It is a disease that affects 1% of the population, especially young girls
The plate in front of me gave me real fear. At that time she was 15 years old and weighed 36 kilos. No, I didn’t want to eat.” Olatz Rodríguez, former gymnast of the Spanish national team, speaks. He has just published ‘Vivir del aire’ (Editorial Planeta), «a testimony about anorexia, pressure and insecurity». Retired early from competition after her hospital admission and about to start Medicine, she gives voice to a disorder that continues to ruin adolescence and affects 1% of the population, mostly young girls.
«’Olatz, you don’t have to eat the plate either,’ a coach told me without realizing the impact those words were going to have. The compañeras laughed, I felt humiliated. From that moment I made sure to never leave the plate clean»
Without realizing it, without malice… but we do it. “‘Don’t eat so much, you’re going to get chubby’. We sometimes say this to girls and, in doing so, we base their worth on their physical appearance,” warns Irene Moñino, a psychologist at the Álava Reyes office in Madrid. Thus, the fact that this girl begins to diet and lose weight can go unnoticed even in her house. “There are mothers who say: ‘My daughter has a yogurt for dinner because she takes care of herself’ and when you tell them that it is not enough, they tell you that she eats healthy.” Beyond the lack of self-esteem or ‘bullying’, “pathological family models can also influence this disorder: an obese mother or father and children who do not want to be like them, or dominant parents who place very high expectations on that girl, who care about her being slim and perfect…».
«I wrote down all the calories and my obsession was always to eat less the next day. (…) At school I was not able to think about anything other than restricting calories»
People with anorexia know exactly how many calories they eat each day because they count them. It can be 700, 800, even less, far from the 1,800-2,500 recommended for an adult. “They know how many they eat but not how many they need. They weigh themselves often, they read the labels of the products but they only keep how many calories they have, they do not know what proteins or carbohydrates are, what nutrients are needed… », explains the psychologist. Hence, one of the first things done in therapy is to uninstall the ‘apps’ from their mobiles that help them eat healthy “because they only look at calories.”
«In the gym, I put on a jacket to weigh myself and if I could, I put my mobile in one of the pockets so that it weighed more»
The psychologist tells that a girl with 35 kilos came to her consultation. “Her teachers, her parents… they saw her like that, but they didn’t notice her.” It is not strange. “They wear baggy, dark-colored clothes to make themselves look slimmer.” But the disease is not only noticeable in that the clothes are enormous: “They have drier skin, their hair falls out more, in girls who vomit the tooth enamel is eroded…”, lists Guadalupe Blay, responsible of the Endocrinology and Nutrition working group of the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians. In the emotional aspect, “they become more irritable, sullen, aggressive…”.
“Losing weight was more important at the time than having friends, so I started to isolate myself”
The profile of the person suffering from anorexia is an adolescent. “Before it was a disorder that occurred between 14 and 24 years old, but now there are already 11-year-old girls like this and women who start such restrictive diets in menopause that they end up in anorexia,” the doctor sounds the alarm.
There are also boys, but less. “Girls are hypersexualized, they are expected to be thin, nobody cares that they wear a size 32. But in boys it is very striking that they are below 18 of the body mass index. In them, this disorder is usually accompanied, more than in them, by a deficit of social skills, they are withdrawn kids, ”Moñino completes the profile.
«It was Christmas at school and they distributed hot chocolate with cookies. I gave the chocolate to a colleague and I pretended to eat the pastries, but I kept them in a napkin in my backpack»
Eating disorders “are very liars,” warns the psychologist. «I tell them as a joke: ‘Is there a dog at home?’ So let him stay outside while you eat. They put less on the plate than they say, they throw food…».
«I was full, I had control over myself»
Therein lies the key, control. “It’s intrinsic motivation. Let’s imagine someone who sets very high, unrealistic job expectations for himself, and doesn’t get it, feels like he’s losing control… People who suffer from anorexia are control freaks. They say: ‘At least, I can control what I eat,'” explains Moñino.
«At home they gave me cookies for breakfast, but instead of four, I took three, then only two, and then one… or none (…) I asked my parents to let me make dinner and I almost always resorted to to a French omelette… Instead of the ice cream I wanted, I ate a piece of fruit or a piece of whole wheat bread with turkey and lettuce»
When hospital admission is required, the first thing is to recover a weight that takes them out of the danger zone. And it is complex. “People who suffer from anorexia eat a pittance and you can’t ask them to suddenly eat a plate of lentils, even if they only have carrots, when that person has been eating lettuce and carrots for a long time. It is not good to put many calories at once, “Guadalupe Blay warns. “It is essential that they eat five meals a day, that they do not skip any, that they eat accompanied. At the beginning, the steps are very small, gaining a hundred grams in a week. You have to make them understand that they don’t get fat, they just recover, “clarifies the psychologist.
But the resistance that professionals encounter is great: “To burn calories, they do some tremendous marathons down the hospital corridor or they start going up and down stairs. For this reason, they are sometimes forced to rest for three hours in bed after eating. The bathrooms are closed so that they do not enter, it is watched that no one gives them laxatives…».
«I always want to stop eating and lose weight. I would be as thin as when I was admitted”
Relapses, warns the psychologist, are common in people with anorexia. And she refuses to talk about healing “because it is not a medical issue, but a psychological one,” she insists. “There is always that predisposition.”
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