Eating Disorders
Coping with Eating Disorders
Difficult For Parents

(November 14, 2003) -- The Mental Health Association says it gets a number of requests from desperate parents trying to cope with a child's eating disorder. Not just anorexia, but compulsive exercising, binge eating, purging and yo-yo dieting. It's devastating for them to watch someone they love so much slowly starve to death.

Katie Proctor's vacation photos are different than most. Her ribs are sticking out of her chest and she is exercising in some of the pictures.

"My parents would often ask me why I wasn't eating or ask me to eat something during meals," says Katie Proctor. "This is actually at a restaurant where, I think I remember correctly, I had ordered fruit salad with sherbet on top of it and my parents were not happy with that."

No, her parents weren't happy at all. Katie's mom, Kris Proctor, remembers, "Every night was a battle. Every morning was a battle. Every meal was a battle and it became a war zone."

A war that started with a high school freshman who wanted to be a quicker athlete, and who was having problems with friends. Katie started dieting and couldn't stop.

"I would hide my food or I would put a napkin over it and take it to the trash and say I was done, or I would cut up my food into little pieces and push it around the plate until it would just go away," explains Katie Proctor.

Pretty soon she was wasting away. She had lost 32 pounds, her hair was brittle, her pulse and blood pressure low and her eyes were sunken in.

Kris Proctor says, "She would try to explain to me the logic of, 'I can't get the food down mom, you don't understand.' And still to this day I don't."

Finally, Kris had to resort to tricking her daughter into seeing a counselor. It took a year, but Katie gradually put back on some weight. She still struggles to eat sometimes. It helps to have an understanding boyfriend. What doesn't help is thinking about the future.

"There's no test that can be done to tell what kind of damage has been done to my body, whether or not I'll be able to have kids, or whether or not when I go to college next year whether I'll be able to handle all this by myself," explains Katie Proctor.

She won't have to handle it all by herself, not if the people who love her can help it.

Related Stories:

• Help For Parents Of Children With Eating Disorders
• Survival Guide for Parents with Eating Disordered Children

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