The-F-Word.org

A contact passed on this opportunity for journalists who write on eating disorders and health professionals who interact with them.  This would be a great opportunity for health professionals to harness the power of the media, while also educating them on how to report on eating disorders responsibly.

• SAMHSA ADS Center Training Teleconference: The Power of the Media and Its Impact on Mental Health Recovery: How can the mental health community work with the media to positively and more accurately portray individuals with mental health problems? To help consumers, the general public, and the media explore this question, SAMHSA ADS Center invites you to a free training teleconference entitled “The Power of the Media and Its Impact on Mental Health Recovery.” The call will be held Friday, March 26, 2010, 3:00 p.m.–4:30 p.m., (ET). To learn more and to register, visit the following page: http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/teleconferences/default.aspx. We encourage you to share this invitation with interested friends and colleagues. Please note: Registration will close at 5:00 p.m., ET, on Friday, March 19, 2010. Explore the SAMHSA ADS Center Website for more information at http://www.promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov

This month is Black History Month and this week is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, and Stephanie Armstrong addresses both in an interview on “Saturday Mornings with Joy Keys,” an interactive, live Internet talk-radio show that focuses on “providing people with tools to enrich and advance their lives mentally, physically, monetarily and emotionally.”  Stephanie  is the author of the new memoir Not All Black Girls Know How to Eat: A Story of Bulimia, in which the now 40-something, recovered, married mother of one daughter and two stepdaughters documents her descent into bulimia in her early 20s and describes her struggles as a black woman with a disorder consistently portrayed as a white woman’s disease.  The Brooklyn native also examines the “bootylicous” black woman stereotype and why the black community’s “code of silence” often leaves black women with eating disorders suffering in silence.  The work is being hailed as the first book by and among black women about eating disorders.  You may remember that Stephanie also answered the-F-word’s questions a few months ago.

Guests included Stephanie and Laurie Vanderboom, program director for the National Eating Disorders Association, which sponsors and coordinates National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.  A few interview highlights

Joy: What do you (NEDA) see when you have these programs?  Do you see a lot of African American women coming to the programs?

Laurie: We’re just beginning to and we’re just beginning to reach out.  There’s so much shame involved in an eating disorder that people hesitate to step up.  Stephanie, wouldn’t you agree that no matter what your racial make-up…

Stephanie: Absolutely, but especially coming from a culture that doesn’t support therapy, that doesn’t support getting outside help, and risking falling outside of the strong black woman archetype that we’re raised believing and have to become.  It’s hard to disassociate yourself with that image to get the help you need.

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Stephanie: One of the things I always talk about, especially in the black community, is that we don’t have an awareness of what exactly bulimia is.  It’s like you go to someone’s house and they’re drinking that dieter’s tea.  That’s bulimia.  Laxative abuse is bulimia.  Diuretic abuse is bulimia.  Compulsive exercising is bulimia.  It’s like we think it’s just throwing up, but it’s not just throwing up.

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Joy: I was talking with a professor of mine and he mentioned that psychologists don’t diagnose African American women properly with eating disorders, because they’re not used to seeing a African American woman coming to their office with this issue. Stephanie, do you feel that that’s the case?

Stephanie: Absolutely. Absolutely. I am constantly talking to women — some who are therapists, some who are young — who are constantly misdiagnosed. I’ve had doctors say, ‘Oh, you don’t have an eating disorder. African Americans don’t have eating disorders.’ I had a young woman call me yesterday – she goes to Clark Atlanta College and she’s at the American University in DC working on an exchange and she’s doing a paper in journalism and decided to do a paper on blacks and eating disorders because her aunt was bulimic and died from it. She calls me up and she said her teacher said, ‘Well, the problem is that there aren’t really that many black women with eating disorders, so that’s going to be a hard paper to do.’ It’s that overall belief that we don’t exist. (she briefly cites a rundown of research showing the prevalence of eating disorders among black women and girls, including this study) …the research is seeping in, but it’s still not getting the attention.

And it’s not just black women with eating disorders who are thought to be virtually non-existent.  Running Tiptoe recently posted a review of a recent “Intervention” episode featuring an Hispanic woman with an exercise addiction and a history of bulimia.  In her review, she offered this link to this 2006 study of “eating disturbances among Hispanic and native American youth,” in which it was found a much more significant pattern of disordered eating behaviors than previously thought.  There are more stats and studies on Hispanic women and eating disorders listed in this 2003 news report.*

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, eating disorders continue to persist in public opinion as a disease young, white girls from middle-class and wealthy backgrounds develop.  But eating disorders are the great equalizers: food is one of the few legal “drugs” out there; everyone needs it to survive;  and in industrialized nations, at least, is widely available and relatively cheap.  That, combined with the constant affirmations of weight loss as morally good and idolization of thinness saturating virtually every facet of our lives, and it’s no wonder that  those with emotional issues and unfulfilled needs might turn to food and the body to express a pain they cannot put into words.

Black girls and women with eating disorders.  Hispanic girls and women with eating disorders.  Adult women with eating disorders.  Boys and men with eating disorders.  Orthodox Jewish girls and women with eating disorders.  Poor girls and women with eating disorders.  We. All. Exist.

* For more information on eating disorders amongst non-white populations, see here.

This week marks National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (NEDAW), and so we will be posting tools/resources/tips/personal stories and more this week in support of eating disorder recovery.  To kick the week off, how about checking out and joining these supportive Facebook groups (because isn’t everyone and your grandma on Facebook?).

• Letters to My Body: Fostering body kindness and promoting stronger self-esteem; One letter at a time (check out the project’s website to read letters from others).

• 5 Resolutions to Transform the Fashion and Beauty Industries: Founded by model Magali Amadei and writer Claire Mysko, 5 Resolutions (http://5resolutions.blogspot.com) is a network for anyone who believes in promoting healthy beauty and fashion.

• Eating Disorders Coalition for Research, Policy & Action: The Eating Disorders Coalition for Research, Policy & Action promotes the recognition of eating disorders as a policy concern. This Facebook group was created so that people will know that there is hope. It is for everyone who is alarmed by the prominence and danger of eating disorders, but is unaware of what can be done to change it. We can ask our government to help create actual policies that will translate into advancing the goal of eating disorder prevention and recovery…

• Blogging for [ED] Awareness & Recovery: A group of bloggers that write specifically about eating disorders, whether a loved one has been diagnosed or you have been yourself.  This group is *NOT* for pro-ed blogs! These are strictly recovery and awareness-minded bloggers!

• I’m making fat socially acceptable and I’m not sorry:  This is a fat acceptance group. This group is for people who one day stumbled upon the truth that fat is not as bad as it is made out to be. In fact, most of the time fat isn’t bad at all – and even in the cases where it is (where is causes mobility or other issues) it isn’t being treated properly, and fat hatred is only hurting the issue…

• Dear Eating Disorder,: This is a group for those of us who suffer from an eating disorder can come and write a letter to let ED know exactly what we think of it. Whether you are recovering or recovered. Whether you are struggeling or in a good place. Whether the Eating Disorder is runining your life or the life of a friends or family members its time it should know. Tell your Eating Disorder your thoughts and feelings about it. Breakup with the Eating Disorder if you want!!!

• Start a Revolution.  Stop hating your body.: is an attempt to raise awareness about the vast array of problems that stem from body consciousness and lack of esteem including, but not limited to: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, body dysmorphic disorder, binge eating disorder, depression, and general dissatisfaction. Furthermore we acknowledge that society today has constructed a multi-billion dollar industry designed to perpetuate the desire for unattainable beauty while capitalizing on products for self-improvement. Our mission is to end corporate dominance over body esteem.

• Men Get Eating Disorders, Too: is a web and publicity campaign that aims to raise awareness of male eating disorders to enable men to get support. The site provides essential information and advice, links to support and a message board.

• Academy for Eating Disorders: The AED is a leading global professional association committed to promoting innovative eating disorders research,education, treatment and prevention.

• Eating Disorders Anonymous: For those with eating disorders looking for support OR someone with a loved one suffering and needing advice as to what to do OR supporting friends with eating disorders OR wanting to know more about eating disorders and their danger [this group’s content is public, so be forewarned that it’s not exactly “anonymous,” per se).

And, of course, be sure to join The-F-Word’s Facebook page, as well as friends of the blog: Big Fat Deal and Feed Me!. Know of any other great Facebook or MySpace groups? Give them a shout out in the comments below!

Given the blog’s focus, it’s not often that I have good news to report, so I tend to get a little giddy when the cosmos align in our collective favor. I blogged back in December, 2008 about proposed changes under consideration by the American Psychiatric Association to the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  Considered the psychiatric bible of the field, the DSM is used by doctors to make a diagnosis and provides insurance companies with diagnostic codes without which the insurers will not reimburse patients’ claims for treatment. Among the conditions up for debate included making binge eating disorder (BED) an independent diagnosis (BED is currently lumped into the vague catch-all category of ED-NOS, which encompasses those who don’t meet one or more of the criteria for anorexia or bulimia).

You’d think that a condition estimated to eclipse both anorexia and bulimia combined would be a no-brainer for inclusion, right?  You’d think wrong.  Some mental health professionals actually protested classifying BED as a disorder, suggesting it to be a “normal behavior.”  Luckily for those who suffer from decidedly abnormal binge eating behaviors, the duh truck must have finally arrived at the APA, because when they released a draft of its recommendations today, it included recognizing BED as an official independent diagnosis — read the recommended criteria for diagnosis here.  This is awesome news, for in addition to psychotherapy, there are medications that have been shown to help people with binge eating disorder (Topamax and Wellbutrin, for example). If binge eating disorder were included in the manual as a legitimate eating disorder, those people who struggle with it might have an easier time getting insurers to cover the treatment and medication they so desperately need.

The recommendation of BED as an independent diagnosis is certainly the biggest change for eating disorders in the DSM, but there are other proposals under consideration that I think are pretty fabulous, too.

Purging Disorder

The work group is considering whether it may be useful and appropriate to describe other eating problems (such as purging disorder–recurrent purging in the absence of binge eating, and night eating syndrome) as conditions that may be the focus of clinical attention. Measures of severity would be required, and these conditions might be listed in an Appendix of DSM-5. If these recommendations are accepted, the examples in Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified will be changed accordingly.

As someone who suffered from what would be considered purging disorder with anorexic tendencies and was misdiagnosed with bulimia, I’m excited to see this relatively newly-popularized condition being entertained by the panel.  Pamela Keel, an associate professor of psychology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has made great inroads in research indicating purging disorder to be a significant problem in women that is distinct from bulimia.

Anorexia

Many eating disorder activists are critical of the phrasing in the criteria for anorexia of a “refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height.”  Refusal here, being the key word as myself and others argue that it’s not so much a refusal as it is an inability.  For more on this, read Harriet Brown’s critique of the semantics.  In its draft, the APA recommended clarifying the criterion to focus instead on behaviors, acknowledging that the word “refusal” implies intention and is “possibly pejorative and difficult to assess.”  The panel also recommended deleting the criterion of amenorrhea, thus opening up the diagnosis to a broader range of sufferers, including a growing number of men reporting anorexic behaviors.

In DSM-IV, amenorrhea is required. However, individuals have been clearly described who exhibit all other symptoms and signs of Anorexia Nervosa but who report at least some menstrual activity. In addition, this criterion cannot be applied to pre-menarchal females, to females taking oral contraceptives, to post-menopausal females, or to males. However, there are some data that women who endorse amenorrhea have poorer bone health than do women who fail to meet this criterion.  Deletion of this criterion is recommended.

Bulimia

The current DSM-IV requires episodes of binge eating and inappropriate compensatory behaviors both occur on average twice a week for three months.  The panel cited a literature review that found that the clinical characteristics of individuals reporting a lower frequency of once/week were similar to those meeting the current criterion, so they recommended that the required minimum frequency be reduced to once/week over the last three months.  The bulimia diagnosis also currently includes two subtypes: purging and non-purging.  People with non-purging bulimia often try to purge calories via exercise or fasting, but do not use enemas, self-induced vomiting, laxatives, etc..  The panel found that non-purgers more  closely resembled people with BED, and so they recommended deleting this subtype altogether.

Obesity

Despite reports from the Boston Globe that the APA was considering classifying obesity a mental illness, I see nothing in the draft indicating that it would be included.  The sheer ridiculousness of such a proposal simply blows my mind and at first I thought the Globe perhaps erroneously conflated obesity with binge eating disorder, since those with BED tend to be overwhelmingly overweight or obese, but it appears as if the idea was at least introduced.  A study released last summer examined the evidence for making obesity a mental disorder and found it significantly lacking, acknowledging only “evidence that obesity is related to mental disorder and many of the medications used to treat psychiatric illness.”  Considering that the latter evidence has been around since the 1990s, the study basically only confirmed the obvious.

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Before we pop the cork on the champagne, keep in mind that this is only a draft, and is subject to change and that’s where you come in.  In a new twist for the APA, the organization has posted the draft online and is seeking feedback via the Internet from both psychiatrists and the general public about whether the changes will be helpful before finalizing them.  The draft manual, posted at www.DSM5.org, is up for public debate through April.  The final version is expected to be released in 2013.

A new study of 1,000 American girls between the ages of 13-17 by the Girl Scouts finds that 9 out of 10 girls say they feel pressure from the media and/or fashion industry to be skinny.  More than 80 percent of the girls polled said they’d rather see natural photos of models than digitally enhanced or altered photos.

Specialists calculate life expectancy for people with anorexia to be 25 years shorter than average.  Patients who recover however, may expect full lifespans.

A Chicago mom and grandmother shares her story of finally overcoming anorexia after 25 years of battling the disorder.

Remember the mental health parity law that passed in 2008? The The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury jointly issued new rules this week governing the law.

The Website Realself.com tracked cosmetic surgery trends by region and even city with some surprising results.

New “groundbreaking” study shows abnormal brain function in people with body dysmorphic disorder.

Eve Ensler: Girl power can save the world.

The New York Times reviews Michael Pollan’s new book, “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.”

You remember the case of the otherwise happy and healthy Colorado four-month-old denied health insurance for the “pre-existing condition” of obesity, right?  The general reaction was one of rightful outrage, and the resulting backlash soon forced the insurance company to capitulate and change its policy on babies that are healthy but fat.

Rocky Mountain Health Plans’ denial of coverage to baby Alex is but symptomatic of a shift in the focus on childhood obesity to to direct anti-obesity fearmongering onto chubby babies — see here, here and here.  Perhaps its this growing hysteria on whether chubby babies turn into fat adults that contributed to a Washington couple deliberately starving their infant baby and toddler daughter and feeding the baby laxatives in an effort to force her to lose weight.  Brittainy and Samuel Labberton have been charged with third-degree criminal mistreatment, a felony, and are scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.  Neither is in custody.

According to local news reports (here and here), it would appear as if Brittainy certainly suffers from severe mental health issues, quite possibly including an eating disorder.  The baby was born in August, 2008 after Brittainy was induced at 38 weeks due to poor in utero weight gain, weighing 5 pounds, 4 ounces at birth.  Court filings note that Brittainy was then diagnosed with postpartum depression with psychotic tendencies and that she had stopped taking medication for this shortly after the birth.  A year later, when contacted by police, the 21-year-old mother “appeared emaciated,” said police detectives (I don’t want to give specifics here, but her reported height and weight indicates a BMI of 15, which is severely underweight).  Because of the baby’s low birth weight, doctors told the Labbertons that she needed to be fed every few hours.  The baby was hospitalized two months later after failing to gain sufficient weight.  When questioned by hospital staff, the couple insisted the baby was just “fussy and threw up her food,” yet she thrived while hospitalized and began putting on weight.  When told of her child’s progress, Brittainy was not pleased, said Senior Deputy Prosecutor Carol Spoor.

“Instead, Brittainy complained, ‘Oh my God she’s fat’ and ‘I have a fat baby,’” Spoor stated, recounting the December 2008 interview. “Brittainy insisted that (the girl) should be under the 50th percentile in weight, not over it.

“She indicated that her husband has a weight problem and she does not want her girls to be fat.”

Child welfare workers pulled the girl from the home.  Despite the admitted and remorseless neglect of their baby daughter, court social services didn’t move to take immediate custody of their toddler daughter until a day later and only because Brittainy said she felt she would kill herself and the child. According to court reports, when the older girl arrived at the foster home, she was “ravenously hungry” and eating so fast that she nearly choked on her food.  The couple were nonetheless allowed to see the baby three times a week in presumably unsupervised visits.  Shockingly, police were not notified of the baby’s neglect until seven months later when the baby’s foster parents noticed a “fishy smell” from her bottle following a visit with her parents.  Testing revealed the contents to most likely be laxatives.  In an interview with police:

“Brittainy expressed no remorse for not feeding the baby and admitted to hardly feeding (the infant) for many days,” Spoor said. “She also indicated she wanted to have 12 children.”

…Brittainy Labberton described her daughter as “very fat and overfed,” [Bellevue police Detective Ellen] Inman said. The detective added that the woman believed her daughter was much healthier before she was pulled from the home.

Samuel Labberton, 24, complained to detectives that his 9-month-old daughter had “gained so much weight that now she is fat,” according to court documents. He remained convinced he and his wife had behaved appropriately.  “Samuel told me that he would not change anything if he could go back,” Inman said. “He does not believe that he and Brittainy did anything wrong.”

The public outrage and anger is palpable and you can imagine the kinds of hate-laced comments and arguments for forced sterilization lobbed the couples’ way (and disproportionately at the mother, I might add).  To some degree, it’s understandable. It’s a natural knee-jerk reaction to get angry at hearing of society’s most vulnerable being hurt and abused.  What seems to be lacking however, is the consideration of (and compassion for) possible mental health issues at play here on behalf of the mother and quite possibly even the father.  Do the Labbertons deserve jail time?  Perhaps, although justice may better be served all around if that sentence also carries with it mental health counseling and treatment.  But just as it takes a village to raise a child, it’s that same village that will lead those children to burn it down.  We need to collectively ask ourselves the kind of culture we’re fostering when parents would rather kill their child than see it be fat.

I love me some Whole Foods’ vegan General Tso’s chicken, but I seem to have lost my appetite after reading that Whole Foods is discriminating against its fat employees by offering their thinner coworkers as much as a 10 percent additional employee discount.  Jezebel has the scoop.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey explains the program in a letter, reproduced below. Apparently it’s part of an initiative to reduce health care costs, which is interesting since Mackey is against the health care reforms that would actually reduce costs for all people.

Note that Mackey knows BMI isn’t a perfect measure of health, but at least it’s cheap! Even more fun, though, is the poster for the new Healthy Discount program, breaking down exactly what BMI range his minions need in order to get various discounts on his Tofu Pups.

If your BMI is above 30, you’ll get to keep the original 20% employee discount, but you’ll paying more than your thinner co-workers, who can knock as much as 30% off. Because if public health research has taught us anything, it’s that reducing people’s buying power totally makes them healthier. Stay classy, Whole Foods.

(copies of the announcements are available after the jump)

To put this into perspective: to receive the maximum 30 percent employee platinum discount, a 5-foot-4-inch Whole Foods employee would have to weigh less than 140-pounds and a 6-foot employee less than 177-pounds.  That is, of course, assuming they also meet the attendant platinum levels cholesterol, smoking and blood pressure requirements.  And because this is all in the name of health, say that same 5-foot-4-inch employee meets all the cholesterol, smoking and blood pressure requirements of the platinum level but they weigh 175-pounds, which means that they have a BMI of 30.  Their added discount?  Nada.

Whole Foods is careful to point out that they’re not penalizing employees who do not participate or who do not meet their admittedly “imperfect” bio-markers for health — all employees will keep their basic 20 percent discount — but, in effect, they are penalizing these workers by selectively rewarding those who hand over their private medical files and meet incentive requirements.  Whole Foods CEO John Mackey cites an attempt to curb rising health care costs as the impetus for the program, but do the ends justify the means?  Ironically, the company’s plan to slenderize employees by dangling before them an organic carrot may actually work to increase health premiums in the long run.  Remember that many an eating disorder begins as a simple diet and desire to “eat healthy.”  Now consider that eating disorders alone cost U.S. companies about $3.8 billion a year in lost productivity.

By rewarding a BMI of 24 — a full point below what is considered the benchmark of “overweight” — Whole Foods is not-so-subtly indicating its preference that a lower BMI is better and ideal, thus contributing to an atmosphere in which employees who do not meet this standards are made to feel ostracized and targeted.  These blanket standards also ignore genetic, gender, age and ethnic differences across groups, thereby directing this sense of corporate hostility, however passive, toward those employees who may already be among the most vulnerable in the workplace: minorities, women and senior citizens.  Would we tolerate this kind of “incentive” if it were directed at other groups of workers?  Consider this: in at least half the states, marital status isn’t a condition protected by state or federal anti-discrimination laws.  Many other states, like Ohio, are “at-will” employment states, meaning that workers can be fired without just cause (so long as its not based on unlawful discrimination, which even then must be proven).  Whole Foods could also save a lot of money both in terms of productivity and health care costs if they offered similar incentives to employees who make the “lifestyle choice” to remain single, childless or who limit their family sizes to a number that’s more cost-effective for the company’s bottom line.

Absurd!, you gasp.  Unfair!  A person’s marital or parental status has nothing to do with their work performance!

Exactly.

Read the rest of this entry »

An Examined Life will continue this week, but I wanted to bring to your attention a very important matter with political implications for all Americans.  Last week the Supreme Court effectively deregulated the American electoral process by striking down a century-old ban against corporate spending directly on political campaigns in federal elections.  With that 5-4 decision, the court, in essence, has transformed the highest offices of the land into an auction to be controlled by the likes of Exxon, Big Pharma and Wal-Mart.  The ramifications of the decision cannot be overstated.  As the New York Times sums up in its excellent editorial:

As a result of Thursday’s ruling, corporations have been unleashed from the longstanding ban against their spending directly on political campaigns and will be free to spend as much money as they want to elect and defeat candidates. If a member of Congress tries to stand up to a wealthy special interest, its lobbyists can credibly threaten: We’ll spend whatever it takes to defeat you.

…The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.

This decision touches upon nearly every facet of Americans’ lives, but in particular for readers here, it has the potential to affect causes near and dear to our hearts.  A quick rundown of what may loom in the near future:

• Corporations like Johnson & Johnson, who have huge and multiple stakes in the weight-loss industry, have long fought to fight to have obesity classified as a disease, for if obesity is a disease or a mental illness, government and private insurance will be forced to cover products and treatments for its treatment.  Groups like the American Obesity Association–which is supported by the pharmaceutical industry and commercial diet-mongers like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig and also advocates obesity to be classified as a disease–have gone so far as to argue for “fat taxes” to be leveraged against fat Americans.  In 2008, Johnson & Johnson alone posted annual sales of $63.7 billion.  If the company directed less than 3 percent of those earnings to political lobbying, they will have spent more than the combined 2008 presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain — which in itself was more than double the amount spent by both candidates in the 2004 election.* With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before corporate interests masquerading in doctor’s smocks are allowed to dictate treatments and taxes that support only their bottom line ?

• Proposals have already been made to develop and adopt national standards for company-run “wellness plans” with tax incentives and credits given to companies based on whether or not their employees meet “wellness objectives” such as weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels and other arbitrary levels of health as defined by people with no otherwise right to peek into your medical file.  Corporations, of course, like this proposal because it offers them a relatively inexpensive return on investment — simply adopt a government approved wellness plan and then either not hire or fire those employees who don’t meet the new government health standards.  With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before corporations lobby their candidates of choice to make this proposal the law of the land?
• Last year, Congress finally passed H.R. 1424, which among other things provides equity in the coverage of mental health and substance use disorders by ensuring that group health care plans do not charge higher co-payments, coinsurance, deductibles, and impose maximum out-of-pocket limits and lower day and visit limits (provided that they offer mental health coverage).  The bill is set to take effect this October.  With the court’s overturn on corporate electoral spending, how long before Big Health Insurance Corporations lobby Congress to enact laws and amendments that erode at this coverage

In response to the ruling, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fl) has filed five campaign six campaign finance bills to secure the people’s “right to clean government.”   The bills have names like the Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act and the Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act. The first slaps a 500 percent excise tax on corporate spending on elections, and the second mandates businesses to disclose their attempts to influence elections. More details are available on the congressman’s Web site.  Grayson’s also created an online petition to support these bills moving forward and becoming law.  I urge you to lend your support in rescuing democracy.

* The candidates spent a combined $1.7 billion in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, according to Bloomberg.

Continuing our series, “An Examined Life,” comes Kate Le Page’s account of her recovery from anorexia.  Kate recently published her memoir, Goodbye Ana, and has set up an anorexia and depression recovery site at anorexiarecovery.webs.com.

Kate writes:

I am Kate, 31 and in recovery from anorexia. My experience of seeking treatment has taught me that often you have to fight the system and keep persisting until your voice is heard.

I first sought treatment for anorexia when I was in the early staged of the illness, aged 17, back in 1995. My family doctor weighed me and put me on a course of antidepressants. He told me that even Princess Diana had an eating disorder and implied that it was simply a phase. I felt like a fraud as I’d gone there hoping for help with my eating disorder and received nothing but medication.  Over a period of a year I saw my doctor monthly to be weighed and each time my medication was either increased or switched. Unsurprisingly, the medication had little or no impact on my illness. Eventually I was misdiagnosed again, this time with Chronic Fatigue and referred to a specialist who gave me yet more medication and put me on a graduated exercise programme to rebuild my strength. Looking back it is rather ironic that the very treatment of exercise was prescribed to an anorexic and years later my exercise addiction landed me in the EDU!

In 1997, whilst at university, I stopped eating and saw a doctor who decided the best thing for me to do was go back on medication. It wasn’t until 1998 that my doctor back home finally diagnosed me with anorexia. Even with this diagnosis I was unbelievably prescribed another medication which actually made me so wired that I completely lost what little appetite I had left and made me lose more weight.  I received counselling at university but this did not help much as she had very limited experience of the illness. My university doctor referred me to a nurse at the clinic for support (who i was supposed to see weekly) and the rather intimidating receptionist said that the earliest appointment was 6 weeks. I felt totally fed up and told her to leave it. Several month later I was referred to the local hospital’s Eating Disorder Service. Again, this was only a monthly 15 minute chat with a dietician so had virtually no impact on my illness.

Years went on and although by this point my eating disorder had become more severely entrenched I was very wary of seeking further treatment.

Read the rest of this entry »

You may remember guest-blogger Kara (a.k.a. Filmi Girl) from her great post on the whittling waistlines of Bollywood actresses.  Now she’s back with a guest post on the body image struggles inherent in the popular Twilight series, specifically Bella’s desire to rid herself of her human body and the disturbing descriptions of physical sensations and appetite.  I’ve read a lot of feminist critiques on the Twilight series, mostly concerning the books’ not-so-subtle messages of abstinence and the unbalanced relationship dynamic between the main characters, but Filmi Girl’s is a new take I haven’t yet seen before.  It is, to say the least, food for thought.

Filmi Girl writes:

Imagine you’re reading a story about a girl starting over a new high school. As she enters the cafeteria, her eyes are drawn towards a certain group of kids – all physical perfection and effortless cool.

“They weren’t talking, and they weren’t eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them…As I watched, the small girl rose with her tray – unopened soda, unbitten apple – and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway.” (Twilight, p. 18-19)

To me, this doesn’t say ‘vampire’ as much as ‘pro-ana.’

While I don’t think that Stephenie Meyer, author of The Twilight Saga, was deliberately encouraging young women make an unopened soda and unbitten apple their lunch of choice, the scene is an early indicator of the twisted relationship with appetite that runs through the whole series. There are plenty of disturbing facets to The Twilight Saga, from Edward’s abusive behavior towards Bella and the imprinting which seems more like child grooming, that have been looked at in depth but I haven’t seen much on appetite – or rather, Bella’s desire to rid herself of her appetites.

For those gentle readers unfamiliar with the tragic tale of Bella Swan, resident of Forks, Washington, let me give you a crash course. Bella, age 17, moves to Forks, Washington at the beginning of Twilight. At her new high school, she meets and develops a crush on a mysterious student – a student who finds being around her intolerable and yet won’t leave her alone: (the pale Adonis) Edward Cullen. In a fit of self-loathing, Edward reveals his true self to her. He takes off his shirt in a patch of sunlight, his chest sparkling with the glittery skin of a Meyer-verse vampire. But while Edward is a predator, built to feed on the human race, he has adopted a lifestyle referred to as “vegetarianism.” Edward only eats non-human animals and compares the experience to a human living on tofu, keeping their hunger at bay but never being fully satisfied (this is Meyer’s take on vegetarianism, not mine). Bella gradually moves into his world, getting to know his “family” of like-minded vampires (the Cullens), until one day she catches the attention of a particularly vicious vampire named James who is moving through the Cullen territory and decides to make a meal of her. Bella flees to Phoenix under the protection of Cullens but despite their best efforts, is still captured by James. Edward and his family rescue her and kill James but not before James has a chance to deliver a giant bite to her arm, that will kill her. Edward bravely sucks out the vampire “venom,” knowing that he will kill her if he cannot stop himself in time. He does. Bella lives and returns to Forks, still infatuated with Edward.

In the second book, New Moon, Edward leaves Bella – telling her that he no longer loves her – and Bella works her way into a deep depression. She emerges from it with the help of her good friend Jacob Black, a Quileute Indian boy who lives on the local reservation. Jacob and Bella develop a genuine friendship, although it’s hinted that Jacob feels something more, but are interrupted from furthering their relationship by Edward, who under the false assumption that Bella has died, is going to kill himself by provoking the Volturi, a sect of vampire nobles – the vampire drama queen equivalent of “suicide by cop.” Bella, still feeling the pull of obsession towards Edward, goes to stop him. Edward is saved and reveals that he had left Bella for her own good and that he never stopped loving her. Bella forgives him and returns to Forks with Edward. Jacob isn’t so quick to forget and vows that he will not let her throw her life away. Eclipse, the third book, follows the love triangle and Bella’s desperate attempts to become a vampire, which at times sound chillingly like preparations for suicide. At the end of Eclipse, Bella discovers she loves both men – but Edward more and ends with Bella still human but engaged to be married to him.

Perhaps it takes someone who has struggled with her own appetites to view Bella’s quest for vampire-hood (if that is the correct term) in quite this way. Vampire stories have traditionally mined crevices of human desire that are not socially acceptable, substituting blood lust for passions unnamed, such as homosexual desire (Carmilla, 1872) or, more recently, general teenage restlessness and ennui (The Lost Boys, 1987). But the Meyer-verse vampires Bella is infatuated with actively battle their own unacceptable hungers – living off of non-human animals instead of allowing themselves to be physically satisfied. The life of a Cullen is filled with self-deprivation. As Edward himself says, “I can’t be sure, of course, but I’d compare it to living on tofu and soy milk; we call ourselves vegetarians, our own little inside joke. It doesn’t completely satiate the hunger – or rather thirst. But it keeps us strong enough to resist. Most of the time.” (Twilight, p. 188)

Leaving aside Meyer’s views on vegetarianism, we are clearly meant to find Edward’s heroic resistance to his own physiology to be admirable. It is never suggested that the Cullens could eat donated human blood, either from willing victims or from the hospital. Human blood is a forbidden food. And Edward’s morbid pull towards Bella seems, at times, less like romance and more like a dieter eyeballing a particularly delicious slice of cake. He gets a perverse satisfaction from abstaining. “‘Just because I’m resisting the wine doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the bouquet,’ he whispered. ‘You have a very floral smell, like lavender… or freesia,’ he noted. ‘It’s mouthwatering.’” (Twilight, p. 306)

And Edward’s thirst appears to be his only physical desire. All evidence in The Twilight Saga points to Edward being a 100+ year old virgin. Bella is the one pushing their sexual relationship and Edward keeps her from pushing too far. In Eclipse, Edward does initiate some sexual touching with Bella but it is only as prelude to his marriage proposal and he gets more aroused by the sight of Bella wearing his engagement ring (although Bella feels it weighing heavily on her hand) than by Bella herself. Edward is master of his physical desires – more superego than vampire.

Bella is constantly comparing herself to Edward and finding herself lacking. She is uncomfortable in her own body, a feeling extremely familiar to this former 17-year old girl. It’s made more painful to the reader because everything is written from Bella’s point-of-view. In the first book, especially, the reader is treated to endless descriptions of Edward’s physical beauty contrasted with Bella’s self-loathing descriptions of her own clumsiness or her plainness or her fragile human body. Edward is described as a statue of Adonis come to life – cold and hard to the touch, but physically perfect. Bella wants nothing more than to be just like him. She is already asking to be turned into a vampire by the end of Twilight and Eclipse has her begging and pleading with Edward to perform the deed.

Through the course of the three books, Bella tries and tries to rid herself of her human desires. She rarely eats. Although she cooks dinner for her father, she doesn’t take any enjoyment in it – it’s a duty and one she dispatches with little thought. In one memorable scene, to me at least, her father takes her out for a celebratory dinner and not only is Bella ungrateful for the gesture, she doesn’t actually eat her food. She waits until her father isn’t looking and then tucks bits of her hamburger into her napkin. Perhaps she is unconsciously echoing Edward, who spends his time at the school cafeteria doing exactly the same thing. She is not yet a vampire but is already abstaining from food and physical pleasure.

Bella’s sexual desires are another thing she is made to feel ashamed of. While the supposed erotic chastity is a big selling point, I never saw it. Instead a mutual desire to take things slow, Edward withholds his physical affections. He explains to Bella that he might devour her if he allowed himself to go too far but that doesn’t stop Edward from chastising Bella for wanting to explore her sexual drive. In one particularly vile scene in Eclipse, Edward snuggles up to her on a giant bed only to pull away when she begins to reciprocate he tells her, “I was just trying to illustrate the benefits of the bed you don’t seem to like. Don’t get carried away.” The benefits of the bed being only available after marriage, which she does not want.

This shaming of Bella just makes New Moon, in which the character of Jacob Black takes the forefront in the narrative, more frustrating, as the book shows the reader what Bella would be like free from the influence of Edward. The chapters of New Moon are filled with food and physical pleasures. Bella eats muffins and enjoys an outdoor spaghetti party. Bella holds hands with Jacob and accepts warm and friendly bear hugs. She goes hiking with Jacob and walks. Edward would literally carry her when they went places. Under the calming influence of Jacob, Bella begins interacting with her school friends and the pages of New Moon show a Bella much more sympathetic and human than in any other book in the series. The tragedy of The Twilight Saga is that the promise of this Bella, who grows up and accepts herself, is thrown away as soon as Edward enters back into the picture.

The final scenes of Eclipse show Bella having a vision of her happy, human life with Jacob. She turns it down in favor of a life of constraint and prohibition with Edward. Bella will never be full again.