Author: frivvy89
By Gary Logan on 11/07/2017 For 16-year-old Gabrielle Risby, a student-athlete from Antioch, Tennessee, the symptoms that led her to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center were fatigue and nausea at basketball practice and emesis whenever she ate the slightest thing.“I felt like my food was piling up and never making it to my stomach,” says Gabrielle. “I was throwing up all day every day, every time I ate. I didn’t know what it was.”Was it an eating disorder, as her schoolmates deduced due to Gabrielle’s constant vomiting and sudden weight loss? In her heart,…
A study out of the Netherlands examines the true culprit of emotional eating—and why it occurs in the first place. Unsplash/Tom Sodoge “Eating your feelings” is a term used freely and lightly, often to describe a pint of Ben and Jerry’s post-heartbreak or an extra serving of wings when your team loses. Phrases like “breakup weight” have become ingrained in our vocabularies, and the classic late-night stare into the fluorescent glow of the fridge has become an image fixated in pop-culture. Emotional eating is widely understood within society as a natural, if not healthy, response to depression. This idea began in the…
We hear it everywhere: in order to be healthy, you need to eat a balanced diet. But what does that really mean? I’m scrolling through Google images right now trying to find an appropriate picture to go with this article, and at least half of the images only show “healthy” foods. You know what I mean: your greens; your grains; your fish; your eggs; your cheese; your meats (the latter four tiny splodges at the top compared to the large array of fruits and breads). A large percentage of the pictures are only of fruit and veg. I mean, come…
Hi Everyone! I just had to pop back on here to share an update of some VERY exciting news. Drumroll, please… I started my period today! For the men that are reading this (which I know some are!) I’m sorry if this seems like TMI, but I didn’t feel I could not blog about this. I haven’t had a period in 19 months, and a regular one in five years. A period is symbolic of so many things, the most important to me being that my body is finally returning to a state of equilibrium. I have had to work…
Tonight I watched a documentary on anorexia and found myself thinking about my time whilst I was sick. I try not to think about what life was like for me when I was at the grips of Anorexia as it was so terrorizing and painful but at the same time I think it is so important not to ever forget just how awful it was so that I never fall back into my old ways. I also feel as though I have a responsibility as a recovered anorexia to share my story to raise awareness and also help others who…
How often do you find joy when you’re exercising?If your answer is “never” or “rarely,” it’s probably time to reevaluate.Physical activity need not be a miserable experience. It shouldn’t be punitive, compensatory, or self-attacking. While a workout might be challenging or difficult at times, it should never be painful, motivated by fear, or sustained by self-hate. I encountered the above quote at a gym several months ago. “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” I’m not sure who said it, but it’s wrong. “Quitting” has taken on a negative connotation in our culture, when in fact, ending a workout because it…
The Gospel according to ED.You shalt not have more than you normally do.You shalt not say thank you for your food, or that you are hungry or that a food looks delicious.You shalt not do any less exercise than xx amount.etc. etc. etc.signed, by Emmy, and also signed and authorised; by ED.For as long as I can remember, I have lived by certain laws, certain rules. Certain codes of behaviour that I went out of my way to obey, at all times. And God forbid if I ever dared to disobey them. The repercussions of even contemplating doing so were…
Being such a young age and in a unit was very scary. I would get very home sick and want to go home, there was a time I tried to make my mum ask if I could become a outpatient but the doctors wouldn’t let me. I had several hard times there, times where I wanted to get better and other times where I didn’t want to get better. At times when I saw my weight going up I would start to panic which would make me anxious about getting better. Still to this day I panic if I see…
National surveys estimate that nearly 20 million females and 10 million males will have an eating disorder at some point in their lives, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. And when most eating disorders get diagnosed? “Between the ages of fourteen and eighteen,” says Joanna Steinglass, M.D., associate professor of clinical psychiatry and director of translational research in eating disorders at the Columbia Center for Eating Disorders. “There are some reports that people are noticing and diagnosing and getting kids to treatment even earlier, which may be a sign that parents are getting more informed.” In fact, NEDA cites…
Anniversaries are a funny thing. Depending on what they are in remembrance of, they can bring up all sorts of different feelings. Sometimes, the same anniversary can elicit two different reactions, depending on the year, or your state of mind. Six years ago, on this day, I was hospitalized for anorexia. I am so happy, proud, and encouraged, that today, I am celebrating. I’m celebrating where I am now, in contrast to where I’ve been. In years past, this hasn’t been a happy anniversary. It’s been a reminder of the battle being fought; a reminder of how much effort was…