To think most women have an eating disorder of some kind

[wonderandwander]

I have been referred to an ED clinic.
I’m in early forties and I can’t quite believe it. I won’t bore with detail but involved intervention of a dear GP friend, otherwise I would never have gone. It has dawned on me that I have been restricting to various degrees for best part of 20 years. Never bulemia or over eating. Always restriction and underweight. The upshot being I look a haggard mess and it’s affecting my hormones and bones.

It got me thinking though. Amongst my wide group of girlfriends, I think most think A LOT about food and restricting. We live in a very affluent part of the UK, and health / looks / gym etc is high on the agenda. There’s always diets on the go and talk of food.

Are there any women out there who really eat without thinking what they’re consuming? Really that relaxed about food? Don’t go on diets / restrict etc or the alternative- over eat / binge?

Genuinely curious. My mind is messed up, and wondering whether my thoughts on this issue are also messed up.

I honestly had no idea people were living like this. When my friends talk about weight loss and exercise regimes etc. I thought they were just following some social convention to chat about this stuff but maybe it really is a big controller of their lives.

I think one of the reasons I don’t have to watch my weight and never think about what I’m eating is that I grew up eating very healthily, my mum a great cook and gardener, my dad an adventurous eater and zero processed food in the house. I now have no interest in processed food and feel disappointed to eat a slimy, salty takeaway if I’m too tired to cook. I really do eat what I want (pancakes slathered in butter 20mins ago) but I don’t want and simply don’t enjoy processed, overly sweet, overly fried food. I eat literally every food type and enjoy every kind of cuisine there is. But homemade usually. I also think I stop when I’m full whether it’s chocolates or curry or whatever.

I don't have any sort of eating disorder. I waver between a size 12 and a size 14 and own clothes for both sizes. I enjoy healthy food - yesterday I had cereal & fruit for breakfast, a large salad with falafel and dressing for lunch and a chicken spinach, mozarella and pesto wrap for tea with grapes and a glass of wine (it was quick tea night). I walk about 10 miles per day with the dog and pretty much eat what I fancy. I try to avoid eating to the point of feeling very overful. I enjoy lots of healthy veg. If my size 14 trousers get a bit tight I tends to dish myself up smaller portions for a few weeks. If my size 12 trousers get too loose I add in an afternoon snack for a few weeks.

I enjoy cake (but really only homemade stuff) but can take or leave biscuits and chocolate. I don't drink a lot, I don't drink sugary pop. My one big vice is coffee - I probably drink too much of that!

I've lived with various eating disorders for the last 25 years (anorexia, bulimia, what was called BED). It manifests in various guises depending on how my life is at the time. It genuinely rules my life - how I think, how I feel, how I act - and my self esteem is in the gutter. However, for the most part I've mainly stayed within healthy parameters, regarding weight. I've had a BMI of 34 and a BMI of 16.5, but mostly I've been between 17 and 25. So nobody except my counsellor, and a select few close to me, knew. I currently have a BMI of 21. I smile, I laugh, I work, I parent. You wouldn't look at me and know I've spent the last 4 months restricting my calorie intake and measuring & recording every morsel that entered my body. Just like you wouldn't know I spent hours last night (and the previous 3 nights) standing at the cupboard eating everything I could until it actually hurt - and I still couldn't stop.
Therefore answer to your OP, and in my experience, I think there could be a great many people suffering with disordered eating. You can't tell just from looking. And it's a miserable, lonely existence. I envy every person who never really thinks about what they eat.

There are so many different degrees of it. At one end of the scale are the people who have an uneasy relationship with food and their weight, and are very strict with themselves to stay within what they feel are acceptable weight parameters. I wouldn't say that was disordered eating, but having to watch every mouthful you allow yourself is a preoccupation that makes life more difficult and eating less pleasurable. I think a great many women live like this.

Then there's the disordered eating, the binge eating, the attempts to eat nothing all day followed by the inevitable giving in to hunger. I think this is also very common. It only actually tips into an ED for a relatively small percentage of women, but I don't think the impact of living like that should be underestimated.

And all those of you who don't think you know anyone with these issues - I would bet my house that you do. People with EDs and disordered habits don't go around binging and purging in front of their friends and family. I make a supreme effort to be "normal" around others and eat small, healthy meals when I'm being watched. The vast majority of those who know me would be genuinely stunned if they saw what happened when I'm alone.

I think though to manage to stay a healthy weight, you need to manage your food intake. And consciously so, I'm not sure if this is restricting as such, and I don't see it as disordered either.

It becomes disordered when you are no longer a healthy weight, when you are unable to manage your food intake in a way that ensures you are healthy. Where you are literally starving your body or over feeding it excessively.

However, I do find it interesting that an intervention is acceptable with low weight, but it's not at a heavy weight. Then you're not even supposed to mention it. Both carry significant health risks.

bluntness100 I'm bulimic and have never been underweight. I have also never been enormously overweight - only ever by a small amount. Most of the time I have been at what is considered to be a healthy BMI. That was why I've never been able to get any help. It really isn't as simple as healthy weight = healthy attitude.

Ok and that's a fair point, it can also be disordered at a healthy weight. Apologies.

Agree with Gracemarks weight is no indicator of the severity of an illness. I have been underweight with an ed but I would say was less suicidal than at times when I've been a normal weight, binging and purging for 10 hours a day every day, month after month...So much so your gag reflex loses sensitivity so your day is trying to maintain not lose.

Many anorexics become bulimic snd visa versa and I've spoken to many who say weight isn't an inducator of what's going on in your head. Physically bulimia has destroyed my body at a normal weight just as much.

And of course you can be overweight and desperately ill too.

No, agree with serbska