. I find it very difficult to stop baking things for dp to take to work, and I know I'll spend ages cooking a meal I have no intention of eating myself. It is a very common symptom. I used to spend hours reading food magazines.