New book, new look at anorexia

Through 14 months of clinical research, Professor Helen Gremillion proposes a new argument against traditional treatments for anorexia. Gremillion's new book, Feeding Anorexia: Gender and Power at a Treatment Center, uncovers the reality that treatments may actually emphasize the problem, rather than cure it.\n"Treatment programs do not recognize this pressure, but in fact encourage it when asking patients to monitor their bodies as far as weight is concerned," Gremillion said.\nAnorexia is an illness most commonly found in young women in which the act of exercise and monitoring food intake are pushed to the extreme. \nIn Bloomington alone, anywhere from seven to 15 percent of women deal with an eating disorder, said Dr. Roberta Sherman of the Bloomington Center for Counseling and Human Development. \nGremillion, a professor in the gender studies department, looks at this issue not from the standpoint of a doctor, but from a gender and anthropologic point of view.\nThe doctors and staff working in clinics strive to rebuild healthy attitudes and behavior in anorexic women. They require patients to count calories in order to encourage eating and weight gain. However, Gremillion believes this only emphasizes what leads to the illness in the first place: constant attention to food intake. \nFor those who suffer from anorexia, it is critical to know how much fat and calories they are consuming and exactly what their weight totals are. During treatments in clinics, the main concern in terms of the girls' bodies is numbers instead of developing a new relationship between self-image and food. Gremillion found that often women would drink water or add weights to their bodies before stepping on scales, giving the impression of weight gain. \nPart of these traditional treatments concentrate on individual therapy, family therapy and support groups. These programs discourage behavioral problems between family members which may have contributed to anorexia, providing parents with little information about their child's progress within the clinic. Though patient independence is important, Gremillion believes family involvement is imperative to recovery.\n"Mothers, being the natural caretakers that they are, are not the cause of the problem and should not be asked to perform minimal mothering duties," Gremillion said. \nAccording to the American Psychiatric Association's Web site, "those treated with family therapy showed greater improvement one year after discharge then those only treated with individual therapy." \nAnorexic women are largely affected by not only their behavioral relationships with food, but by the influences in today's society and cultural pressures, she said. Gremillion noticed that these ideals of femininity were overlooked in the clinics. \n"There is an increase in society for girls to indulge themselves in food, but somehow remain thin," Gremillion said. \nShe said that magazines often advertise pictures of young girls who are surprisingly thin eating fattening foods. These contradictions do not instill practicality or reality, but they do create huge conflicts within the minds of young women, Gremillion said.\n-- Contact staff writer Jeanine Murray at jlmurray@indiana.edu.