I read an article recently about a vegan family who starved their kids
(one died):

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-05-10/news/diet-from-hell/


I got to thinking about how very obsessed with food our culture is and
how even though that example above is very extreme, disordered eating
isnt as uncommon as one might think. 

That article kind of reminded me of a family I knew growing up. The
mother  had what in retrospect was a very obvious eating disorder
(anorexia nervosa). She cooked foods similar to Sindi which is an ok
diet for adults but might not contain enough protein and fat for
children. She also would really limit the quantity of food the children
were allowed to eat. I suspect that the only reason the children didnt
suffer serious malnutrition was that the father of the family wasnt
really on board with the mother and would give the kids extra food when
his wife wasnt looking. Usually it was more of the same vegan food the
mother prepared but he was known to take the kids out for burgers and
ice cream too. 

I, myself, am prone to disordered eating only in my case, I overeat. A
disordered pattern of eating that is even more common than undereating
but probably less dangerous. 

Anyways, I thought this conference might be a good place for a
discussion about eating habits and disordered eating. Do any of you guys
ever struggle with disordered eating?  

9 responses total.

Oh yeah. I tend towards the over-eating portion, though I'm trying to be
better about it. There's also something to be said about problem
'comfort foods.' Though I know I disagree with you on how dangerous
overeating is.

Oh sure I struggle with it....food is incredibly tied to emotion for 
me, both good and bad emotion.

I totally struggle with it.  I love to eat.  I'm not sure it's so much 
tied to emotion though.  I pretty much can eat anytime anywhere.  I 
don't have a switch.  I have to mentally program myself to turn it off, 
which is hard.

Fortunately, most of the time I like exercise too, so right now I'm 
maintaining a mostly health weight, but it's a life struggle for me for 
sure.

I don't necessarily tend toward overeating, but I have a problem in the 
*quality* of the food. I eat junk food, at any time of the day/evening. 
I seldom get any of the necessary nutrients from fruits or vegetables. 
I just have extremely poor eating habits that I'm trying diligently to 
change (with mixed results).

The Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman wrote an article in the early 90s
in which she took the position that food had become a religion for many
Americans.

Temples abound, especially for women with excess time and money, who go to
"spas" to learn to eat and cook, and to lose weight. 
 
It also has its high priests (for example, Nathan Pritikin and Dean Ornish
for the low/no fat sect, Adkins for the high protein sect) and some strange
offshoots (the raw foodists are vegans who do not cook anything, and the
subsect of raw foodists called living foodists have special ways of
soaking/sprouting foods before they consume them).  

I think that most Americans today have some sort of issue with food.  If they
don't recognize it as a personal emotional issue, they often externalize the
anxiety to diet and fitness gurus who tell them which commandments to follow
in order to achieve heaven at a later time. 

Keeping dietary laws is supposed to bring you (current) happiness, and future
heavenly rewards (no cancer, no heart disease, no diabetes).  

I have a  friend who belongs to the low-fat sect.  Not only does he trim every
visible bit of skin or fat from the chicken he eats, he will not use dairy
products with fat in them.  So he consumes artificial sour cream, and
artificial cheese, full of chemicals and additives that *I* wouldn't begin
to put in my mouth.  

He implores me to stop using butter, with heartfelt pleas and data that
"prove" I won't get to heaven if I keep on my sinful path.  

For me, the single most important change I made from how my parents treated
me was not to insist that every bite of food be eaten if it were on the plate.
Instead of "we paid for it, you're going to eat it" I tried "We paid for it,
we can now do anything we want with it, including leaving it behind and
throwing it away."  

And I do try to say something low-key if I hear a parent bribe or punish a
kid with food.  

Interesting question, slynne.

I think that is it in a nutshell. People often look at eating as a sort 
of religion. Americans certainly treat eating habits as a moral issue 
which combined with a confusion about the causes of obesity certainly 
adds up to some rigid rules about food. 

The family in the article in #0 is a perfect example of that. The 
mother is even quoted as saying that one of the reasons they were 
limiting the food intake of their children so severely was because they 
wanted to make sure they didnt have a fat child. 

From a recent Discovery Channel article about foodways in Pompeii

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/06/18/pompeiifood_arc.html?category=ar
chaeology&guid=20070618153030

"June 18, 2007   

According to archaeologist Penelope Allison of the University of
Leicester:

"In many parts of the western world today, a popular belief exists that
family members should sit down and dine together and, if they don't,
this may represent a breakdown of the family structure, but that idea
did not originate in ancient Rome," she told Discovery News.

Her claims are based both on what she did not find during the
excavation, and what she did.

Allison noticed an unusual lack of tableware and formal dining or
kitchen areas within the Pompeii homes. Instead she found isolated
plates here and there, such as in sleeping quarters.

"Similar to how children today bring a plate of food to their rooms
before watching TV or playing on the computer, my guess is that Roman
youths would tote food to certain areas where they possibly engaged in
other activities," she said, adding that kids might also have dined with
slaves in nanny or caretaker roles. 

My impression is that it's relatively common for yuppie parents to
unknowingly starve small children.  They just don't have a clue about
the calorie needs of a baby/toddler, and the kid gets a diet designed
to keep a healthy adult lean, not growing, at the portion sizes that
will fit in an adult stomach.


I'm a penny-pinching one-day glutton.  Give me a nice buffet, family 
holiday dinner, or really well-stocked fridge, and i'll pig out...for 
a bit.  Then i start losing interest in food.  Well, probably finish 
off the leftovers.  Guzzle some tap water to dump the extra sodium.  
The exercise itch kicks in; i want to walk for miles.  A few ounces of 
plain brown rice or whole wheat sound like a perfectly fine meal.

Over time, the fridge and panty stay poorly-stocked, and i relatively
thin, thanks to my hard-core miserliness in the grocery store.  I can
walk past aisles full of convenient, yummy, fattening foods, and not
dream of parting with a hard-earned penny to buy any of that expensive
junk. 

I like that, "Penny-pinching one-day glutton".  

That describes my situation well right now.  I'm certainly not turning down
dinner invitations and dinner dates.  Nor, if someone wants to come over and
cook at my place, would I dream of hindering their fantasies about a great
meal.  

When I'm doing the cooking, I try to keep my meals simple and cheap.  Even
if I'm entertaining, I stick to my "bare cupboard" shopping list.  But I've
not been adverse to people leaving excess ingredients behind, which I then
frugally work into my meal plans.  

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