Intermittent Fasting: Our Professional Opinion

Hello everyone.


For an in depth overview of our latest opinion of Intermittent Fasting, follow this link.


http://eating-disorders.org.uk/intermittent-fasting-if-our-version/


We can tell its summer here, the phones have gone quieter. Does this mean that people aren't worrying about their weight and their eating?  I don't think so, this is the time of the dreaded swimming costume; this is the month of ice cream and holiday splurging.


What have I been doing? I've been reading two separate accounts of anorexia which the writers wish to publish. I have been immersed in their private and intense suffering. What a terrible illness anorexia is, I'm so ANGRY with it and so SAD about it.


What is clear to me that Anorexia is the tip of the iceberg. The ONLY reason anorexia comes in to someone's life is that there is a fundamental weakness in someone's ability to manage life and other people. Life is stressful. Relationships are the source of joy and also pain. We need a web of confidence and inner strength to be able to cope with it all. Anorexia is a story of holes in this web. We all have some holes but if there are too many holes the web caves in.


Different stories, but the same symptoms, the same presentation, the same pain. Do we need more accounts of anorexia to help us KNOW what to do about it? Your thoughts appreciated.


Happy holidays...

Plastic Surgery: External Locus Of Control?

Professor Tanya Byron writes in the Times  to a lady whose daughters are against her having cosmetic surgery. She has been discarded by her husband after 35 years of marriage in favour of a younger model. Her face, she feels, wears the strain of spending a life time looking after a husband and children.  She wants a face and breast lift but her daughters are "furious" and call her "shallow".

Prof Tanya devotes her response to the question of where the "locus of control" (LOC) of this poor lady lies. Is it outside of herself, which means that she is sensitive to the opinions of others? Or it is inside of herself, which means that she has greater level of personal control and self-determination. With an internal LOC  one assumes, she would not seek to define herself via her appearance.

Tanya Byron thence cautions the lady against having cosmetic enhancement, a contentious position to adopt. She says find another interest to occupy your time. What? Visiting old churches?

I feel that Tanya has hidden her personal biases inside a wall of hypothesis and so-called evidence. about "locus of control".

Prof T misses the point. My attention regarding this problem was directed toward the daughters who were furious with the mother. They may well have opinions, worries about the procedures, undue influence from others, fears and concerns about what their mother might become. But by what right do they accuse their mother of being shallow and insecure?

I specialise in the treatment of body image, locus of control issues, contingent self destructive behaviours and everything else to do with a horrible relationship with food and with oneself.  But this does not make me against cosmetic enhancement per se.  I feel that I have an internal locus of control and possibly also high "appearence schemacity". This means that my self worth is in part affected by looking as good as I can within reason and without being obsessed by it from one minute to the next.

I reflect this by the clothes I choose, the attention I give my hair, my quest to eat a good healthful diet, the vitamins I take, the occasional facial and anything else that I am able to afford. If Prof Tanya does any of these herself then I suspect a little hypocrisy is at play.

So is cosmetic surgery the thin edge of the wedge?  No, I don't think so. I would say to this lady "go for it my dear, and tell your daughters where to go". Spend your money on everything and anything you like. If they don't like it, they can lump it, and if they give you a hard time they don't deserve you. Get real, it's tough out there. I hope you find a man who is good to you with your new face and your new breasts and if you need any help with your "locus of control" then get some counselling alongside your new face but not instead of it.

Fatty! You're Fat! Fat, Fat, Fat, Fat!

So says Giles Coren writing in last week's Sunday Times. He feels rather pleased that obesity is now associated with the middle classes. This is based on some research carried out at Leeds Metropolitan University. (Perhaps , he suggests, this is because the poor have been eating low fat low cholesterol meals in the form of all that horse).

He claims that he has been victimised for his anti-obesity stance from left wing liberals who have interpreted his opinions as thinly veiled class snobbery.

The term "Middle Class" used to be used pejoratively, according to Coren, so he suggests that we should now assign the word "fat" to everything we hate. This is because we are no longer in danger of meaning poor people when we use the word"fat".

So why are the Middle Classes now gaining weight. Clearly we can't blame ignorance or bad food any more. Coren blames obesity in part on a failure of moral guidance at a national, non-economically mediated level, propelling us to consume far more of the worlds precious resources than we deserve. Perhaps he is right. When I go into our local cinema I look at all the junk for sale, I ask myself do we really need all this?

On the opposite page in the same paper, Janice Turner writes about our obsession with the appearance of Michael Gove and Teresa May, the Home Secretary, who has just efforfully lost some weight. Why make comment on how they look? Their looks say nothing about their capacity to do their work, which is far more important. Her view is that the tyranny of looks is damaging public life, weakening debate and making poor, disrespectful satire.

At the same time,the erstwhile head of the All Party Parliamentary Body Image group (Caroline Nokes) described the conservative politician Eric Pickles as a jolly fat man. Now that's not right is it, surely she should know better.

So here we have two top rate journalists coming together in a perfect storm about how we should think about people who don't appear normal (weight wise at least). Isnt that soooooo .... fat!

To Detox Or Not To Detox, That Is The Question

I wonder how many of you out there are thinking of detoxing, exercising, doing Dukan and purging yourself of the excess food and drink that comes your way at this time of the year.

Have you noticed how many ads there are for weight control and cleansing which are in your face right now?  Weight Watchers have produced a 3 minute ad which calls directly to all the guilt buttons in people who arent a perfect size 10. The Times are running a series by some crazy person who calls upon the Fat Bitch mentality to motivate people to take on the True Grit of daily workouts.  Not dieting? Not detoxing? Not running 5 miles a day? Shame on you!

I have an Facebook page for National Centre for Eating Disorders and it horrifies me that all the ads that are on the right side of the page are for instant tummy flatteners, diet products and quick fix weight loss products that are mad, bad or dangerous.  

You don't need to detox, just take care of yourself, eat generally healthy food and go for some walks to admire the scenery not shed the calories. Its not a crime to be unfit - yes, really.  A healthy mind will promote a healthy body so focus on that first and foremost.

We need a helpline for people who feel that they are in danger of being buried by the January avalance of detoxing and bootcamping programmes. Do yourself a favour. Just say NO.

Happy New Year. Make this the year you put eating disorders behind you.

Body Image, How Do You Feel About Your Body, Continued.

I have been writing about the media and bodies. How do we get the balance right between encouraging people to take responsibility for their eating in this food filled society, versus promoting eating disorders?

This quite topical, today an article in the Daily Mail proposed to have fat children put into care. One obesity expert,  Kelly Brownell said that some parents are lazy and some are thwarted and some are ignorant. So there we are.  It's a very contentious solution.

I have listened to many proposals for managing media images to prevent body dissatisfaction. They seem like small solutions to big problems, such as putting health warnings on airbrushed pictures. Or being absolutely frank about the amount of airbrushing that has been done. I do not think this will be popular with celebrities.



Some schools offer media awarness training for adolescent pupils, but these are few and far between. So, we are what we are, a culture saturated with images with bodies that can never stay slim enough, perfect enough or slim enough to measure up for long. Not all of us are suffering because of this but some people are. If you think that your thoughts about your body are driving you mad, call us 0845 838 2040 or read about body image in our time on our information page. http://www.eating-disorders.org.uk/     We can help.

Body Image And The Media: Getting The Balance Right

In a previous life I  worked as a marketing executive for a major magazine publisher. Magazines sell to niche markets by providing content that the market wants to read. This content doesn’t always make people feel happier. Psychologists try to make people happier. There is an uneasy marriage between these two roles. Magazines have been slated for their portrayal of very thin, emaciated women. And they are now being condemned for their obsession with celebrity weights and body shapes.

There is no point in trying to categorise the media as good or bad, its purpose is to mediate between the individual and his culture, provide targeted information and forge invisible connections with like-minded people, at the very least. Magazines appeal to our dreams and possibly bring to the surface our greatest anxieties so that they can help us to do something about them.

So it has to be their purpose to create insecurity about our size and shape then provide solutions like yet another weight loss plan. This leads to some contradictory features like a recipe for chocolate cake alongside an article on how to lose weight fast. Magazines have been like this since I was young, but there are some recent, more worrying trends. The one that most comes to mind is a growth in the number of publications aimed at men's fitness and health. They are remarkable for their front pages showing  muscled torsos with the well defined 6-pack. Undoubtedly many of these photos have been digitally adjusted. But men are increasingly senstitive about their bodies too and many are taking steroids to try and build up muscle and lose fat. That can't be good at all.

Women's magazines have deflected the argument that they are responsible for "an epidemic of anorexia". They argue that anorexia is not a slimming illness and to some extent they are correct. Notwithstanding,  a social conscience is creeping in with respect to correcting harms. In 2009, Alexandra Schulman, Editor of Vogue wrote to to designers urging them to provide samples in reasonable sizes – size four rather than size zero; well it is a start.

The media is also giving us good quality information via documentaries, dramas and helplines to address potential harms. Yet this can also lead to some confusion. With conflicting concerns about the obesity epidemic and the eating disorder epidemic, some of the information we get is muddled. People say to me, I don't want my child to get fat but I don't want to risk her getting an eating disorder either. How do we get the balance right?

To be continued........

If you have concerns about body image, body dysmorphic disorder and eating concerns visit http://www.eating-disorder.org.uk/. We could save your life.

Body Image: How Do You Feel About Your Body? Continued..

In 1982, a psychiatrist called Peter Slade wanted to rename the eating disorders as body image disorders. Most of you are familiar with the terms anorexia, bulimia and compulsive eating disorders. But while eating disturbance is what you get on the surface; Slade argued that the term "eating disorders" is akin to calling pneumonia a coughing disorder or measles a spots disorder. His view – which is shared by modern thinkers, is that starving, sometimes to death; purging, compulsive exercise, yo-yo dieting, obsessive weighing, taking slimming pills or steroids if you are male, and adopting strange eating plans like avoiding all meats and dairy foods; - all this is just a reflection of your altered perception of bigness, fatness and too much-ness from which you may be continually trying to escape in order to feel better about yourself.


But even those of us who don’t have eating disorders are somewhat unforgiving about the way we look. So how does it all go wrong?

Body image is subjective and open to change by social influences and personal social experiences. Most people on the planet have a reference group that furnishes information about the ideal appearance. In this country it is arguably a tall thin coat hanger and in Burma it is a very long neck. In all cultures, beautiful is the same as good . We are surprised to find a loving heart inside Beauty’s beast and its only lovely Cinderella or wafer thin Kate who gets a Prince.

For most of us, our  first reference group is in the home: with parents who might feed you instead of giving you a hug, or diet and rebuke themselves and name-call other people for their fatness. I bet you have heard them say "she's put on weight" a hundred times. You may have a bother or sister who teases you for being fat. If your best friend happens to be thinner (or stronger if you are a male) your body evaluation may shift. If you are taller or shorter than other people, if you have experienced abuse or violence at the hands of another person, you may turn your anger and sadness against your body which was the subject of their harms.

But what we see in the home is only a reflection of what is in our wider social world. Nowadays, it is the norms and aspirations of our society that we find reflected and, to some extent guided by a pervasive media which reaches deep into our lives. This media gives us clear messages that what is valued is youth and slimness that most of us will never reach. That’s OK, ideals were never meant to be attainable – that’s what makes them ideal!

But we are led to believe that our failure to get our appearance right means that we are weak, lazy, or unwilling to take of ourselves properly.

And where that takes us is,.... to be continued.

Body Image: How Do You Feel About Your Body?

I consider that my body shape is....?
When I think about my body I feel....?

The most real thing about us from the beginning is our embodiness - we sense our body even before we are born and have a natural knowledge of what is going on inside and outside of us. After we are born, we know if we are falling or comfortable, fed or empty. Something in our guts grips us when we are afraid and we put things in from outside which give us alternatively a sense of wonder or disgust. As we grow and mature, all of our experiences of bliss and dejection are felt - not in our head - but in the way the body works. Bliss is interpreted when our heart turns over warmth cascades up from our centre, and our pulses race, dejection will be felt as a pain in the heart, the hunch of your shoulders or a gripping in the throat.

Freud said that our first ego state is a body one; thus it is in the body that we first have our sense of self and how it is different from not-self.

Because we are embodied beings, we all develop opinions about our bodies which are both ABSOLUTE in terms of experiences like pain and comfort; and RELATIVE in terms of how we look. We may think of ourselves as tall or small, old or young, ugly or beautiful. But, in relation to what? Small in relation to what? beautiful in relation to what? How we behave, dress and relate to others has much to do with our body opinions and what those opinions mean to us. If we feel ugly, and if it is matters, we may hide away from other people, stay at home rather than go to a party and take holidays in an igloo. If we feel attractive we will dance on the table and walk tall in our clothes.

The natural sense of our body is basic to our survival. Pain alerts us to the fact that something is wrong. The adrenaline rush when you see a tiger enables you to freeze so that it won't see you or alternatively propels you to run away.

But, sometimes, our natural experience of the body goes wrong. If anyone reading this has broken even their finger for a while,  you become your finger, it seems to be bigger and more troublesome than it is. So our sense of the body is more than just feedback about what is going on in it. Our body sense becomes a big part of our sense of self. Sometimes, nothing is wrong with the body at all, but it comes to feel wrong and our natural wisdom goes astray. We are separated from our natural sense of self. It is in this type of ground that eating disorders can set in.

to be continued......

Children and Body Image: How to Help

Here is another useful opinion piece. Food for thought. Pass it on, the wiser we are the more we can share out wisdom with others. What was it like in your own home. If you have a parent who does a lot of fat talk, time to get it to stop, dont you think?

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/mummy-will-i-get-fat-2284966.html

Getting there is another thing entirely. If you have a parent or your child has a grandparent who parades their own unhelpful opinions about weight and eating, get in touch. Visit http://www.eating-disorders.org.uk/ or email admin@ncfed.com for advice.

Children, Body Image, Eating Disorders & Sexualisation

Sexing up our children is in the news this week. One mother is reported to be buying her 7 year old "breast surgery" (to implant ping pong balls?).

In girls particularly, there is a link between early growing up, sexualisation, low self worth and eating disorders. So there you have it, there is no way to twist away from that one. Buy your child the wrong clothes or send her out to play in make up and you get what you get down the line.

My little grandgirl loves to wear my necklaces and I think it is wired into children to mimic their parents, they cuddle their teddy bears and put them to bed. This kind of play practising  is what helps them to grow up. But how do we get the balance right?  It is OK to play with our children in the park or take them out for bike rides. But when we show them that mummy "has" to go to the gym, or when we show them that "mummy isn't eating carbs today" we cross over the line. Children are like sponges, they soak in our own insecurities and our own self doubts and embody these as their own body hatred.

I have had many young people with eating disorders who find their parents' obsessions with running, workouts and exercise toxic, although they dont know it. They resent this behaviour in their parents - it sends out the wrong messages about what it is to be a relaxed human being. Because they can't admit to their resentment, they simply feel ashamed, not knowing why.

Please let your kids be kids, and, get a life. Say no to things which aren't suitable for 8 year old girls. Don't be drawn into competition with parents. Read a good book, take a walk in the rain, eat good food without dietary quirks and read the article below which says it all.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1380585/The-children-hate-bodies-How-half-year-old-girls-think-theyre-fat-parents-stop-dangerous-obsession.html#ixzz1OrujmhCJ

Worried about your child, email admin@ncfed.com or visit http://www.eating-disorders.org.uk/