My daughter, Lisa, and I welcome you to our blog about the joys and sorrows that everyday eating brings to our lives. It seems so simple: We must eat to survive.
I am a food writer and Lisa is a recovering anorexic. Our story is chronicled in the forthcoming book, Hungry: A Mother and Daughter Fight Anorexia (Berkley Trade Paperback, Aug. 4. 2009).
Lisa has cycled between bulimia and anorexia, binge-eating and exercise bulimia. She was hospitalized for depression. Eating disorders, like life, are never simple. The causes may be biological, psychological and cultural. Treatment options range from twelve-step programs based on the Alcoholics Anonymous format, to equine therapy. There are medications and massages, herbs and probiotics, Dialectical Behavior Therapy and psychoanalysis. Usually eating disorders come with a "comorbid" condition, complicating treatment further. Lisa got depression from my side of the family, body image issues from her dad's.
Like a psychiatrist with a schizophrenic son, a food writer with an anorexic daughter strikes the world as a fascinating irony. Or even just desserts. When Lisa was young and mercurial, we joked that her rebellion would be to run off with Jews for Jesus or the Young Republicans. Now, that seems quaint.
Lisa grew up in a foodie household. Ned is an excellent cook. Our social occasions center around restaurants and kitchens. Our vacations are pilgrimages to find the taco, pizza or Vietnamese spring roll. Food to us is home, health, fantasy, entertainment, education and employment.
Everybody eats. America often feels like a twenty-hour buffet, with food on every corner and people eating at every hour. No wonder eating disorders continue to plague ever-younger kids, men and boys. The AMA News April 2009 reported patients hospitalized for eating disorders increasingly are younger than 12 or between 45 and 65.
Our blog will explore the gap between sensible eating and disorders, the place where most of us live. We'll look at current events and the unceasing death toll. Michael Jackson is only the most recent star, in his case heartbreakingly talented, whose anorexia probably contributed to a tragic early death. How could it not? When a person is that thin, it takes a toll on all internal organs, and the electrolyte imbalance from lack of food contributes to cardiac arrest. Jackson's "comorbid" conditions were legion.
I come at this as a parent, reporter and foodie. Lisa comes at it as a young adult who is getting her life back, which at the moment means taking monumental life steps, such as finishing the very few courses she needs to complete her college degree, moving across country, and getting a good job. Her blog posts may be more sporadic.
Still, we both want to hear from you. Questions, comments, topics you'd like us to cover.
A few upcoming topics:
The inner beauty of the Bravo TV show "What Not To Wear"
Foodies With Issues: People who choose to work in the food industry, but have eating disorders
Put Me In, Coach: a new and promising approach to eating disorders.
As the great food writer M.F.K. Fisher wrote, "People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" . . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry."
