Anorexics, Speak Up

Source: Speak Up

THE GUARDIAN

The new anorexics

Eating disorder experts are treating growing numbers of women who are developing anorexia or bulimia in adulthood, long after the teenage years when the conditions usually emerge.

Psychiatrists are seeing more patients who have become seriously ill with either of the crippling conditions for the first time in their 30s, 40s, 50s and occasionally 60s. In many cases, the illness has been triggered by a relationship breaking down, unemployment, the menopause, losing a parent, or seeing children leave home.

PRESSURE

Some experts say that the rise to what are called late-onset eating disorders as linked to the fact that some women in their 40s and 50s feel under pressure to look young. This is often due to the prominence of age-defying older female celebrities, such as Madonna and Sharon Stone.

“Five or 10 years ago, I would’ve seen one case of an older person developing an eating disorder about once every year or two. But now I see them more often – about five new patients a year with late-onset anorexia nervosa or bulimia,” Said Dr. Sylvia Dahabra, a psychiatrist in Newcastle who works for the regional specialist eating disorders service.

LEAVING HOME

Sian, who didn’t want to be fully indentified, tells the story of her mother, Fiona, who died of anorexia in 2008 aged 48. “The trauma of me moving out of the family home at 18 to live nearby, and then relocating further away to Bournemouth when I was 21, triggered her serious decline. I was pretty much mum’s life, and me leaving meant she was alone. She ended up weighing just six stone when she passed away when I was 21,” said Fiona died in her sleep after contracting bronchial pneumonia.

“Once she got the pneumonia, she couldn’t fight it because her body was so weak form the anorexia,” sad Sian.

DEPRESSION

Major like events are usually the cause of these disorders. “The person can lose their job, suffer bereavement, have a child or see their relationship break down. As a result, their mood deteriorates and they develop a depressive a illness. They lose their appetite and then lose weight, “said Dahabra.” They then notice that they feel better when they don’t eat, that they look better and might even get compliments. This distracts them from what really bothers them and gives them a new focus.” Dahabra has helped women who have developed dysfunctional eating behaviours after their husbands left them. “In one case the husband’s painting words to her were a derogatory comment about her weight. She associated the breakup with being overweight, began dieting. In the end she  was found unconscious at home and hospitalised because her blood sugar level was very dangerously low.”

DIETING

Dr Adrienne Key, the lead clinician for eating disorders treatment at the Priory clinic in Roehapton, south-west London said. “In the last 18 months I’ve seen 10 women in their mid-to late-30s, mainly with bulimia, who have had a baby in the previous few years and have had increased body dissatisfaction. They start dieting but then try more drastic measures such as skipping meals or going on these strange protein, no carbs diets, and then their starvation triggers the biology or an eating disorder.”

Why only some women who do that then develop anorexia or bulimia is not fully understood, but it may be because their brains function slightly differently under the pressure of food deprivation, said Key. “Growing numbers of women in their 30s and 40s are dissatisfied with their bodies because they are presented with visual imagery of perfect bodies especially in magazines. These unobtainable body ideals are often due to airbrushing, and women feel pressured to try to achieve that.

Mental health experts at the British Dietetic Association, which represents dieticians, have also noticed the same trend. Beat, the UK’s main eating disorders charity, is getting more calls from adults, mainly women.

NOT ONLY WOMEN

Men can succumb too. Dahabra has treated one man who developed depression and when anorexia in his 40s after grief at losing his mother. Another patient of the same age was under severe stress, first at work, and then after losing his job and supporting his partner through a serious illness. Lee Powell, a 37-years old civil servant in Gloucester, saw his weight drop from over10st to just over seven when obsessive exercise led him to start trying even harder to lose weight. “I used to have a cereal bar for breakfast and another of lunch and then some proper food for my tea, but that quickly became just a salad. My wife, Annette, once said I looked like something out of a prisoner of war camp and broke down crying.”

Experts are unsure whether the growing number of older onset cases they are treating indicates a real change in people behavior or simply GPs becoming better and identifying eating disorders.