From: ulrike@gmd.de (Ulrike Bauer)
Subject: Re: Anorexia Nervosa
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 14:49:08 GMT

In <1992Sep04.202040.26889@ux1.cts.eiu.edu> cfthb@ux1.cts.eiu.edu (Howard Black) writes:

>In article <1992Sep4.051103.18527@news.iastate.edu> TY.AU7@isumvs.iastate.edu (C. MARIE RIGGINS) writes:
>>I am looking for information on Anorexia Nervosa.  I have always
>>been very small and very thin, I have had several people ask me
>>if I am Anorexic and I would like to know the facts.  I know that
>>anorexics try and starve themselves, which I do not do.  I would
>>like to be able to put an end to their accusations.

>    Try looking it up in the Merck Manual.  In a nutshell, AN is thought to
>be an emotional disorder in which the victim's attempts to control their
>lives manifest as an unwillingness to eat, with a simultaneous
>self-perception of being overweight (even when they're as thin as a rail).
>    I know a few recovering anorexics, and it is a very difficult disease
>to treat (as well as to have).  My feeling is that if someone is anorexic,
>they know it (although they may exhibit amazing denial).

I had a short period being anorexic or perhaps only being on the way getting
anorexic, when I was 17. But I wasn't aware of it. I lost 15 kg in 4 months 
(from 65 kg to 50 kg weight at a height of 170 cm). My diet became more and 
more restrictive, at the end a slice of bread with cheese in the morning 
(without butter), no milk and sugar in the coffee (as it has too many kcal), 
at lunch a very small potato, a little piece of meat (I had to eat), a bit of 
vegetables (but only when they were cooked without fat - I had heavy disputs
with my mother) or a bit of salad without a sauce, in the afternoon one rusk
(but I gave a lot of biscuits to my father while I was eating the rusk) and 
in the evening one apple, that I peeled, ate the skin first, cut the peeled 
apple into very thin slices and ate them very slowly. But I liked watching 
my family eating. But I didn't recognized that my behaviour was abnormal.
I found it quite normal and I couldn't understand my parents that they 
always quarreled that I was eating too little. I found that I was eating
enough. Ok I was hungry almost all of the time, but it was better than being 
not hungry. It was a great feeling being hungry, having one thing (the food),
where I had power against my mother, getting thinner and thinner, being able
to buy children clothes. But I always denied being hungry, also to myself. 
And I always found myself still too thick.

I hope this shows you, Marie, a bit the kind of thinking anorexic people
have. There is also very good literature here in Germany, but I don't know
whether you can buy it in the US. One good book is 'The golden cage', but I
don't know the author.

It may be that there are anorexic people who know that they are anorexic, but 
I think to know this you must have the anorexia nervosa for a longer time 
and you must have been confronted with that illness.

I became aware of my eating disorders nine years later, when I became bulimic
and started psychotherapy (that was 2 1/2 years ago). This short anorexic 
period stopped with a piece of chocolate that I ate and I couldn't stop 
eating. So I gained 12 of the 15 kg in about 2 months and felt terrible.
The nine years between the beginning anorexia and the bulimia my eating 
behaviours worked. Sometimes I was eating too much, almost all the time very
little, but problems concerning my eating behaviour - NEVER! That was what 
I thought.

I will look for some literature at home and will post it in a few days.

--
Ulrike Bauer	ulrike.bauer@gmd.de	(+49 2241) 14-2437
German National Research Center for Computer Science (GMD)          -- o
Research Group for Adaptive Systems - FIT.KI.AS                   _`\<, _
Schloss Birlinghoven, P.O. Box 1316, D-5205 St. Augustin 1, FRG	 (_)/  (_)
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition