Eating Disorders , livre ebook

Lion Hudson - Kate Middleton

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

85 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

What is an eating disorder? What are the symptoms? What causes them? And is full recovery possible? Eating disorders are a growing issue - at least 2% of females are now struggling with an eating disorder and studies amongst some groups such as teenage girls reveal much higher rates. This accessible and practical book helps readers to come to a full understanding of eating disorders and the various stages involved in recovery. It is essential reading for sufferers, their family and friends and also the interested reader. Writing from her experience of working with sufferers and drawing extensively on case histories, Dr Middleton explains what eating disorders are and why we develop them. Crucially, she offers guidance for setting out on the road to recovery.

Informations

Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	20 septembre 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780745958132
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

EATING DISORDERS
THE PATH TO RECOVERY
Dr Kate Middleton
Copyright 2007 Kate Middleton
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A Lion Book an imprint of Lion Hudson plc Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England www.lionhudson.com
ISBN 978 0 7459 5278 9 (print) ISBN 978 0 7459 5813 2 (epub) ISBN 978 0 7459 5812 5 (Kindle) ISBN 978 0 7459 5814 9 (pdf)
First edition 2007 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 First electronic format 2011
All rights reserved
Acknowledgments The publisher would like to thank Anorexia & Bulimia Care and the individuals concerned for permission to reproduce personal stories in this book. All publishing rights in the stories are retained by Anorexia & Bulimia Care.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover image: Newmann/zefa/Corbis
Contents

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

Part 1 Making a start: What are eating disorders and do you want to recover?

1 What are eating disorders?

2 The physical and psychological effects of eating disorders

3 The problem with purging

4 What causes eating disorders?

5 I m not sure I want to stop

Part 2 Problems and potential pitfalls: Issues commonly associated with eating disorders

6 Unhelpful thinking styles

7 Perfectly flawed or perfectly driven: when is perfectionism a bad thing?

8 Fanning the flame: dealing with anxiety

9 Some other common problems: self-harm, other addictions and multi-impulsive bulimia

Part 3 Planning your route: Starting out on the path to recovery

10 What is recovery and is it possible?

11 How to get help and handle treatment

12 About food and eating

Part 4 Supporting your child on the path to recovery: A section for parents

13 Information and advice for parents

14 Supporting a child on the path to recovery: some real-life accounts

Further support
Introduction

There are a lot of reasons why you may have bought this book. Maybe you are struggling against an eating disorder yourself. Or you might be supporting someone who is. You may be working in an environment where you know several people at risk of eating disorders. Or perhaps you have concerns about someone you care about and want to learn more.
Whoever you are I want to reassure you of two things. First of all, I want you to know that it is possible to recover from eating disorders. Recovery is a really difficult subject for those suffering (more about this later in the book), but true recovery is about being happy - with yourself, with what you weigh and with your life. And this is possible. Working towards recovery is not easy though. It takes courage and determination in equal measure. For many it is a leap of faith: of starting to dare to believe they are someone worth loving and worth caring for.
In my work I have had the privilege of getting to know many people who have been fighting eating disorders. Without exception they are remarkable and wonderful people. So here is my second reassurance: those fighting an eating disorder are so much more than just their eating disorder. They are individuals, unique and wonderfully made, with individual skills, passions, desires and talents. This book is dedicated to all of them. It is my hope that through reading this, they might be able to start to take that leap of faith.
How to read this book
The book is split into four sections. Feel free to start with any section, as some will be more useful to certain readers than others.
Part 1 gives the facts about eating disorders. It covers the definitions and the physical and medical risks involved, and it looks at the cycles of behaviour that make up eating disorders. It also looks at some of the common factors that can contribute to eating disorders. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it includes a section for sufferers who are trying to decide where they want to go next with their eating disorder. So if you are being nagged by other people to do something about your eating problems but are not sure if you want to stop, or if you are thinking about recovery but aren t sure if you want to start, this is the section for you.
Part 2 looks at some of the psychology behind eating disorders and some of the common bad guys that you might have heard about in relation to eating disorders. So, common personality factors, thinking styles or emotions that might be a part of the problem are all discussed here - along with some practical ideas to help you to deal with them.
Part 3 focuses on the issue of recovery from eating disorders: what it is, whether it is possible and how to move towards it. It also looks at the question of treatment and how to handle some of the difficult stages you might be facing, such as waiting lists, seeing your GP or undergoing in-patient treatment.
Finally, Part 4 is written specifically for parents. Eating disorders are becoming more and more common in younger children, which means that many parents are having to face the challenge of how to deal with their child s illness. This section answers some of the common questions from parents, and contains contributions from a parent who has been on this journey.
This is not a book written from theory. It is based on the experiences of many people who have struggled with eating disorders and battled along the road to recovery, and it could not have been written without them. My thanks to everyone who has shared their journey with me. It has been a privilege.
Part 1
Making a start
What are eating disorders and do you want to recover?
1 What are eating disorders?

Whoever you are, and whatever your reasons for buying this book, we are meeting here on this page because you have some kind of interest in eating disorders. If you read newspapers and magazines regularly, you will probably have come across the names of many different eating disorders . Some of these you might know a lot about; others may be new to you. In this chapter I want to make sure we have the same understanding of what eating disorders are and what I mean by all the terms and jargon I use.
Most eating disorders come from the same basic root belief. Someone who is struggling with difficult thoughts, experiences, feelings or memories comes to believe that things would be different if they were thinner. This may show itself as a hatred of their own body - a conviction that they are fat and disgusting. Or it may simply be a drive to be thinner. Some sufferers start out genuinely overweight. Others simply think they are, or may have been told that they need to lose weight, for example through bullying or teasing. Whatever the reason, they come to place their hopes and aims on that one thing: in order to change their life they need to be thinner. An eating disorder develops because someone believes that losing weight will help them to cope with whatever life is throwing at them.
What comes next for sufferers is a resolve to change what they eat, and often to exercise more. It is a common myth (among sufferers as well as other people) that only those with anorexia restrict what they eat. That s not true though - most people with eating problems aim to restrict their food and set themselves strict diet plans. How well they manage to stick to this we will think about in a moment, but at this stage it is all about setting those plans. Most sufferers could give you a list of foods in their head that are forbidden or bad . They will also probably have good foods which they allow themselves to eat, although some people simply aim to eat as little as possible, or even to fast for a period of time.
The third stage in developing an eating disorder is the one in which sufferers start to split into the different kinds of eating disorder, such as anorexia and bulimia. This is because what happens next depends on lots of things, including personality and practical issues such as whether or not it is possible to skip meals.
One group of people manage to stick resolutely to their diet plan. They restrict their eating severely, often cutting down more and more as time goes on - adding foods to their forbidden list, counting calories or fat grams obsessively, and always compulsively chasing the control they long for. These people are those suffering from anorexia nervosa . The term anorexia actually means a loss of appetite, whereas the nervosa clarifies that this is something to do with the sufferer s mind. However, this is a bit misleading because in fact people with anorexia do not lose their appetite. Once they have suffered for a long time many do become so separated from the normal urges to eat that they no longer feel the sensation we would call hunger, but what causes them to stop eating is a tremendous act of will and self-control. Then, as the illness continues, the drive to keep restricting food starts to come from the fear of what will happen if they do allow themselves to eat.
People who suffer from anorexia lose dramatic amounts of weight. This can happen very quickly, or relatively gradually. Of course, if someone was overweight to begin with, this can take some time to show, so not all sufferers are very underweight. But one of the biggest risks of anorexia is the physical impact of someone effectively starving themselves over a long period of time.
However, it is a misconception that sufferers never eat. Very few manage to keep up the control all the time and most will eat sometimes. For some this loss of control may even trigger cycles of bingeing and purging, like those you will see in bulimia. But, overall, sufferers eat less than they need to, and so continue to lose weight.
Meanwhile, a key feature of anorexia is that although sufferers are underweight or losing weight, they do not see themselves as thin. In fact, many persist in thinking they are fat, even when their life is at risk because they are so thin. This, of course, is because being thinner does not actually make t