Maybe it's vanity run wild. A wish that backfires. At some point, it's no longer about eating. It's not even about bingeing and purging.
In the end, it's about life and death. For people with eating disorders and the people close to them, the disease pervades every aspect of their lives.
I know, because someone very close to me suffers from bulimia. I've watched an energetic, round-faced teenager waste away to a weary, skeletal
twentysomething. Heavy makeup can't hide the dark circles under her eyes from weight loss, and her clothes can't disguise the fact that underneath them she is skin and bones - no muscle, no fat.
Imagine that someone you know has cancer and you don't know if your friend or loved one is going to survive. It's that serious.
If untreated, people with eating disorders can die - not just from starvation but from the punishing physical abuse that they subject themselves to.
Abusing laxatives can ravage your system. Your teeth become eroded from the acid in vomit. If you repeatedly throw up your food, you can tear your esophagus. In time, your salivary glands become enlarged because of increased salivation from vomiting. As a result, your face swells. Worse yet, if you aspirate food into your lungs, it can be fatal.
In the case that touches me personally, a young woman has been battling this life-threatening disease for four frustrating years. I know what it's like for someone to want to recover so badly that she will try anything.
There have been times when I and other friends, thinking we might lose her for good, have comforted each other in crying sessions. Other times, I've wanted to wring her neck for doing this to her body - and to us.
And with all these emotions colliding, a controversial new treatment makes headlines. Some recent studies suggest that eating disorders are not something people "do" to themselves. That, depending on their biochemical makeup, some people may actually have a propensity for binge-eating.
In other words, the eating disorder may not be their fault. Furthermore, evidence suggests that some bulimics can lose their desire to binge and purge simply by altering their diet and eating certain foods to balance these biochemicals.
The new treatment gives people with eating disorders and those close to them a chance to enjoy normal lives. While doctors disagree about whether the biochemical treatment works, it has had very quick and lasting effects on some patients.
