Comments on: The Pen and Paper Diet By Michael Dow http://www.blisstree.com/articles/the-pen-and-paper-diet-by-michael-dow-221/ Family, Health, Home and Lifestyles Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:08:53 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Katie http://www.blisstree.com/articles/the-pen-and-paper-diet-by-michael-dow-221/comment-page-1/#comment-98550 Katie Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:50:22 +0000 http://www.burningthescale.com/the-pen-and-paper-diet-by-michael-dow/#comment-98550 This author is recommending this diet for people with eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa. Thus, he shows his complete ignorance in the psychology and basics of eating disorders. Mr. Dow, We who suffer from eating disorders DO count our calories. That is something we do to an obsessive, dangerous, panic-stricken event. But eating disorders are not about food, or calories, or the number on the scale. It's about control and fears. We fear taking up too much space, we feel guilt because we do not believe we deserve the food, we lack the ability to understand and manage our feelings and anxiety. So we deprive ourselves of food because that is something we can control. We fill ourselves up with food until we feel like we're going to die of the pain. And then we hate ourselves. And then we purge. We empty the food but in reality we are emptying the feelings. In eating disorder treatment, which I have been through for my ED-NOS, the first rule is no calorie talk, no numbers, no food talk. Eating disorders are not about food so please do not encourage our obsession over food. Because of your encouragement of the use of this diet for eating disorder sufferers, there are thousands of young women who have access to this material through the internet and pro-ana communities. Singlehandedly, you have handed them another aspect of control over their intake and output, and taken them another step away from recovery. You'll say it is their choice but unless you have been in the warped, distorted mind of an eating disorder sufferer, you cannot understand that we are not in control in the least. So I beg you to stop calling this a diet for anorexics and bulimics. We do not need diets, we need help and love and encouragement and for our scales and nutrition labels to be thrown out the window. Please. Sincerely, Katie 21yr Eating Disorder Sufferer This author is recommending this diet for people with eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa. Thus, he shows his complete ignorance in the psychology and basics of eating disorders.

Mr. Dow,
We who suffer from eating disorders DO count our calories. That is something we do to an obsessive, dangerous, panic-stricken event. But eating disorders are not about food, or calories, or the number on the scale. It’s about control and fears. We fear taking up too much space, we feel guilt because we do not believe we deserve the food, we lack the ability to understand and manage our feelings and anxiety. So we deprive ourselves of food because that is something we can control. We fill ourselves up with food until we feel like we’re going to die of the pain. And then we hate ourselves. And then we purge. We empty the food but in reality we are emptying the feelings.

In eating disorder treatment, which I have been through for my ED-NOS, the first rule is no calorie talk, no numbers, no food talk. Eating disorders are not about food so please do not encourage our obsession over food.

Because of your encouragement of the use of this diet for eating disorder sufferers, there are thousands of young women who have access to this material through the internet and pro-ana communities. Singlehandedly, you have handed them another aspect of control over their intake and output, and taken them another step away from recovery. You’ll say it is their choice but unless you have been in the warped, distorted mind of an eating disorder sufferer, you cannot understand that we are not in control in the least.

So I beg you to stop calling this a diet for anorexics and bulimics. We do not need diets, we need help and love and encouragement and for our scales and nutrition labels to be thrown out the window. Please.

Sincerely,
Katie
21yr Eating Disorder Sufferer

]]>