To think if you were eating yourself to death...

[softlysoftly]

...and you couldn't get out of bed or care for yourself. Then how would you actually get the food to maintain that weight?

Surely if you were so worried about the loved one you are caring for you would stop bringing them bad / excessive food?

Yes I stupidly clicked on the a "documentary" about it.

Respect hungrygeorge

Wow hungry george, good post. Bloody hell.

I didn't watch this programme but I do wonder why it is that some of these 'extreme eaters' aren't sectioned if they simply won't stop eating too much of the wrong food. I don't mean people who are very overweight but making some efforts to cut back, i mean people who absolutely refuse to limit their intake (eg i saw a doc about a man who was 40 stone plus and drinking 8 two litre bottles of full fat coke a day). To take sole's point above a bit further, someone suffering from severe anorexia would be, if they continually refused food. I don't really get why someone at the other end of the scale wouldn't be admitted to hospital even if it was against their will. I am not recommending this btw, I am just wondering why it isn't so.

weary I think it's because anorexia nervosa is a more easily defined mental illness, and so they are sectioned under the mental health act. Though IME very few anorexia sufferers get sectioned, and the ones I know of who did get sectioned are usually sectioned after intervention from family.

Whereas overeating is rarely diagnosed as a mental illness, and as this thread points out, it's usually enabled by family. Families of overeaters seem much less likely to call for sectioning.

Then there's the awful financial cost of securely housing a dangerously overweight person compared to a dangerously underweight one.

Hmm, just to clarify, when I said "awful", I meant it as it being awful that it plays a part.

IME anorexia sufferers are often offered more help than other ED sufferers. But only once they are visibly suffering from anorexia. It's a more emotive image I guess.

Seeing bones stick out makes people want to feed and fatten them.
Seeing fat makes people want to recoil in disgust.
Knowing about bulimia tends to have the same effect.
And as for ED-NOS, they aren't extreme enough to get much attention.

That's interesting murder, thanks. I can see the logic in what you're saying.

Just to clarify my own post as well, I do recognise that this type of behaviour affects only a tiny minority of overweight people.

I still feel sorry that he died :( I wish he had got better.

Alcoholics are rarely sectioned either afaik?tbh I don't think over eating is recognised as a mental health disorder in the same way that other addictions are.

Weight is insidious. 5lbs become 10, 30 , 100 and it becomes an impossible mountain To climb so you get miserable, eat more, get fatter, more miserable and so it goes

There really needs to be more psychological support for food issues rather than a skinny dietician without a clue.

hungry I know that the DSM-V lists binge eating disorder, so could be treated as seriously as anorexia and bulimia. But the criteria, same as with the other two, can miss out people who need help. Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified is meant to catch those people, but doesn't seem to get used much.

Just been reading a bit about sectioning, looks like it is usually short term (up to 28 days) and is used mostly if people need treatment. I guess there isn't anything you could do quickly for an over eater in the same way you could for an anorexic (forcing them to get some nutrients etc). So sectioning would be an expensive and not very effective method. Also their health needs to be in immediate danger, so an anorexic patient would be unlikely to be sectioned unless they were at their very lowest possible weight or there were other factors. There's a high risk of suicide in anorexia patients (I believe more die from suicide than health complications).

Murder that's really interesting thanks. It's obviously such a hard illness to beat. I don't have personal experience but I can so easily see from this thread how it feels like an 'impossible mountain'. HungryGeorge, you must have amazing willpower!

My son has been told to lose 6 stone before February or face bariatric surgery. I am relieved that the hospital have told him. He does work, walk, drive, but has a serious problem with eating. I take him to a club with me, I even pay for it, although he is 28 and doesn't live here. He is struggling to eat properly. He knows how to, but cannot seem to apply the theory.

All the anorectics I know who have received treatment have done so because the family have refused to enable them and have forced them to go for treatment. Which is very different from somebody carting home 8 bottles of coke for their eating addicted partner or child. I've certainly never known anyone who would agree to go out and buy laxatives for their anorexic child or wife, however abusive or unpleasant they became.

While there are no doubt mothers and partners who buy alcohol or even heroin to feed an addiction, there are many others who simply refuse to do so. Given that a mobile heroin addict is likely to be more dangerous to a family member who refuses to comply and is likely to have more dangerous friends than a bedbound food addict, you would have thought that would take a greater amount of courage.

So there must some other, psychological reason for these food enablers. Some reason why they feel bad about withholding unhealthy food in a way which they wouldn't feel bad about refusing to provide laxatives for an anorectic. Even though either way, the result is putting them in danger.

Basically, you can be sectioned in one of two ways:

you can either behave in public in such a way as to show the bystanders that you are a danger to others

or you can have a family who keeps ringing the hospital and insists on you being sectioned

You can of course also ask to be admitted voluntarily.

Cory, do you think food enablers may have some vested interest in keeping the overweight person overweight?

cory I think for a lot of people giving food is a way of showing love. Most people have a kindly relative who they know will do the "oh go on, have some food, just a little bit, go on" dance every time they visit. Some people take it to extremes.

Really in the extreme cases it's not just the over eater who needs counseling/therapy but the feeder too.

Especially if they get stuck in the guilt loop too.

In terms of binge eating it normally goes, eat - feel guilty - eat to punish/distract from the guilt - feel guilty - and round again.

I guess for the feeder it is feed - feel guilty - feed to ease the guilt - feel guilty - and so on.

I did see a awful TV programme once about women who were camwhores who specialised in being overweight and/or eating on cam.

There were definitely some control issues going on with some of their feeders. One woman actually said she'd like to do something else but couldn't because of her weight and that her partner was pushing her to gain more.

camwhores??
Do you mean that they were providers of sexual entertainment via webcam?

Just thought I'd add my twopence. I can't speak from an over or under eating perspective, but if we work from the standpoint of addiction then I can maybe shed some personal light.
A close family member died nearly a year ago after a lifetime of addictive behaviours. What began as a reliance on sleeping pills and uppers dissolved into the use of various over the counter medications to use as crutches.

Eventually alcohol replaced everything, and became an extra member of the family for over a decade. As my family member's illness progressed they became increasingly incapable of the activities of daily living (washing, dressing, feeding, socialising, mobilising, maintaining personal safety etc).

My family became irate with those who supported my family member to meet their needs "cut them off, they'll have to dry out and behave then" they said, but even with doctors advising that a fatal incident was as close as six months away my family member could not stop drinking.
When they became housebound and totally dependent on others for all their needs again my family said "cut them off, you're killing them by bringing the booze to them". But by this stage it was far too late to rectify the damage done, and those that continued to help my relative felt that the only way to provide any satisfaction and quality of life was to allow a (limited) but constant access to alcohol.
My relative is free of their enormous pain now, as are those of my family who chose to continue contact and to assist where they could.

My point (laboriously made) is that sometimes the only happiness in an addict's life is their addiction, and much though it will kill or maim them, sometimes it may be the only kindness a carer can provide. To my mind to reach a size that endangers your health and leaves you reliant on others for your daily needs must be a long road. To have your size and addiction recognised for what they are may be an even longer road, and to rectify the damage done may be insurmountable (COPD, diabetes, heart disease, gangrene, poor/no physical mobility, limb loss etc etc), so maybe there is a kindness once such a point has been reached to continue to support the needs of the addict?

I remember having read articles written by the family and friends of anorexics who have died, and they commonly speak of the anxiety leading up to death: that they should have "done more" to protect their loved one from dying so cruelly. But afterwards feeling only relief that their suffering was ended.

I don't know if I could control an addiction that I would have to feed a little every day in order to survive. And I don't know if I could do it with all the world judging me for my size and appearance.

All that said, there is a lot to be done in terms of food and diet education long before the point of morbidity and mortality. Much as with all addictions: there is a tipping point, and intervention before that point is usually very successful. Not that I have any idea what that intervention should be.

Yeah, grim term, but it was the word they used. Kind of shows how highly they valued themselves doesn't it?

Murder oh! I see, maybe it was grim of them..or maybe it was a kind of 'yes I'm a whore and I'm proud of it'??

Izchaz I find your point very well made & your post thought provoking.

Re 'tipping points' or 'points of no return' (as I tend to think of them) I think these are significant, I can think of times when I knew that I had reached a point where if I carried on, there would be no going back.

I always chose to stop.

I have seen others who didnt stop, they kept right on going.
I dont know why, perhaps they didnt recognise those points, going to fast and didnt see the stop sign?
I suspect that there are no simple answers, perhaps luck played a big part?

too fast

I watched this documentary last night.

I admit, I did feel disgust, but also immense sadness that even with the offers of help from the specialists from the US and Australia, the man just could not help himself.

The wife continued to feed him, despite the warnings and advice. I could only assume that he was putting a huge amount of pressure on her. She clearly loved him and cared for him. I have no understanding of how a person can get to that size. He was crying out for help and yet was incapable of helping himself. It was terribly sad.

I think, given how some of them had gained weight to the point where it was limiting them drastically, it seemed fairly self destructive.

It also showed up another motivation for some where they were a bit overweight, too much to be seen as conventionally attractive. So it seemed that they'd decided that in order to be found attractive they had to fit into the larger category and had gained to do so. Unfortunately that seemed to require them getting bigger and bigger.