The Annointed Fig

I am Lisa, this here blog’s writer, and I am a foodie.

There, I said it, and no, I am not feeling relieved.  I love food. I cook, I like dining out, I like giving everything a fair chance (which, however, emphatically does not extend to vanilla or whatever-flavored oatmeal variants.  So, I’m a hypocrite.  At least, I’m not a closet one, that’s gotta count for something).

These are my skinny jeans.

To make the intro complete, I eat healthy, exercise (eh, do my best, let’s put it that way) — and I’m a female, 5′9″, 190lbs, wear anything between medium and extra large, and know what, I’m no Angelina Jolie (my brood, for instance, is limited to one 13-months old bandit), but damn, I think I’m fine.

Which I suppose may be exactly the problem.

On one hand, psychiatry preaches mental health lies in sticking to how one sees oneself, and damn the rest of the populace, what do they know?  On another hand, it is, by now, a truism that only the mad have the sheer audacity to espouse their own unassailable sanity.

That said, let’s segue back to the food. Rather, to the dread eating disorders, or EDs, the bane of parents everywhere. They are a dime a dozen these days, and if there’s ever a time when languishing in the supermarket checkout lane, I don’t see a photo spread of a celebrity suffering from, recovering from, vehemently denying – or, in fact, outright accused of not indulging in, ha, it’s a shopping trip wasted.

How are we to see ourselves when it really comes down to…er, seeing ourselves? Really looking at ourselves in the mirror – and in the eye, and honestly assessing if we are who we need to be, where we need to be, and not just weight wise.  That is, after all, what ED treatments are all about.

Eating disorders are likened to abusive relationships. They play havoc with your mind and health – but they, also, make life easier, in the short term. There’s no need to go out and find friends, you’re either feeling too bad, or you’re preoccupied (feeding an eating disorder, pardon the pun, does take a lot of of you), or, from experience, you just know they wouldn’t understand when you could do with some exercise, or purging, or binge eating. There’s no need to ask yourself what you’re going to have when waiters are assaulting you with leather-bound menus. The answer’s obvious, if you had your way – nothing, nada (possibly, ice water, though it does make you swell up, so, on the second hand, just ice cubes, thank you, such a hot day out). There’s no need to wonder what to do with a bonus paycheck. Why, upgrade your membership at a local gym, buy another box of laxatives, maybe, another tape measure (for the glove compartment – emergencies happen). Depending on income, you may even afford a new elliptical machine for that cozy little nook right underneath a basement window – behind the treadmill, bike, trampoline, a gymnastic ball, and a souped-up hula-hoop with metal bumps on the inner edge to bruise your abdomen into contracting.

Simple, isn’t it – letting go of everything, shedding, at least, some responsibility for your mistakes, for your less than ideal self-image – yet enforcing your own will, too, putting your enslaved foot down. “ It’s my party, I’ll DIE if I want, DIE if I want to…”, there’s a little something there, you gotta admit.

Taking a bite out of your health.

And speaking of which – partying, I mean – let me introduce you to the relative block newcomers. A more prominent of the three – drinkorexia – a folklore kind of term that is taking a Webster-dictionary wielding crowd by storm, riding the coattails of such questionable icons as Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Amy Winehouse. Particularly prominent among women aged between 18 and 25, with whom partying hard and staying skinny at all cost are often raisons d’etre, thus far, it hasn’t been designated an official medical term and like with any ED, those practicing it never admit to a shred of wrongdoing.

Mind, some of the metabolisms in question might be really THAT good (which, from early Lohan roles just ain’t altogether likely), but every single one is wearing size 0. They had better. Should anyone THINK of graduating to an unwieldy size 2, oh, that’s it, the hunt’s on, the press’s a-baying.

So, how does the rest keep themselves to where if photographed from the side, they run the risk of fading out completely – considering, they do publicly drink, and booze does come with calories, though not of a very beneficial kind? Well, I’ll just leave that to your all’s puerile imaginations. They won’t disappoint. Promise?

Oh, OK, I’ll slip a mickey…er, I meant, a little tidbit. Alcohol -> empty stomach -> severe stomach ulceration -> evacuation from either end -> liver on the fast train up the shitcreek. Enough inspiration?

Another new kid on the pro-Ana websites (it’s a lifestyle, not a disorder, MY AUNT FANNY) is the beast recently christened orthorexia by an actual MD and referring to an out of control fixation on healthy eating. In this one instance of ED, it strikes boys almost as often as girls and in the stronger sex, is commonly associated with BDD, body dysmorphic disorder, where a victim focuses on the entire body or even a part as something they, delusionally or not, consider detrimental to his or her appearance. In an interview with Dr. Phil McGraw, one mother described how her son would altogether refuse food if at breakfast, she accidentally allowed a droplet of yolk to so much as color her son’s egg whites.

Finally, it wouldn’t be the Century of the Fruitbat…er, 21st, sorry, if there wasn’t some weight manipulation (read: enforced loss) done entirely via self-medication.  Specifically, on not using enough medication.  More specifically, yet, insulin.  Enter diabulimia, a tool of choice for teen girls in treatment for type 1 diabetes.  Mostly, it is the same self-administered cycle of abuse in play, but now it masquerades as flipping the bird to their diabetes.  The isolating, inconvenient, often debilitating disease ceases being their cross.  For the diabulemic, it is seen to be overpowered, remade into a weapon, the one he or she wields, and if the stakes are even greater than with a less easily concealable ED, well, the payoff is, also, much higher.

Plus, of course, bigorexia, pica, Prader-Willi Syndrome. Those, and the perpetual crowd pleasers, the flagships of the ED fleet, bulimia and anorexia nervosa.

These days, they are everywhere, as commonplace as compressed lungs and broken ribs enlivening the stately crinoline era. Then, there was that pressure to conform; perforated stomachs, miscarriages, internal bleeds notwithstanding, corsets ruled – and people died. But, at least, they did so looking perfect.

May we too be victorious. Godspeed.

Today, young people are dying, too, and the media is right there helping them on their merry way. After all, first it gets to criticize their weight, then act all properly horrified – and finally, for a good long time (on those slow news days), sympathize with the bereaved kin. Triple whammy!

So, me, I call on the bloggers, and news editors, and fashion mavens, and Hollywood directors du jour – and most of all, on you, you healthy 5’-something 150+ lbs fatsos (or 6′ slender magnificent reeds, but naturally so, and more power to ya!), let’s just see what we can do to completely eradicate the very need for the pro-Ana sites on our world wide web!

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