 YOU CAN BE TOO THIN: UNDERSTANDING ANOREXIA AND BULIMIA • Introduction Today, 90 percent of Americans believe they are overweight. Clearly, some of them are. But most of these Americans—especially women—have developed a strong concern with appetite control and weight loss. The preoccupation of American young women with thinness has been linked to the increase of anorexia nervosa and bulimia, eating disorders characterized by an obsession with weight, eating and body image. Approximately one million teenage girls are affected by these illnesses. Each of these eating disorders can cause serious health problems and may even result in death. The longer a person suffers from the disorder, the harder it is to overcome. For this reason educational efforts directed at prevention and early detection are crucial. • Objectives 1. Defines and analyzes the eating disorders of anorexia and bulimia. 2. Shows how our cultural obsession with weight, eating and body image can be translated into serious illnesses for individuals. 3. Suggests ways young people can be sensitive to the problems a friend may be having with food and indicates specific steps they can take to help. 4. Dramatizes the relationship between a person’s self-esteem and the ability to deal with difficult personal issues. • Part One On the Verge of Bulimia The first segment of the program presents a portrait of Maggie, a young woman on a collision course with bulimia. On the surface, she seems to be popular, attractive and a good student. But we come to see that she has developed a secret life that includes binge eating whenever things go wrong. To compensate for her overeating she exercises continually to lose the weight she has gained. Maggie has low self-esteem and she tends to distort reality. She believes many of her troubles result from her perceived weight problem. Her life is becoming dominated by food. Review Questions 1. What triggers Maggie’s binges? 2. Do you think that Maggie is right to be concerned about her weight or looks? What is a “normal” concern with weight? 3. At what point would you start worrying if a friend became overly concerned with image, weight or food? What clues would tip you off? 4. How does her friend handle Maggie’s concerns? 5. Why do you think Maggie sneaks her eating of food? What is the relationship between her bingeing and exercise? 6. What is Maggie’s relationship with family and friends? 7. What do you know about Maggie by the end of this segment? • Part Two Analyzing Maggie’s Problems In this section of the program, a group of high school students along with Dr. Timothy Walsh, a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, take a hard look at Maggie’s difficulties. Dr. Walsh spells out the physical and psychological problems that surround anorexia and bulimia. The students and Dr. Walsh discuss in some depth Maggie’s problems and her low self-esteem. They also talk about why far more women than men have eating disorders. The program ends with a discussion of how people with eating disorders can get help and what the therapeutic process is like. Review Questions 1. Define anorexia nervosa bulimia. What are the differences between them? How are they similar? 2. Why do you think more women are susceptible to eating disorders? What kind of messages do girls get from the media about the way they “should” look? Are boys up against the same kind of pressure? 3. What other sources of pressure are teens under from society? From peers? From families? 4. What can a person do to get help if they have an eating disorder? 5. How does this kind of therapy work? • Part Three Role-Playing Options The students role-play ways that Maggie might have helped herself. They replay scenes from the first section of the program in which Maggie made things worse by the way she dealt with her mother, Steve and her friends. Viewers see other ways of dealing with these same situations. This segment ends with a discussion of what friends can do when they are worried that someone is in trouble. Should you try to talk directly with the person? Tell their parents or a school psychologist? Do you risk losing a friendship if you try to help? How do you know if your friend has a problem? Review Questions 1. What’s the best thing you can do when a friend comes to you with a problem? Give advice or listen? Why? 2. What’s a good way for Maggie to deal with Steve? 3. If you have a problem to deal with, what’s the best way to get support and understanding from a friend? How would you handle a friend who just didn’t want to get involved? How do you think this would make you feel? 4. Have you ever tried to reach out to a friend you were worried about? What happened? 5. How does the way Maggie deals with Steve and her grades relate to her eating? • Part Four Road to Recovery In the final part of the program we hear from four people who have struggled to overcome eating disorders. They talk about their obsession with diet, weight and looks and how food completely controlled their lives. We see into their secret lives with food and learn how they lied to others and themselves. Finally overcome with loneliness and despair, each of them turned to someone else for help. Review Questions 1. Girl 1 (Garret): How did her relationship with food change? 2. Girl 2 (Suzanne): What place did food have in her life? For what was it a substitute? 3. Girl 3 (Luanne): Why does she talk so much about control? What did food mean to her? 4. Boy (Sam): How does Sam define his eating disorder? What comparisons does he make with other addictions? Activities 1. Have students either individually or as a group project create a collage out of images selected from print media dealing with body image. 2. Have students discuss the messages transmitted by the images in the collages. How are advertisers using these images to sell their products? Art the messages different for men than for women? How do these kinds of cultural messages become internalized into the way we feel about our peers and ourselves? 3. Have students hold a debate on the pros and cons of the bathing suit event of the Miss America contest. 4. Have students list things they like (other than looks) about someone they know and admire personally or someone in the news. 5. Divide students into groups and have them discuss and then list the characteristics they value in their friends or people in general without naming names. Then have each person list several characteristics about themselves that appear on the master list. 6. Have students write an essay about how they felt after accomplishing something that meant a lot to them. 7. Have students role-play the same situations presented in the third part of the program. a. Concerned about her overeating, Maggie reaches out to a friend for help. b. Maggie tries to pursue a relationship with Steve. c. Maggie, concerned about her test grade and her father’s reaction, reaches out to a friend for support. 8. Have students role-play situations in which one person is concerned that a friend may need help with an eating problem. Perhaps the friend has become more and more compulsive about a diet, or one person overhears a friend throwing up in the bathroom. 9. Have students keep a journal of everything they eat for five days. Help them to analyze the nutritional value of the choices they make. Point out that fat in food is essential to a healthy body. Invite a certified nutritionist to discuss the reasons behind proper diet and the long-term effects of poor eating. 10. Help students to think about the relationship food plays to the emotional ups and downs of their lives. If they’ve had a problem with a friend, do they start to eat junk food? If they’re under pressure to perform at school, do they eat more or less? N.B. This exercise may in fact be very difficult for some students, for in all likelihood there are some in the class who are struggling in their relationship with food. Be sure to encourage and suggest ways of getting help. |
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