It can be terrifying to watch a loved one in the clutches of an eating disorder. There is no doubt that support and patience play a large role in recovery. More often than not, professional help is required. Whether healing can begin through counseling or hospitalization, action must be taken.
Eating disorders are often like a swinging pendulum. Initially, the intensity and dangerous behaviors are large like the full, wide action of a pendulum. Emotions and setbacks are experienced on a large scale. Through time and treatment, and the effort to recover, a middle ground is found. The pendulum swings diminish and represent a safer, happier, and more knowledgeable place.
Don't
Pretend nothing is wrong
Be afraid to confront the individual you are worried about
Do
Let the person know you care
Listen to what she has to say
Help her find appropriate help through counselors and physicians
A Heightened Awareness
It is important, that as a society, we stop romanticizing these disorders. We often see pictures of celebrities splashed across the covers of leading magazines, as yet another entertainer falls victim to an eating disorder. Our young girls sometimes perceive this as a glamorous, if not exotic, place to be.
Education needs to step it up and show what anorexia really looks like. As young girls starve themselves to unbelievable dimensions, and hair falls out in tufts, we see a haunting image that is drastically different than the movie star looking just a bit waiflike in her gown…
Sticks and stones may be less harmful than the wrong words at the wrong time.
Insensitive comments and teasing can do a lot more damage than we sometimes realize. The father teasing his daughter about a little baby fat, or the mother telling her daughter how pretty she could be if she just lost five pounds, may be contributing to a growing internal conflict. These words, which may seem benign to the speaker, just may carry the punch to push a young girl into the depths of extreme action.