Wednesday, December 13, 2006

• YOU MIGHT HAVE AN EATING DISORDER IF...

  *this was actually a letter to the editor from http://www.wweek.com/*

  So, let me get this straight: Brett Schneider eats 30 percent fewer calories than dieticians recommend, spends thousands of dollars a year on vitamins to fill the nutritional gaps of his starvation diet, frequently doesn't eat anything all day, feels cold from lack of body fat, and once got so thin he 'looked like a Holocaust survivor' ['Starving to Live,' WW, Nov. 22, 2006]. Yet he claims he does not have an eating disorder.

  Um, what?!? I'm no expert on 'Calorie Restriction' as described by Schneider, but as someone recovering from an eating disorder, I sure as hell know anorexia when I see it.

  Since Schneider seems confused about it, let's clarify. If your skin is jaundiced from a disproportionate amount of beta-carotene, you might have an eating disorder. If you eat the same things every day, preventing your body from naturally balancing vitamins and minerals, you might have an eating disorder. If you follow dietary advice from someone with no medical training, who nonetheless profits financially from the sale of diet books, you might have an eating disorder. If you claim that 'food is such a small part' of your life, and yet you maintain charts, graphs, and computer-generated records of every calorie you eat, you really might have an eating disorder. But if you do all of these things, you absolutely do have an eating disorder.

  Let's be clear: There's no such thing as 'healthy' starvation. If Schneider wants to starve himself, fine. But it is unethical to proselytize something that can be deadly. Shame on him.

  • 12:25 PM
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