bulimia: more than "ox hunger"

It is estimated that one in four women in college have bulimia. One in four. It has become so common that some schools have been reported to have posted signs in the girls' bathrooms that say something along the lines of - "Please stop throwing up - you are destroying our piping system and backing things up!" (The acid that comes up from purging was eroding the schools' pipes.) I've also noticed that among the complaints of having to share a room on campus with someone, that one of them was dealing with a roommate who hogged the bathroom because he/she was throwing up or on the toilet constantly from laxative abuse.

Once a problem that was "too gross" to imagine has practically the whole country affected. When did throwing up "here and there" become so acceptable? When is this ever going to end?

words.of. experience: amanda

Since the age of six I've had bad body image. I was always NOT RIGHT. Something was always fucked up with me. Either it was my hair or my feet or my nose, or my weight. I figured that if I could just be thinner, things would be better. If I could just lose some weight, I would be a different person with different friends and some different glamorous life. And so it started.

I didn't become immediately immersed in the idea of throwing up. Around that time I had gone off and on diets from the age of about 7 to 11, even though at that age you consider a diet really just telling people you are on one while never really changing your eating patterns. But one day I overheard some people talking about how they vomited what they ate just to keep their weight steady, and I figured that was a good idea. If food never fully went "in," I couldn't put anymore weight on. It was disgusting for me to imagine making myself vomit, but... I put my whole life into being the best, the thinnest, the winner, and if this made me drop some weight...

I hardly ever did it in the beginning. Just once in awhile, like once a month, but it gradually got worse. My parents always fought a lot and used me as a pawn to decide who was liked more, and I hated that. I found myself eating more and more around those times, and having to heave over a toilet just as many times to keep away the guilt. I stopped eating just three meals a day and instead skipped everything and only ate when I was upset. I then purged to "wash" the sins away and to help find some peace in myself. It didn't matter what I was upset over - food was there to help out, and so was purging.

About two years after starting, I was flipping between ten pound weight gains and losses just about daily. My face was constantly bloated along with my hands and feet. It was really hard for me to sleep, too. I was so moody that I turned a lot of people off, but I didn't really notice the changes. I still thought that throwing up daily or weekly was "fine." I didn't realize that what was going on was bulimia until my freshman year of college when a friend of mine brought it up. She helped me go and see a counselor, even though I then denied everything. That helped a little...

I'm now a senior and still fighting. People don't understand that this is an addiction. In the beginning you think you are fine, that there is no problem, and that you have control or that you only need to lose a "few more," but it bites you in the ass eventually. I'm going to group therapy and stuff, but I haven't found one on one therapist that I really like, so I just kind of try to fight the urges on my own. Some days are good, some days are really bad, but never in the middle. I hope that I can beat this one day, but it doesn't look like that'll happen anytime soon.

overview

Bulimia is Latin, meaning "ox hunger." There has been research done showing that bulimia first began in the middle ages when people in celebration gorged on food and then induced vomiting so that they could go back to the party and eat more with their friends. However, bulimia is not about purging for the sake of having to go back to a celebration. It's about emotional pain more than anything. Frighteningly, 2-4% of the population suffers from this, including 20% of high school girls. These statistics don't include the large amount of people who don't go for treatment, either.

who.it.strikes

The typical person vulnerable to developing bulimia hides what they feel inside frequently and is a people pleaser. More so than with cases of anorexia those vulnerable to bulimia care deeply about what others think about them. A past history of on and off dieting is common, as well as problems controlling their impulses. Often people vulnerable to bulimia tend to experience more irrational and erratic emotions than those with anorexia, which leads to the problem of controlling the impulses of dieting, and binging and purging.

why.it.happens

Just as with anorexia, society gives the impression that to be liked (something the person vulnerable craves) you have to be thin. To be thin equals power and respect and money and love and attention. That alone can trigger bulimia, and because those vulnerable to developing this eating disorder veer from one extreme to another in every aspect of life, they eventually plunge head into the problem.

Something so powerful and deadly as bulimia is not based around mere society, however. In the family of someone vulnerable there is usually chaos. Emotions are erratic and scattered and the person isn't taught how to deal with things very well. It is often noted in bulimia cases that the mother has been the type to diet constantly herself, and more so than anorexia there tends to be a past history of sexual abuse.

Somewhere the feelings of unworthiness and failure build and erode the person's self-esteem, whether that be the person feeling inadequate in the eyes of their parents or perhaps even the eyes of a significant other. Food brings comfort at first, but then eventually guilt over having eaten the food hits the person, and purging brings relief into the person's body and mind. Purging also creates a false sense of control, as well. Knowing that they can basically eat what they want and just bring it all up later helps the person feel better and in control of what they allow their bodies to have and digest.