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body issues eating disorders

and confident woman remains only five stone. It’s a desperately sad and tragic story. But Becky is not alone. Nor is she suffering from an illness that’s plagued her throughout her life. Despite what you may think, eating disorders don’t vanish when you graduate from university. In fact, they’re becoming increasingly common in women in their 30s and 40s. A leading American treatment centre saw a 26% jump in patients 38 and older between 2003 and 2007. This growing group of late-onset anorexics and bulimics has been dubbed the ‘Desperate Housewives Syndrome’ and has been blamed on the social pressure of leading an idyllic ‘Bree Van der Kamp’ lifestyle – rock-solid relationship, successful career, hot sex life and size zero body – which can mimic the pressure pot of teenage life.

WOMEN�ON�THE�EDGE The term was first coined in 2008 after researchers noticed an increase in the number of older patients seeking treatment for EDs. The Remuda Ranch ED clinic in Arizona saw the number of women over 40 double in less than six years, and last year clinics in Britain reported a four-fold increase in the number of women in their 30s and 40s seeking treatment for anorexia. “Ten years ago, there were very few women in their 30s, 40s and 50s who were diagnosed with anorexia. That has changed significantly, especially in the past five years,” says Susan Ringwood, chief executive of BEAT (the national eating disorders charity). A recruitment consultant from Bristol who asked not to be named admitted, “I am more regimented in my 30s than ever before. I think it stems from craving control. I regularly take laxatives straight after a meal and have started making myself sick. I guess you feel the need to be thin so society accepts you, your boyfriend finds you attractive, you’ll get job offers...” So what causes intelligent adult women to risk their lives to be thin? Dr Chris Freeman, consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital thinks the media contributes. “Programmes like Desperate Housewives show older women who are attractive and have rampant love lives. They’re also thin and it puts pressure on women in their 30s, 40s and 50s to think that it is possible to have this glamorous lifestyle if you’re skinny. I believe it’s influencing women to have eating disorders.” Experts also say the increase is, in part, down to a growing awareness of these problems, and the willingness of older women who may have been suffering since their teenage years to seek help. But there’s no denying that

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THE RISE OF THE THIRTYSOMETHING ANOREXIC Two readers reveal how they fell into the dangerous cycle of an eating disorder

JENNY ROBINSON, 33, A NURSE FROM MANCHESTER, WAS DIAGNOSED WITH ANOREXIA LAST YEAR “Up until 2007 I was a size 12 and weighed about 9st. I had the normal moans about my weight, but not enough to do anything about it. Then that spring I developed a heart condition which caused me to black out without warning. It took a year and a half to diagnose the problem, a scary period of not knowing what was going on. I’d been living happily with my husband and my two-year-old son, I had a good social life and circle

“I STARTED CUTTING OUT SNACKS THEN MEALS. THEN FOR ONE MONTH I’D ONLY LET MYSELF EAT YOGHURT”

more women than ever before are developing these problems for the first time later in life. And it’s certain that cultural pressures and a society’s aesthetic values do contribute to problematic relationships with food and our bodies, which can develop into an eating disorder. One Harvard University study that clearly showed the impact of the media on eating disorders found that since the arrival of television – showing programmes from the US and UK – in Fiji in 1995, a society that had traditionally favoured a fuller figure in women had seen alarming increases in disordered eating and dieting.

of friends and had been thinking about a second child and moving house. Suddenly, my life was tipped into utter chaos. I lost my independence and I lost control. It’s hard to pin-point the exact moment the problems with my eating began. It started with thinking, ‘I’ll try to be a bit healthier’ because of my heart condition. Then I started cutting out snacks, and eventually meals. For the first half of 2009 I would eat just one food a month: yoghurt one month; fruit or fat-free jelly the next. It wasn’t just a certain food, it had to come from specific shops so I knew what was in it. It wasn’t a question of being pleased about being thin. I kept myself covered up all the time. Even at night I’d wear three or four layers. Whatever the scales said was never good enough for me. I knew I was using food to get some control over my life, but I thought I was in control. By April 2009 I knew I had a problem and went to a walk-in clinic. I expected to be told I had a food phobia and be given some advice sheets. But instead I was diagnosed as anorexic. I was disbelieving and very naïve. I thought I wasn’t ill enough: I was still working, still looking after my son. I was very dismissive about it. But by June I was admitted to hospital. I thought it would just be

But eating disorders are often not to do with body image at all, they can be a way of controlling or coping with other issues. Social changes mean that, these days, women in their 30s or 40s are likely to be juggling a career and the care of small children, perhaps be dealing with relationship difficulties, divorce, remarriage and step-families or facing money problems, many of which would have been rarer problems in past generations. Women may have won social freedom and the right to equality but the feelings of guilt, compromise and conflict about trying ‘to have it all’ have been the price for many women, and

for a couple of weeks; a quick fix. It ended up being three and a half months. I was treated in a group of women aged between 30-55, but I was the only one who had developed the illness as an adult. It was very frightening, confronting the reasons for my problems. For me, it was completely about control, but food and weight becomes the focus to distract yourself with. It’s hard to fight anorexia at any age, but there’s a lot of guilt for me around the time I’ve been away from my son, and my husband has lost a lot of trust in me because he was completely unaware. Having a family and a job makes it even more complicated. I am working hard to get my BMI into the healthy range. I’ve got great help from a therapist and a support group, and the staff in hospital were wonderful. I know I need to learn different ways of coping with my feelings. Every meal is a battle but I am determined to keep fighting.”

who only really begin to be felt as they get older. For many, ED is a drastic coping measure. “Life feels like a race to keep up with my peers. I’m an educated woman yet when I reach a point where I feel overwhelmed by my emotions I have a desperate compulsion to binge and purge,” confessed 34-year-old Lucy*. Interestingly, anorexia peaked in the mid-Seventies just after feminism flung open the doors of independence and the ‘anything-is-possible’ attitude for young women and girls. Being faced with all these opportunities and the subsequent expectations was overwhelming for some women and

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