NEW REALITIES NEWS                            July 2001

Thank you for subscribing to New Realities News. This
is a free newsletter from the New Realities Eating Disorders
Recovery Centre. We will be sending this newsletter out on a
periodic basis and it will include news from the centre as well
as interesting tidbits and articles about eating disorders and
recovery issues.

We would like to encourage you on your journey to wellness
and would also appreciate feedback and other information that
you feel will make this newsletter more useful in addressing
your needs. We will read all feedback and suggestions.

We hope that you will enjoy it!

We are so honoured to have been able to help client's through
their journey's of recovery from eating disorder's back to a
life filled with  positive choices, health spirituality and
empowerment. Our Centre is growing and we now have
two locations in Ontario, Canada and have  very skilled and
empathic

Psychotherapists in both locations. We continue to use experiential
modalities such as Art, Movement and Psychodrama as well as other
experiential techniques in treating eating disorders.

NOT FOR WOMEN ONLY

We probably heard this story a hundred times before. By
the time that Sheila was 10 years old she weighed 200 lbs. 
She was  ridiculed and teased by most of her classmates. 
Her parents  were upset about her weight and constantly
monitored what she ate.

She became increasingly more isolated especially as a teenager. 
She turned to food more and more as her only source of physical
comfort.

She tried numerous diets usually at her mother’s insistence. 
She would lose some weight, then gradually regain the weight
and then some.  By the time that she was a young adult Sheila
didn’t feel she had much  control in her life. She was so overwhelmed
by feelings that she started to go on all kinds of binges eating huge
amounts of food at a time.  She hated herself. She hated her body. 
Then one day after a large binge she got sick. She threw up.
Strangely she felt a little better. Sheila felt a sense of control.
She didn’t feel guilty for the first time in a very long time.

By the time Sheila was 25 she had lost a considerable amount
of weight  and seemed to be getting on with her life. But Sheila
was throwing up  15 to 20 times a week and spent 2 to 3 hours
every day at the gym. Sheila was a bulimic.

There is however one difference in this familiar story. Sheila’s
real  name is Stan. Stan is a male bulimic. 

Anorexia, bulimia, compulsive eating or binge eating. These very
terms in our cultural context immediately conjure up mental images
of a thin women, a women throwing up or a women sitting down to
eat say a gallon of ice cream.

Yet the reality exists that men also can and do suffer from all these
same eating disorders.

Our mass media does much to reinforce sexual stereotypes.  Portrayals
of disordered eating is no exception. When was the last time that you
saw a sit com episode portray an upset male star sitting down to eat
emotionally.

Like many people, including a lot of professionals, we have come to
view eating disorders as a strictly “female” disorder. 

Current research suggests that 10% of people  with eating disorders
are men.  In fact this statistic is probably quite low  due to the fact
that health care professionals are less likely to categorize males as
having an eating disorder and by the fact that men are less likely to
seek any form of treatment. 

Common elements:

The most important thing to remember is that the eating disorder is
serving a purpose for the individual.

The most common element surrounding ALL eating disorders is the
inherent presence of  low self esteem.  Other dimensions might also
include a need to be accepted, depression, anxiety or an inability to
express emotions or express personal needs.

Almost all the physical dangers and complications associated with an
Eating Disorder are the same for men and women.  The most notable
exception being potential disruption in the menstrual cycle for some
women.

Also many of the causes are the same or very similar (family problems,
relationship issues, alcoholic/addictive  abuse, social pressure).

What we need to remember is that all people with eating disorders
deserve to find recovery,  happiness and self love. We must ensure
that men also have equal access to treatment.

Some Male Differences

There are some issues associated with food, body image and eating
disorders that have a different theme and impact for males.

According to Dr. Arnold Anderson a researcher in the area of male
eating disorders, men are socialized from an early age  to be less
expressive emotionally and to be more action oriented. Typically
males tend to use their bodies as vehicles for achievement rather
than attractiveness and view food as fuel rather than a threat to
their appearance.  In regards to body image males tend to be more
dissatisfied with their bodies from the waist up and are generally
more  shape orientated than weight orientated.  Generally women
do not need a specific reason for dieting.  Dieting in and of itself
becomes a cultural endorsement of being a women.  Males on the
other hand more often than not diet for specific and personal reasons.

The element of shame is strong for both gay and heterosexual male
with eating disorders.  As with all sufferers of eating disorders there
has always been, and still is, an element of shame which is constantly
being  played out in negative self talk messages such as "I'm disgusting",
"Look at what I’ve done to myself", “It’s all my fault”, "People will
think I'm crazy", etc.  However for males the misconception that they
cannot suffer from an Eating Disorder intensifies the shame they may face.

Another difference for men is an eating disorder that is now being
referred to as “ reverse anorexia nervosa”.  In reverse anorexia the
male also has a distorted body image however views himself as
not big enough, not muscular enough, he may feel weak or tiny despite
his huge bulging biceps. Typically this person might also be misusing
steroids or taking lots of nutritional supplements. This is in stark contrast
to a woman who can never be thin enough,  the male can never
be big enough.

Finally as Arnold Anderson points out while women who develop
eating disorders more often “feel fat”  before the onset of their
disordered eating, they are typically near average weight. Men
on the other hand are more typically overweight before the
development of the disorder. In addition, men who are binge
eaters or compulsive overeaters may go undiagnosed longer than
women because of society's willingness to accept an overeating or
overweight man more than an overeating or overweight woman.

Treatment:

All males need and deserve treatment programs that take them into
consideration. Often there seems to be a cloud of  secrecy because
of the lack of therapy, groups and treatment centres specifically designed
for men. Men can often feel very alone at the thought of having to sit in
a group of women or to be part of a program designed for women.
Currently there is even the prospect that a treatment facility will turn
them down because of their sex.

NREDRC is pleased to disclose that their first client ever was a male.
The Centre continues to offer therapy services to both men and women
at both of their locations. NREDRC  now also has as part of their clinical
staff a specialist in male eating disorders.

For more information please call or email Joseph Dembinski M.A.
at (905) 763-0660 or newrealities@rogers.com

Joseph Dembinski is a psychotherapist in private practice in the greater
Toronto area and an associate at NREDRC.  His interests reside in the
treatment of male and female eating disorders, trauma recovery,
dysfunctional family issues as well as personal/spiritual growth and
development.

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Inspirational stories & quotes

“It isn’t for the moment you are stuck that you need courage,
but for the long uphill climb back to sanity, and faith and security.”

~~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Author and wife of Charles Lindbergh)

The following is a excerpt from a book by Carol Pearson called the
“Magic at Work”.  It was sent to us in an email.

“Hallway of the In-between”

“Many of us have heard it said that when one door closes, another
opens, but no one warns us that the hall between can be hell!  If you
feel somewhat disorientated and overwhelmed today, you are not alone.
You can be doing your level best, working as hard as you can in ways that
once were successful, and you still may not thrive. These are not the times
for  “business as usual”; they are times for magic.

Magicians always have been masters of the space between -times like
sunrise and sunset, when the boundaries between the worlds is not firm,
when gods can walk the earth and humans can touch the sky, and when
the line between life and death is permeable.

In the In-Between, we are challenged constantly to come alive by letting
go of old habits, old methods.  To progress we must, metaphorically
speaking die and be re-born into new experience. If we fail to rise to this challenge, we begin to feel like the walking dead, going thorough the
motions of life with out the intensity or joy. We get caught in the hallway
of the In-Between until we heal whatever traumas or limitations are
holding us back from being truly authentic and alive. When this is
accomplished, we move into the next world.”

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