Lying in Weight: The Hidden Epidemic of Eating Disorders in Adult Women

386 Pages·2007·1.72 MB·English

by  Trisha Gura

L Y I N G I N

W E I G H T

The Hidden Epidemic
of Eating Disorders
in Adult Women
T RI SH A GU R A
For Elizabeth
May she grow up wiser
CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v
INTRODUCTION • Confidences and Lies vii
1 • Chronicity
The Myth of Recovery
1
2 • Adolescence
Girls in Women’s Clothing:
Eating Disorders Stunt Psychological Development
24
3 • Young Adulthood
She, He, and It: A Lover’s Triangle
61
4 • Pregnancy
An Oasis in an Eating-Disordered Life
98
iv Contents
5 • Parenting Years
A Kind of Sibling Rivalry:
When the Eating Disorder Competes with Children
136
6 • Midlife
Eating Disorders: Millstones or Stepping-stones?
188
7 • Late Life
NeverToo Oldto Be TooThin
225
8 • Healing
The Ongoing Chapter in an Eating-Disordered Life
258
APPENDIX 1 • Helpful Organizations 307
APPENDIX 2 • Directory of Treatment Facilities 309
APPENDIX 3 • The Clinical Definitions of Eating Disorders 315
NOTES 319
BIBLIOGRAPHY 351
INDEX 353
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CREDITS
COVER
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M
y editor, Gail Winston, has supported this book
beyond her call of duty. Her insights, persistence, and
attention have both inspired the writing and struc-
tured it. My agent, Lisa Bankoff, at International Creative Manage-
ment, is another master of her craft. She first understood the potential
of the book, and then painstakingly fine-tuned the proposal, finding
its “right fit.”
I thank Hannah Cohen-Cline, who, while a student at Brandeis
University, researched, copyedited, fact-checked, and offered in-
sights well beyond any women of her age and experience. For edit-
ing and proofreading, I thank Joe and Mary Chadbourne, striking
in their eye for detail and helpful in their suggestions. Thanks also
to Jennifer Angelo, who read and commented on one of the first at-
tempts at a chapter.
There were many people who graciously and generously offered
me their time and expertise with eating disorders: special thanks
to Lynn Grefe, Joanna Poppink, Katherine Zerbe, Seda Ebrahimi,
Mary Boggiano, Jeannie Rust, Shan Guisinger, Lucene Wisniewski,
Suja Srikameswaran, James Hudson, David Herzog, Chris Fair-
burn, Edward Cumella, Jim Schettler, Tacie Vergara, and the staffs
at Remuda Ranch, the Renfrew Center, and Mirasol.
vi Ack nowledgments
I wish to express my deep gratitude to my colleagues at Brandeis
University. I have never experienced a group quite like them. In fact,
I could not imagine having written this book without the support
of our Gender, Science, and Sexuality group. Thank you, Brigette
Sheridan, Mara Amster, Christine Cooper, Nick Danforth, Nurit
Eini-Pindyck, Claudia Stevens, Lisa Fishbayn, Ruth Nemzoff, and
Linda Andrist. And thank you, Anne Gottlieb, for your artistic di-
rection, which ultimately inspired the last chapter.
I thank my dear friend Sharon Schnall, who supported me in
so many ways: reading one of the first drafts—and also one of the
last—and, in the middle, offering ideas, hand-holding, journalism
war stories, and anecdotal humor. My thanks to Lauren Slater for
the coffee meeting that started this whole process. And to my spe-
cial friend Amy Caldwell, senior editor at Beacon Press, who walked
me through the process of writing a book step-by-step, making me
laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. Tom Lavin offered me
his steadfast personal and professional support; it is a gift that I
deeply cherish.
My dearest appreciation goes to Steve Traina for his intimate
participation in this journey—through the best moments, and the
worst. And to my daughter, Elizabeth, who watched, listened, ques-
tioned, learned, and loved her mother as she embarked on one of
the most exciting ventures in her life.
And finally, I cannot express enough appreciation for the women
and men who offered me their stories so as to help others. I hold
each in a special place in my heart, for each touched me person-
ally. I name you all throughout the book. Though some of you are
named under pseudonyms, you know who you are. And now we, the
recipients of your stories, know a little more as well. Thank you for
the gift of yourselves.
INTRODUCTION

Confidences and Lies
O
ne winter morning, I met my friend Lauren in a café
near the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy in Boston. We had gotten to know each other during
a yearlong science journalism fellowship at MIT and Harvard. This
particular morning, we were luxuriating in the absence of deadlines
and brainstorming new writing projects.
A blizzard whistled down Main Street and rattled the doors
to our pasts. As we clutched our mugs, sank into upholstery, and
sniffed the aroma of java, we began to confide secrets, the kind that
only a storm outside and warmth within could lay bare.
Lauren told me that she had grappled with an eating disorder
as a teenager. She had recovered, but it had sprung up again after
her first pregnancy. She would tell her husband that she was going
to the grocery store late at night. There, she would buy bags of junk
food, gorge in her car, and then make herself throw up in the park-
ing lot.
This went on for two years; she was so embarrassed that she
had not gotten over bulimia by the age of 36 that she had lied to her
husband and, in fact, had written a book about lying.
My mouth dropped open.
viii Introduction
“I had an eating disorder, too,” I said. “Anorexia.”
I used the word “had” instead of “have” because, with years of
therapy, I had recovered and gone on with life. After my pregnancy,
I had done nothing like vomiting up cream-filled donuts and Bavar-
ian coffee cake. For me at that moment, my eating disorder existed
in the past tense.
And yet I wondered if it really was past, as Lauren asked me
questions: How had my life evolved as I approached 40? Did I
still feel the need to control my eating? Did I like my body now?
And what about my 10-year-old daughter? Did I feel like a flawed
mother?
At first, I answered in the detached way that I might talk about
my grandmother’s cataract operation. To me, battles with food be-
longed in the realm of adolescence, a sort of yellowed photo album
that I, at 21, had set on the shelf. Since then, I had tackled mar-
riage, infertility, pregnancy, divorce, and child rearing as a single
parent. More recently, I had been watching a few gray hairs sprout,
pinching the flesh around my waist, and thinking about how I
would handle middle age.
Yet, as I spoke about this thing that I had overcome, I knew that
I was lying to myself. I did not feel liberated—not at all. It’s more
like this: I have a voice in my head that whispers like a ghost. It
seduces. It tells me that no one will love me if I am fat. It says that
what I do is never enough. It promises that if I follow its rules, skip-
ping meals, swimming extra laps, not eating this or that, avoiding
meat and chicken and fish and dairy products, I will be safe. But
most of the time I do not feel safe—just closed up and isolated.
I have tried to ignore the voice. When I scream, “Leave me
alone! Let me enjoy life without these crazy rules!” it snickers and
goes into hiding. Then there is silence, and for a time, even for
years, I am free.
Or so I think.
But I have learned over these past twenty years, since I was di-
agnosed with atypical anorexia nervosa (a kind of anorexia that
does not quite fit all the medical criteria), that the voice belongs to