April 19, 2009
Moms are Role Models
Dara Chadwick, author of the forthcoming book "You'd Be So Pretty If . . ." (due in May from DaCapo Press), argues that even as we must watch what we say to our daughters about their bodies, we should be mindful of the signals we send them about our regard for our own.
Chadwick offers excellent suggestions, most of them subtle but surprisingly hard to practice.
-- Resist the urge to focus on your weight when talking about yourself. Shift to positive comments about your hair or your smile.
-- Also resist the urge to "constantly recheck the way you look," she says in an interview. That means not stopping to examine your reflection in every store window you pass.
-- In the clothing-store dressing room, rather than say, "Oh, my thighs look terrible in these pants!" say something like, "Hmm, the cut of these jeans isn't right for me," or "I don't like the way this fabric drapes," she says.
-- Have a sundae now and then. She says: "When the family goes out for ice cream and you just order a Diet Coke, that sends your daughter a message. Make good food choices for the most part, but try to make room for a treat. It's a balance, and it can be hard to get there, but if you do, it's a freedom from constantly trying to make yourself something you're not."
-- Accept compliments graciously; don't brush them off, especially in your daughter's presence. In fact, it would behoove you both if you learned to pay yourself a compliment now and then.
-- Be patient with yourself: You're not going to undo a life's worth of body-image problems overnight. But until you do get to the point where you're comfortable with your own body, Chadwick suggests in her book, "fake it."
"None of this means that we never have a negative thought," Chadwick writes. "But it's all about balance, what you focus on, what you consciously decide to say to your daughter."
-- Finally, recognize that it's never too late. "Fortunately, it's not too late to change the message you're sending," Chadwick writes. "The good news is that you can talk to her about it. If she's open to it, ask her how she feels when you talk about your body [negatively]. Or if she's following your example and putting herself down, tell her that you feel responsible for teaching her that behavior. Kids understand that adults make mistakes; in fact, it makes us seem more human to them."
Posted by Lisa at 06:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 19, 2009
You Are More Than What You Weigh
Get ready for National Eating Disorders Awareness week - Next week from Feb 22-28. Visit NEDAs website for more information.
Here's a place to start:
Follow this link for a powerful video on Fat Talk.
Dove Click on Features and Videos and filter by Dove films. Check out the Evolution and Onslaught videos.
Posted by Lisa at 06:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 15, 2008
Friends don’t let friends Fat Talk.
If you haven't noticed, I've attended a few eating disorder conferences in the past few months...2 in Sacramento and the Annual NEDA conference in Austin. Help celebrate this week by being more aware of the messages you're sending to others.
NEDA is thrilled to be a partner in the first-ever Fat Talk Free Week (Oct. 13 – 17), a nation-wide event created by Tri Delta that coincides with the official launch of Reflections, Tri Delta’s revolutionary body image education and eating disorders prevention program.
Follow this link for a powerful video on Fat Talk.
Posted by Lisa at 08:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2008
Skinny Male Models Banned From Fashion Show Runway
Skinny male models have been banned from The Clothes Show after a rise of 67 per cent in the number of men suffering from anorexia, so-called 'manorexia'.
Gavin Brown, managing director of the live show - which banned size zero girls in 2006 - said the rise over the past five years 'has been attributed to the fashion industry's increasing preference for very slender male models'.
He added: 'The show has refused to employ what appears to be unnaturally thin male models as part of an ongoing commitment to promoting a healthy body image.'
Posted by Lisa at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 04, 2008
Nike's joining in!
Posted by Lisa at 09:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 01, 2008
Thank You Dove!
Check out Dove’s efforts to help "free your and other’s from beauty stereotypes" at www.campaignforrealbeauty.com. You’ll find helpful tools, activities and resources. Also be sure to watch the Evolution and Onslaught videos!
Posted by Lisa at 07:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 20, 2005
Eating Disorder Treatment Option – Somewhat Controversal
The Maudsley Method / The Maudsley Approach
Defining It...
1. The first phase (Sessions 1-10) puts the parents in charge of the eating behaviour of the AN adolescent, making food the medicine to be administered to a patient. The first two sessions engage the family to determine their eating habits and assemble a picture of the AN impact on all family members. The therapist externalizes the illness by presenting the eating disorder as controlling the patient, freeing parents and patient from blame. The therapist then encourages the parents to find their own method to control the adolescent eating behaviours without using force or punishment, but rather through a system of creative measures that include functional rewards, such as "I cannot let you get your driving licence while you are too weak."
2. The second phase (Sessions 11-16) transfers the control of the feeding process back to the adolescent, and addresses related family problems.
3. The third and final phase of the treatment focuses on encouraging the processes of adolescent development that unfold as the AN wanes, and establishing new family relationships disentangled from the eating disorder.
Used appropriately, and as intended, the Maudsley Method is based on the foundation that where an Eating Disorder started matters little in it's treatment. This isn't to belittle the issues a sufferer may feel in relation to their [possibly dysfunctional] family... This is to stop playing the blame game, and instead, for all members of the family to accept responsibility in "fixing what is broken."
When sufferers often feel "invisible" in their families, this type of intense involvement may suddenly act as a psychological facilitator in improving the overall relationship. It may help to make the sufferer feel seen, to feel cared about and loved.
While it seems on the surface that the focus of the Maudsley Method is to treat just the symptoms of the disease (behaviors/eating), you could make a lot of arguments that the impact of such involvement in teen treatment carries many hidden psychological messages. Getting family members (ie., parents) this inherently involved in their child's treatment obviously carries many hidden psychological messages and lessons.
Theoretically, Anorexia caught in an early stage (during developmental teen years), in a manner such as this, that [slowly] establishes appropriate boundaries, shows an immense concern from the family, provides proper nutrition, emphasizes that there is no need for shame (from either family or patient), teaches appropriate control, and reestablishes positive family relationships (in phase 2 and 3), responds well to this treatment for a variety of reasons, and does encompass many of the aspects of what more "traditional" treatments try to (and do).
As stated, this treatment is meant for dependent teens. It is important to determine if this is the right treatment for your child. It is important to consider your entire family dynamic when making this decision.
Without sounding like it's appropriate to put the "blame" on anyone, I often hear from sufferers things like my parents don't care, my family doesn't get it, they don't understand, they get so mad about my anorexia -- the Maudsley approach puts patient and parents into a mutual place -- one to battle the Eating Disorder together -- in an understanding, caring, nurturing way that does address issues (again, phase 2 and 3). That isn't to say that this specific approach is for everyone. One simple example... a child with a particularly controlling parent may resent this type of treatment all the more.
"The treatment is not for everyone. Abusive parents are excluded from family therapy. The treatment is suitable only for minors living at home, where some degree of parental control is assumed. 'For young adult anorexics, individual therapy seems to work best,' says Dr. Loeb, an advocate of the method." (source: Columbia University)
Posted by Lisa at 08:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 22, 2005
To Weigh or Not to Weigh?
Are scales helpful or hurtful? What does that number on the scale tell you about yourself or someone else? Does it say you are good or bad? Does it make you like yourself/someone else more or less?
Ask yourself these questions:
1. When you think of the word SCALE what is the first word that pops into your mind?
2. When you think of weighing yourself, what feelings come up for you?
3. When was the last time you weighed yourself and how did you feel afterward?
4. If someone were to ask you what you weigh, would you tell them the truth and how would you feel about telling them?
5. When was the last time you had a positive experience when weighing yourself and how long did that feeling last?
6. Think about three Individuals you care about and/or respect. Would you care about them or respect them any less if their weight was different?
7. If you never weighed yourself again and only had feedback by how your clothes fit, what would you miss?
You are more than what you weigh.
Posted by Lisa at 11:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 10, 2005
A for Effort.
This is interesting. Teen and fashion magazines are starting to use "average" sized women as models. Ever flip through one of these magazines and see a recipe for triple chocolate cake and then an article on how to lose weight and look like the stick figure model in the picture? Eat this cake and look like this. Realistic, right? The average woman today is about 5'4" and 140 lbs. However this is a great effort by magazine editors in today's world of poor body image and unrealistic weight goals. Let's see if anyone else follows suit or how long this will last...
Posted by Lisa at 10:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 01, 2005
Ana, Mia and Ed
Pro-anorexia movement has cult-like appeal
Experts alarmed by Web sites that promote self-starvation
The Associated Press
CHICAGO - They call her “Ana.� She is a role model to some, a goddess to others — the subject of drawings, prayers and even a creed.
She tells them what to eat and mocks them when they don’t lose weight. And yet, while she is a very real presence in the lives of many of her followers, she exists only in their minds.
Ana is short for anorexia, and — to the alarm of experts — many who suffer from the potentially fatal eating disorder are part of an underground movement that promotes self-starvation and, in some cases, has an almost cult-like appeal.
Followers include young women and teens who wear red Ana bracelets and offer one another encouraging words of “thinspiration� on Web pages and blogs.
They share tips for shedding pounds and faithfully report their “cw� and “gw� — current weight and goal weight, which often falls into the double digits. They also post pictures of celebrity role models, including teen stars Lindsay Lohan and Mary-Kate Olsen, who last year set aside the acting career and merchandising empire she shares with her twin sister to seek help for her own eating disorder.
“Put on your Ana bracelet and raise your skinny fist in solidarity!� one “pro-Ana� blogger wrote shortly after Olsen entered treatment.
The movement has flourished on the Web and eating disorder experts say that, despite attempts to limit Ana’s online presence, it has now grown to include followers — many of them young — in many parts of the world.
No one knows just how many of the estimated 8 million to 11 million Americans afflicted with eating disorders have been influenced by the pro-Ana movement. But experts fear its reach is fairly wide. A preliminary survey of teens who’ve been diagnosed with eating disorders at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University, for instance, found that 40 percent had visited Web sites that promote eating disorders.
“The more they feel like we — ’the others’ — are trying to shut them down, the more united they stand,� says Alison Tarlow, a licensed psychologist and supervisor of clinical training at the Renfrew Center in Coconut Creek, Fla., a residential facility that focuses on eating disorders.
Experts say the Ana movement also plays on the tendency people with eating disorders have toward “all or nothing thinking.�
“When they do something, they tend to pursue it to the fullest extent. In that respect, Ana may almost become a religion for them,� says Carmen Mikhail, director of the eating disorders clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.
She and others point to the “Ana creed,� a litany of beliefs about control and starvation, that appears on many Web sites and blogs. At least one site encourages followers to make a vow to Ana and sign it in blood.
People with eating disorders who’ve been involved in the movement confirm its cult-like feel.
“People pray to Ana to make them skinny,� says Sara, a 17-year-old in Columbus, Ohio, who was an avid organizer of Ana followers until she recently entered treatment for her eating disorder. She spoke on the condition that her last name not be used.
'Helping girls kill themselves'
Among other things, Sara was the self-proclaimed president of Beta Sigma Kappa, dubbed the official Ana sorority and “the most talked about, nearly illegal group� on a popular blog hosting service that Sara still uses to communicate with friends. She also had an online Ana “boot camp� and told girls what they could and couldn’t eat.
“I guess I was attention-starved,� she now says of her motivation. “I really liked being the girl that everyone looked up to and the one they saw as their ’thinspiration.’
“But then I realized I was helping girls kill themselves.�
For others, Ana is a person — a voice that directs their every move when it comes to food and exercise.
“She’s someone who’s perfect. It’s different for everyone — but for me, she’s someone who looks totally opposite to the way I do,� says Kasey Brixius, a 19-year-old college student from Hot Springs, S.D.
To Brixius — athletic with brown hair and brown eyes — Ana is a wispy, blue-eyed blonde.
“I know I could never be that,� she says, “but she keeps telling me that if I work hard enough, I CAN be that.�
Treatment often fails
Dr. Mae Sokol often treats young patients in her Omaha, Neb., practice who personify their eating disorder beyond just Ana. To them, bulimia is “Mia.� And an eating disorder often becomes “Ed.�
“A lot of times they’re lonely and they don’t have a lot of friends. So Ana or Mia become their friend. Or Ed becomes their boyfriend,� says Sokol, who is director of the eating disorders program run by Children’s Hospital and Creighton University.
In the end, treatment can include writing “goodbye� letters to Ana, Mia and Ed in order to gain control over them.
But it often takes a long time to get to that point — and experts agree that, until someone with an eating disorder wants to help themselves, treatment often fails.
Tarlow, at the Renfrew Center, says it’s also easy for patients to fall back into the online world of Ana after they leave treatment. “Unfortunately,� she says, “with all people who are in recovery, it’s so much about who you surround yourself with.�
Some patients, including Brixius, the 19-year-old South Dakotan, have had trouble finding counselors who truly understand their struggle with Ana.
“I’d tell them about Ana and how she’s a real person to me. And they’d just look at me like I’m nuts,� Brixius says of the counselors she’s seen at college and in her hometown. “They wouldn’t address her ever again, so it got very frustrating.
“Half the time I’m, like, ’You know what? I give up.�’
Other days, she’s more hopeful.
“I gotta snap out of this eventually if I want to have kids and get a job. One day, I’ll get to that point,� she says, pausing. “But I’ll always obsess about food.�
Posted by Lisa at 08:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack