Food for Thought

I have always had a strange relationship with food. Dont get me wrong, I love to eat and you cant bet a good curry or Sunday Roast. But as much as I love to eat I have always had a fear of getting fat. This fear weighed so heavy on my mind and consumed so much of my thoughts (sorry about the puns) that some years ago I developed an eating disorder. My bulimia was never full blown as I always managed to exhibit some degree of self control. I would rarely binge and could go for several days without vomiting. But when it was bad I would purge several times a week, skip meals, go on long runs to burn calories and smoke heavily to surpress my appitite.

This carried on for many months and the weight fell off. Soon I was down to below 8 stone. I had little body fat and my skin was pulled tight across my frame. The fun of thin soon wore off when I discovered I had no energy for anything, cound not concentrate and suffered terrible headaches. As a result my social life and University work suffered. I needed help but was not willing to admit that I had a problem. My idea for salvation was to go to my Doctors. They would find out that I had an eating disorder, I would own up and all would be solved. This did not prove that easy. Of the five GPs I saw three put my weight loss down to stress and one sent me for a HIV test as he associated weight loss and gay men with AIDS. Only asked enough probing questions for me to admit my problem. I was not serious enough to need hospitalisation but did need to see my GP for regular blood tests and with her help and that of a Dietician I was soon on the road to recovery.

I have not made my self vomint for over two years now and am happy with my weight but I still think about how bad it could have got and how easy I could have slipped un-noticed from the Doctors attention. It turns out that during their five years of training they only recieve a few hours on eating disorders and the main focus of this is teenage girls. It is now thought that 15-20% of all people with eating disorders are men and the number is growing. Actor Dennis Quaid recently admitted to suffering from "manorexia" after losing weight for a film role during the 1990's. The problem is on the increase and often goes un-noticed but help is needed. If you think a friend may have an eating disorder talk to them and try to get them to seek help. http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/