i was talking to my old health teacher, and she was telling me about how a student she once had was bulimic. she tried to tell the girl's parents but the dad said something along the lines of "my daughter wouldn't be that stupid...girls who do that only do it for attention."

my opinion on eating disorders is.....it's like an addiction. once you get started, it is VERY difficult to stop (this includes compulsive overeating as well as bulimia and anorexia, btw...a lot of people forget that one). and as for why anyone would start in the first place....it's driven by a sort of desperation to be thin, in the case of bulimia and anorexia. as for compulsive overeating....more often than not the person learns as a child to eat for comfort. and unlearning anything that you grew up your whole life doing is very difficult and requires immense willpower. those who truly have the disorders don't do it for the attention...they keep it a complete secret. those who flaunt it about i would agree, are doing it for the attention though.

so...thoughts, everyone? are people with eating disorders just doing it for attention and are able to stop at any time, or do you see it as a real psychological disorder (as i do) that takes years upon years to remedy?

thats a toughie-and p.s-unlearn?lol think u made urself a new word there Candice!

i dont think that those who do it to a dangerously thin level and dont tell anyone are the attention seekers,but the ones who say when offered a crisp "no thanks,im anorexic-love me,hug me,feel sorry for me" are the attention seekers-and personally,they make me sick!

i dont agree with people who are fat just becaus ethye dont care enoughto eat healthy.. im sorry but that the way i know.. there is no excuse for fat people unless they have a medical disorder... fat people discust me......

lol..maybe i did


and nummy....people who are fat simply don't "not care enough to eat healthy." try using an incredibly addictive drug for years...from childhood even....and then one day try to stop. THAT is what it is like. you disgust them too, i'm sure...cause they have to deal with people telling them they are just lazy and don't care enough their whole lives...when that just makes the problem WORSE.

what about bulimics and anorexics, nummy? you didn't mention anything about them. do they disgust you as well?

*agrees with nummynums*

its food.. not crack

lol *takes back what she said*

dont beat me!

it's a habit that is ingrained into you, whether it is food or crack...it doesn't matter.

ANYTHING can become an addiction....the internet, video games, food....what it is just depends on the person.

no they dont cuz i was once.......... people who eat crap food and dont care disquest me

well candice,u succeeded in getting urself a good debate going!i think that fat people who dont put any effort into dieting,u know,they arent commited enough to try and kick the habit,i think they're better off fat cos they obviously can't be that bothered about being skinny

yeah i guess i did, spastic.

like i said, i've run into a lot of interesting opinions...to put it nicely.

and nummy, you're wrong. i've been to several doctors and spoken with psychologists who say it IS an addiction. you are more knowledgable on the subject than them all of a sudden? that is why it is called COMPULSIVE overeating......it is a compulsion, an addiction. meanwhile, you never answered my question on bulimics and anorexics, nummy.

i've never met a single overweight person who didn't TRY to become thin in one way or another. it's not that they don't care...it's just that they try and fail so many times, and get so much crap from everyone all around them that they just become very depressed and lose all hope. that's a horrible feeling...no one deserves to be judged like that.

and i did answer your question i said no i dont have a problem cuz i was one once... and im NOT wrong... my opinion is not wrong it just a matter of you not agrreing with it..........i just have a problem with people like that......tuff... loose a few pounds will yah the sidewalks need a few less potholes

I CANNOT BELIEVE you just said that to me.

might i remind you, we are supposed to keep discussion in here NON FLAMING according to the description of the forums.

i did not direct that towards ne one.. so im not flamming.. that was generally just towards the whales who walk down my street all night and flick me off

aaaahhhhh.........

*backs slowly out of the forum*

look out for fireworks!

I hate having to be the voice of reason, but compulsive eating IS an addiction... there are numerous references for this fairly common eating disorder all over the internet...

If you don't wish to listen to me, you can always try http://www.eating-disorder.com/ or other such resources to become educated on the subject.

As far as "people who eat crap food" go, there are MILLIONS of people who eat crap food and sit on their butts ALL DAY LONG who are at perfectly normal weights. Although such behaviour IS a factor in some cases of obesity, it is far from being the reason that fat people are the way at the weight that they are.

Coming from me, a fat person who eats less than the daily reccommended intake of calories and fat every single day, I think I'm qualified to say that your comment has no real scientific or logical backing.

One More Thing: Saying this AS A MOD, please don't make any critical remarks about people with eating disorders. It is a mental issue and those who have it are not responsible for their disease. Thank you.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

PLEASE STOP ROWING LIKE THIS

Its doing no one any good. This is not a 'discussion' any more.

ok.. i cant believe this im gettint attacked for voicing my people... i DONT like mentally caused fat people sorry.. but tough... its my opinion... i dont care if its a disorder or not... YOU CAN CHANGE!!!!!!!! it is possible.. you can eat a carrot for peets sake and its stopped being a discusion when peole didnt respect my opinion and attacked me..........

Nummy, your comments are personal attacks. Do not continue with such comments or this thread will be closed.

*if your happy and u know it clap your hands*

...........................................................................................

i'm not hearing any clapping!

sorry,just my attempt to cheer people up

That's sweet of you, spastic, but I think I'm just going to close this thread and let Mata look...

Nummynums, it is stated in the rules of the forum that you should not express hatred towards groups of people. I know it states on the grounds of things like skin colour but issues relating to size are included in there. I'm not going to throw you off of the forum but I do have to warn you that if you attack groups again I will be forced to take action.

There have been published scientific studies that have proven that eating unhealthy foods can be as addictive as smoking due to the effects of fats on brain tissue.

There are other people that have immense trouble losing weight for reasons that are best known to their own bodies, despite eating healthily, watching calories. There are many medical reasons for weight problems.

This is not to deny that there are people out there who do put on weight purely through lack of healthy living but there a huge amount that have immense difficulty in controlling their weight and this can be a very stressful thing in a society that fetishises thin people.

It's also not only down to dietary factors either, there are financial implications. To have a varied diet (which when you are attempting to change your eating habits is essential to keeping your interest) that is healthy can be very expensive when 'reduced-fat' products cost more than their full-fat counterparts.

Nummynums, it would have been fine to state that you yourself have lost weight successfully and that you personally found your larger size unattractive but, bearing in mind that many in the group that you have labelled 'disgusting' are that way for reasons for which they can do very little about (an usually what they can do they have been trying for many years), I find your attitude similar to an attack upon people who are disabled.

If you had made the distinction between people who are extremely obese for lack of self-control (which I think really is something more for pity (for their health in the future, for their lack of self-respect, for their inability to resist the social pressures that encourage craving fatty foods and then their subsequent addiction to the foods) than disgust) and those who have weight problems for medical reasons you would have been on safer ground.

But you did not.

I would appreciate it if you could at least acknowledge this distinction in this thread.

It sounds like you were lucky; when you were overweight you were fortunate enough for it to be only for reasons of unhealthy diet and so self-control and a change in your intake was enough to make the difference, there are many people for whom this is not enough.

[Is it a full moon or something at the moment? It seems like I'm having to calm fights everyday at the moment.]

I'm sure I heard somewhere that there is something in junk food, either sugary or fatty, that produces endorphines in the brain or something, so that would make it an addiction, right?

Yep, that's the one. Fatty foods do have physically addicting properties, just like nicotine, and eventually they can also lead to a lot of health problems too.

Would that kind of effect on the brain have anything to do with pregnant women having insane food cravings?

I've suffered both types of eating disorders.

I would comfort myself with food all the time. When someone yelled at me, go have some ice cream, when my stepdad or someone called me fat, go eat some cake, for some reason the food just made me feel better. Later I would eat to comfort myself when bored, and basically be eating all the time, and always unhealthy.

Then I changed.

I didn't want to be fat anymore, so I went to see this quack. I won't call him a doctor because truthfully I only ever saw his nurses who wrote me perscriptions and then stamped it with his signature. The pills I was given helped me to lose over 60 lbs in 4 or 5 months. It was medically induced anorexia. However when I stopped taking them I was so afraid of being fat that I starved myself for a bit to stop from gaining weight back. I also started trying to find different pills. I went to GNC, and a bunch of local drugstores looking for over the counter diet pills, and water pills (pills that make you pee out the water stored in your body). It was just sick.

Now I'm fat again. I turn to ciggies when I'm upset not food. I'm like halfway between these two now: Sometimes I don't eat, sometimes I eat healthy, and sometimes I catch myself looking for diet pills.

Looking down on being fat makes it so hard on people. You're fat and you suck cause you can't loose the weight, or you're lazy and basically a big piece of trash because you're fat. I've had those words said to me before not just by people I don't know who are judging me, but by now former family members (i.e. step fathers, step mothers, or family I just refuse to talk to anymore) and ex boyfriends. So yeah lets just say that saying that, can really effect a person psyche.

I'm really sorry you feel that way LoLo It sounds like a vicous cycle

I'm sorry LoLo

Please don't be sorry, it's just a condition.

The other stuff I can work on, and am doing so.

Its hard not be sorry for someone when they're good people...

Hey L0lo...huggz...you're too cool regardless...

Please forgive nummy guys, I guess she was board or something and she explained what she meant to me but I know how it may have been really hurtful to you all...

it's a waning moon , yeah that's it!!!

i don't know about the moon, but yeah there sure seems to be a lot of fights breaking out lately. =/ blegh. no fun!

all of the stuff said was obviously extremely hurtful to me, but i'd like to just put it behind me now, because it doesn't matter. i've faced that sort of stuff a good portion of my life.

i believe what nummy was saying when she said "i used to be one of them" was that she was either anorexic or bulimic...not overweight. i still don't understand how you can say you don't blame anorexics or bulimics for the way they are, but you can blame compulsive overeaters. they are all disorders and they are all horribly hard to stop.

meanwhile...back on topic. i was bulimic from the time i was 13 until i was around 17. then i went to the doctor....and managed to find the strength to stop purging. but i still, at 21, am having difficulty with my binges (purging = throwing food up, binging = eating a whole lot of food in one sitting...way more than you need, for those of you who don't know). this, of course, has led to me ballooning up. i'm getting the binges more under control now...and i've always exercised...but, i'm also hypoglycemic, which means because i frequently have low blood sugar, my body thinks that it is starving. this makes it really hard for me to lose weight. but, it IS possible. it's just a lot more work than it is for an average person. i lost about oh, 50 lbs while living in NYC cause my grandma-in-law fed me a lot of rice and veggies and of course, in NYC you walk a lot. much more than i was used to, living in a town where everyone drives everywhere (except me...never learned to drive...that stuff scares me).

and as for what mata said about low-fat alternatives being more expensive...i hate that! being a college student on a strict budget and trying to lose weight while varying my diet so i get necessary nutrients is really difficult. =/

but....please don't offer me pity. that's not what i wanted by starting this thread. i just wanted a discussion... i don't want people to feel sorry for me or anything...because this is just a part of my life. support for what i'm trying to do is great....feeling sad for me is not.

Hypoglycemia is the thing i hate most about my body. Unfortunately- in me it means that my body uses the fat it stores instead of the food i put in to boost my blood sugar- so im horribly underweight.

erm...hypoglycemia generally causes people to be overweight. diabetes causes people to be underweight (juvenille onset diabetes.....some people get diabetes later in life due to being overweight). it has to do with the amount of insulin your body produces, which directly affects your blood sugar. with hypoglycemia...there is too much insulin, so your blood sugar gets low, your body thinks that it is starving, and it stores everything you eat as fat to compensate. with diabetes it's the opposite....not enough insulin leads to too much blood sugar and a reduced weight because your body thinks you are eating too much.

I know what diabetes is

I have hypoglycemia- dont ask me how it happened the way it did, but im going by what my doctor says

Actually thinking bout it that could be wrong, he is an ididot...

all righty (eeek may wanna get a new doctor! )...meanwhile.

back to the topic...eating disorders.

i've long suspected one of my best friends is anorexic. i never see her eat anything and she's skinny as a pole. i'll spend all weekend with her, and she will eat maybe one salad. =/ i don't want to confront her about this though because i know what it's like to be confronted like that....you get all defensive and start resenting the person who brought it up. plus, it's really hard to confront someone like that. they have to want to change first in order for what you say to make any impact whatsoever. blegh.

i had a friend once try to confront me about being bulimic, cause she heard me throwing up when we spent the weekend together. it did not go over well. i was angry with her for a really long time...we've only recently become close again. i wasn't in the most rational mindset back then.

I know what you mean- my friend eats no lunch at school we knowse doesnt eat breakfast, and she tells her mum she had a big lunch to get out of dinner- she is the most increadible dancer, and models herself on Darcey Bussel- who is anorexically thin *sigh*

Back on topic - here's my thoughts.

I'm feel like I'm incapable of understanding addiction fully, whether to food, nicotine, gambling or sex or whatever. Sure, I've smoked non-stop for years at a time, then when I decide I've had enough, I stopped. Simple as that. Sometimes it lasts for a few months, sometimes for a year or two. At the moment, I've stopped again recently. Took a few half-assed attempts to manage it, but without any significant stress, I'm now a non-smoker again, even when my girlfriend (that I live with) is smoking.

I'm the same with food. I love to eat good food, and love to cook too. If I don't watch myself, I start to gain weight. But as soon as I start to get a bit bigger around the midde, I exercise more, and eat a bit more healthily, and get back in shape.

So while I rationally recognise that science points to addiction as a source for eating disorders, I totally fail to get my head around the concept of addiction. I can't help but feel that all it requires is willpower and motivation to get over an addiction, such as I managed with smoking. There's no doubt in my mind that I was, and indeed, still am addicted (the little scratching feeling that's permenantly in the back of my head that tickling my smoking gland is proof of that), but all I've done is apply myself and I can get over it.

Anyway, I've rambled enough, my point is that alot of folk are going to be in the same position as me, and hopefully this may explain why some people, such as Nummy, have a certain viewpoint on eating disorders and other addictions.

I do wonder when I see outrageously huge folk whether they one day looked at themselves in the mirror and thought "this is getting a bit out of hand", and tried to do something about it, and subsequently failed (i.e. sufferring from an eating disorder), or whether they're just bone idle, which I don't doubt that at least some are. I'd be interested to know the statistic of reasons for out-of-hand obesity.

Well to me theres different sides to this topic.

First off, eating disorders. Never experienced it but have had a few people do it at times. I know i have skipped my lunch before but that reason was cause I'm not exactly really hungry in the afternoons, not until like 3 or 4. But I have seen it from people I know, very unsettling. I know its a mental disease and it is a challenge to help it, this I heard. People can die form this because their heart is pumping so much and stronger than ever that it can get tired and just collpase. I have seen real severe pictures of people who have done it for so long that you can almost see through their skin, or their just bones or they have no ass. It is pretty scary.

Second, obesity...As reading upon Nummy's old posts I was appauled she would say such things, and that is behind us (Yes I am late in this thread lol) But i think theres different types of this. Sometimes it can be caused my genetics and heredity like things inside you, others it can be over eatting and others it can be mecidal. I am on the slight chunky side, around 230 lbs, but a very good portion of it is cause of my genetics y'know, not medical but I noticed Nummy made a statement saying unless its medical its digusting and I just wanted to clear up with real terms.

I hope my cents into this thread (even though late) is any service.

If Nummy feels the need to offer her own apology when she gets back, then I'll consider it.

Meanwhile. My husband is a lot like you, Jonman. He can quit anything, it seems. He quit smoking one day after watching something on PBS, lol. He can't understand addictions either, because to him quitting something is just a matter of deciding to do so.

It's weird, because I can't understand how some people cannot understand addictions, lol. I guess it's something you just have to experience for yourself. Or maybe live with someone who has an extreme addiction.

And TL is right about obesity being about genetics a lot. You do learn a lot of habits from your parents, after all.

One thing I hate is when parents reward kids with food for being good. I am of the firm belief that a child should be taught from an early age that food is simply for nourishment. I can understand celebrating a victory at a big soccer game or something by having pizza, because that's a once in awhile thing and it's a special occasion. But giving a kid ice cream just to get them to stop screaming (I know parents who do this) is ridiculous. Eating habits are learned from a very young age, and being pumped with junk food when you're little is sure to lead to bad eating habits later on in life.

Yes... I hate this too! Me sister-in-law's sister in law (convoluted path, no?) has a kid, an she usta get him to behave for a half hour while goin round the supermarket by tellin him she'd take him to McDonalds afterwards. For a long time, he believed that he only needed to be good when a bribe was involved. I think summat happened at school, cos he's better behaved now, but it's no thanks to his parents.

Anyone ever notice how hyper kids are in those burger places are, though? I reckon processed food has a lot to do with it. An I understand that they are as chemically addictive as caffeine, all those things they pump into the food. It's the same everywhere, which is pretty sad: we're all in such a rush these days that people simply jus reheat some manufactured gubbins instead of actually cookin stuff. But I think kids really deserve better than bein turned into unwittin junkies cos of a crappy diet.

ahhhhhhhh........ good old Mata-trust him to end a fight -three cheers!!!

i always used to eat loads-in fact i still do,but then i started getting really bad migraines and mood swings-the doctor put it down to too much sugar,(which is prob. right,i used to put 5 teaspoons of sugar on my frosties) so i'm cutting back loads-but i have to keep my energy up for rugby,so im stuck between a rock there!i'm quite lucky cos i stay slim,(i'm 17 and a size 8)but the fact i work out also helps keep it down-despite that im 10 and a half stone,but apparently 1 stone of thats muscle!!!!!

Ya I have seen it a lot too in fast food places, especially at Rotten Ronnie's (McDonalds). All I usually hear are little kids runnign around the room and screaming and crying and blah blah blah, that is why i try to avoid that place.

Rewarding food is also a big issue I have seen as well IRL and on television/talkshows. I can say I did eat for comfort when i was younger in grade school on and off because I was picked on a lot but about grade 7, grade 8 that went away and hasn't been back since. Like i said before its because of the slightly larger characteristics in my DNA, which is not that bad, but as long as i eat lots of veggies and fruits (which I do prefer sometimes over chocolate) and take my brisk walks (to and form school, everyday -20 to 30 min both) it helps prevent genetic problems such as in this case Crone's Disease. (on my father's side)

i eat too much that's why i wasn't able to make the cheering squad this year.
i eat more than the usual when i feel bad.

i think thats another unfair thing too-why shouldn't you be allowed on the cheer squad just because you may not be stick thin?as long as you can jump and scream with the best of em,isn't that what matters?

besides,i know that i'd rather see a cheerleader with a bit of something on her,i'm fed up of seeing these twiglet girls,they look ill for goodness sake!

Alas, it's a matter of visual consistancy I suppose as unfair as it is...

...is binging considered a disorder or just a lack of self control???

I binge once in a while but then again I usually simply "nibble" all day long , don't actually sit down and eat per se, unless its a party or dinner with mums...

Quite. What's the point of all the jumping, if there's no associated bouncing, huh?

i'd say it was a disorder,as it usually follows a bout of bulemia.it's a comfort habit you can't really break out of-i binge when i feel crap,i admit-but then i think "hey,that doesn't help at all,i'm just making myself fat,and then i'll feel even worse,so i''ll binge again,and then i'll feel fat and miserable,and i'll binge again",and so on.it's like an eeeeeeeeeevil circle

*does little finger signs-think Dr Evil's "laser" fingers*

oh yes.........bouncing rules

Binging is absolutely a disorder.

It's called compulsive overeating. I've mentioned it numerous times in this thread already. People tend to forget about that one and remember only anorexia and bulimia as eating disorders, but it is just as real as they are.