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Dangers of Making too big a Meal of Eating Disorde
by Malcolm Evans
www.weightfoundation.com
Eating Disorders are undoubtedly horrid and quite often
life-threatening but pushing too many problem eaters and
hardcore dieters towards definitive Eating Disorder status
may be causing harm.
There is the beginning of an Eating Disorders bandwagon on a
dangerous roll.
Problem eaters and dieters are being placed into medical
categorizations, limiting abilities for self-help and recovery.
Exaggerated claims about the extent of eating disorders,
born of over-zealous diagnoses, are fanning the flames of
food distress; let it be clear, though, that this is not
pointing a finger at mainstream advocacy and support groups.
Yet becoming quite commonplace are predictions that 30-50%
of women will experience an eating disorder at some stage
within their lifetime.
The author does not for one minute believe that up to half
of women will suffer an eating disorder. But what isolated
individuals believe matters not at all; if people expect
themselves to be at risk in such contexts, then risk
automatically increases and if that risk is quasi-medical,
it assumes a certain inevitability.
This is pathologizing on a grand scale ~ the categorization
of problems or conditions into diseases. Once issues have
become concretized like this, the focus of remedy changes.
It goes from being voluntary habit change to becoming
treatment only by expert third parties.
Beyond this there is a credibility issue. It is incredibly
easy to be condemned as reactionary or uncaring when
criticizing the voices of any minority. However, history
shows that any overstatement or inaccuracy risks damaging
the core cause. One only needs to look back at the Gay
Rights movement of the 1970's and 1980's to remember how
perhaps over-enthusiastic estimates of the population's gay
percentage led to opponents shifting the field of argument.
With this one area of accuracy challenged, the otherwise
overpowering case for equality and decency was less clearly
advanced.
Until recently, definitions of Eating Disorders have
generally comprised Anorexia and Bulimia. Whilst there are
various earlier references to self-starvation, particularly
amongst young women, going back in to classical antiquity,
it was not until the latter part of the 19th Century that a
medical typology of Anorexia was constructed. Bulimia was
first formally noted at the end of the 1970's.
The research community has for some time been provisionally
exploring 'Binge Eating Disorder' to capture the notion of
repeated and out of control overeating. BED as a concept is
ring-fenced with a considerable array of necessary
behaviors, anxieties and obsessions to differentiate it from
lesser overeating.
Despite the cautious progress of researchers in testing the
boundaries, there is a less sophisticated eating disorders
bandwagon creating a disruptive momentum. As ever in all
matters eating problem related, the media is an avid
recipient, presenter and sometimes creator of sensationalism.
Individual issues of self-image anxieties, overeating,
continual dieting and obesity worries are being conflated
into broad ranging and quasi-medical identities.
This is not in any way to downplay the dangers and distress
caused by full-blown eating disorders, serious binge eating
included. But people can exercise far more control over what
is personal and cultural than they can over what is seen as
endemic and medical. Wherever the serious debate finally
settles with some certainty in these areas, it is absolutely
clear that there is too much hype seeping in at present.
The more that people are over-hastily pushed down the road
of disease labeling, the lower their chances of establishing
and maintaining a natural and relaxed relationship with food.
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