Columnist speaks her own anorexia

Hadley Freeman, a columnist wrote an interesting article about eating disorder, which had suffered her for several years, on the Guardian.

The Guardian: I had anorexia – but not because I wanted to look like a fashion model

In this article, she mentioned the bill going to be authorized in France to ban skinny models from the fashion industry. As she wrote, this kind of attempts is also seen in other several countries.

It is likely that some advertisement ignites the desire of girls to be slim. And some models are eager to have an extraordinary body for survival in this industry, for an extreme figure attracts the public attention. Therefore, a certain regulation will be beneficial to keep the models and the consumers healthy.

Although agreeing with the bill itself, she made a question to the idea as if anorexia nervosa was a maladaptive habit. She warned that they would ignore the pathology of anorexia as a medical disease.

She told that she stopped eating because she had felt unhappy, not wanted to be a fashion model. This idea is quite suggestive. As she referred the words of Dr. Sigman, many patients with anorexia have a fear to be matured, and hesitate to change from a girl to a woman.

To be honest, I hardly understand the sense of them to reject delicious pork bowl. But it so are the patients too. In my experience, most patients realize that they have to eat more at the first interview. Nonetheless, they cannot eat, and they are not sure why their body refuses the food. Some patients sense that their body condition altered at a certain point.

Considering their feeling, the process of anorexia has a turning point. In many cases, they started to restrict the intake without serious intention. However, continuous shortage of nutrition may distract the homeostasis of the body, and perhaps influence to their cognitive function as well. Beyond this turning point, the patients can no more control upon their appetite and eating habit.

My past entry: Controversies in eating disorders

My past entry: New guideline for eating disorder in Australia

Indeed, anorexia is a disease hard to understand. Therapeutic strategy is yet to be established in spite of some progress. In Japan, there are few hospitals accepting anorexic patients both because of technical and financial problems. The situation looks similar in foreign countries. Poor funding against the treatment of eating disorder attributes to the misunderstanding to this disease, I think.

The Guardian: Child anorexia: is 'size-zero culture' really to blame?

As Dr. Sigman says, men avoid skinny women at the intuition level, I think. Once I heard that popular model women in the sex industry had larger body weight than other models. It suggests that too slim women cannot attract men's sexual instinct, because malnutritional women are unlikely to get pregnant.

Anyway, the cause of anorexia cannot be simplified. The efficacy of the approach through psychopathology is limited. Biological studies with animals can potentially contribute to the explication of this complicated disease.