Laura Willmot dies from anorexic collapse one week after being sent home by her doctors.
In another world, a millionaire's ex wife freezes to death in her car after her wine binge. In a barely noticed throwaway remark, her husband noted that "we ate separately, she was always on one sort of diet or another". Living these separate lives, the couple drift apart. Had they remained together, she would not have met her lonely end in the cold.
Maybe I'm stretching a point about the untimely death of Nicole Falkingham - but no-one has ever looked at the effect that constant dieting has on marital bliss. But from where I am sitting, I can see the toll that is taken by diets, nutritional quirks, men and women chasing hours at the gym in the pursuit of a perfect body and partners left alone at home while one or the other pounds the streets.
Two wasted lives. 1 in 5 people with anorexia are going to die sooner or later. And countless others are going to meet their end directly or indirectly through the need to be thin.
India Knight has written in the Sunday Times of her frustration sitting in group therapy sessions listening to people wittering on about their stuggles with food and weight, psycho-babbling about things that may not really be going to help. I also sat in at one session at a very famous Addiction place listening in growing frustration as the therapist did not intervene in what I felt was a swirl of very toxic talk.
Anorexia is one special illness in which I feel the right of confidentilaity should be suspended. I know that many of you will disagree with me. Please check out more of my thoughts and questions about the death of Laura on http://eating-disorders.org.uk/two-die-from-dieting/
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