Fast track to anorexia: A mom’s diary of her daughter’s experience
November 16th, 2005Here is an account from a professor at Oregon State University, describing her daughter’s transition from a healthy 13-year-old with perfectionist tendencies to becoming an anorexic patient, weighing just 87 pounds at 5′ 5″, a BMI of 14.5, compared with a normal weight of 110-115 pounds.
I watched as my child seemed to dissolve in front of us. Her once strong legs had no muscle; her long fingered hands became skeletal; her skin became thin and blue; her veins stuck out along her thin arms. And yet the doctors all said they were not too worried.
Last winter, starvation-induced hypothermia set in — J. always needed an extra layer of clothes or a blanket. All the while, she insisted she “ate when she was hungry and stopped when she was full” — my own words to my children coming back at me.
By the time J. was admitted to the Kartini Clinic, her heart rate, especially during sleep, had dropped as low as the 30s (normal at night is mid-40s to 50s). Many anorexics die quietly in their sleep, the heart muscle finally giving out.
Fast track to anorexia: A mom’s diary of her daughter’s experience (Seattle Times, November 10, 2004)
Tags: anorexia, parenting, eating disorders
